From 1961 to 1964 he was Instructor in English at Bates College. In 1964 he became Assistant Professor of English at Davidson College in North Carolina. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1967 and Full Professor in 1979. In 1990 he was named Charles A. Dana Professor
of English. He served as Chair of the Department from 1989 to 1996. He was honored for his teaching with the Thomas Jefferson Award in 1969 and the Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award in 1997.

His major fields of interest are modern drama, creative writing, and literature and religion. He has directed eight plays for the Davidson Community Players, including Inherit the Wind, The Miracle Worker and A Man for All Seasons. He is the author of two critical studies, Shaw and Christianity (1965) and The Vital Lie: Reality and Illusion in Modern Drama (1989). His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and journals including New England Review, Southern Poetry Review, St. Andrews Review, Pembroke, Tar River Poetry, Theology Today, and Anglican Theological Review. His first book of poems, The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat, was published by St. Andrews Press in 1989 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His second poetry collection, A Small Thing Like A Breath, was published by St. Andrews Press in 1993, and his third, The Search for Wonder in the Cradle of the World in 2000. In 2003 his first novel, Leaving Maggie Hope, won the Novello Award and was published by Novello Festival Press.The novel won the "Gold Award" from ForeWord Magazine in the literary fiction category. With Professor Daniel Rhodes of the Department of Religion he developed a course in "American Literature and Religious Thought," and after Dr. Rhodes' retirement, he developed his own course, "Three Contemporary American Prophets: Flannery O'Connor, Frederick Buechner, and Walker Percy." He has lectured widely on these three authors to both church and secular groups in North and South Carolina. His most recent book is a collection of poems, The Man Who, published in 2005 by Main Street Rag Publishing Co. of Charlotte, which won the Oscar Arnold Young Award of the N.C. Poetry Council for the best book of poems by a North Carolinian in 2005. For the spring semester of 2007 he served as the Writer-in-Residence at Lenoir Rhyne College in Hickory, NC. His second novel, The Three Great Secret Things, a sequel to Leaving Maggie Hope, will be published by Main Street Rag Publishing Co. in November of this year.

He is past president of the Charlotte Writers' Club and the North Carolina Writers' Network and also past Chairman of the North Carolina Writers' Conference. He has won the Thomas H. McDill Award of the North Carolina Poetry Society three times. In 1978 he was a William Atherton Scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Between 1985 and 1992 he served on the Governor's Committee on the North Carolina Awards. In 1996 he was honored by St. Andrews College with the Sam Ragan Award for his writing and his service to the literary community of North Carolina.

He is married to the former Susan Dudley of South Orange, NJ. They have three sons -- David, Stephen, and Andrew -- and seven grandchildren --James, Robert, Clara, Elliot, Henry, Josephine
and John.