In this episode, we sit down with Alex Vernon. Vernon is a veteran, writer, and distinguished professor whose work examines how war shapes the human spirit and the stories we tell about it.
Alex reflects on his journey from the battlefields of the Gulf War to the classroom, and from memoirist to biographer of one of America’s most influential war writers, Tim O’Brien. We discuss the years-long process behind his new book Peace is a Shy Thing, how friendship and trust informed his portrayal of O’Brien, and why storytelling remains one of the few ways to confront moral injury and memory.
Join us as we trace the line between history and myth, duty and compassion, and consider what it means to write honestly about war and the people it leaves behind.
Alex Vernon graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point—the only literature major in his class of over a thousand—and served in combat as a tank platoon leader during the Persian Gulf War. He holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and is the recipient of an Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. He currently serves as the M.E. & Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of English at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas.
