Robert F. Inman

Journalist, screenwriter, novelist and columnist, Robert “Bob” Inman began his career in junior high school, writing for his hometown’s weekly newspaper, The Elba Clipper.

Upon graduating from The University of Alabama in 1965, he launched his on-air career as a reporter and anchor for WSFATV in Montgomery. He served as press secretary for Alabama Governor Albert Brewer from 1968 to 1970, followed by a fiveyear stint as an anchor for WBT, the No. 1 station in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1975 Inman left WBT to become director of university relations for The University of Alabama, returning to WBT again in 1979. Over the next 17 years, he not only would be Charlotte’s most recognized anchor, he would also spend five years as a Sunday columnist for The Charlotte Observer.

In 1996 Inman left a 30-year career in journalism to pursue his passion for writing. He has written four novels: Home Fires Burning, Old Dogs and Children, Dairy Queen Days and Captain Saturday, all published by Little, Brown and Company and all still in print. In 2000 the Down Home Press published a collection of his essays titled Coming Home: Life, Love and All Things Southern. Three of Inman’s novels were awarded the Outstanding Fiction Award by the Alabama Library Association, and three were selected by independent book dealers nationwide as “Book Sense 76” feature recommendations. In 1987, the Philadelphia Enquirer named Home Fires Burning one of the best books of the year.

It has been said that Inman is “a master at capturing the simple pleasures and recognizing the goodness in people” and that “the word ‘home’ resonates through the works of Robert Inman.” He has been called “one of the finest chroniclers of small-town Southern life” and a “witty, utterly charming storyteller, who portrays comedy with a full appreciation for its tenderness and pain.”

Inman’s debut screenplay, Crossroads, a musical comedy for which he wrote the script, lyrics and music, premiered in June 2003 at the Blowing Rock Stage Company in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Numerous theater companies nationwide have produced Crossroads. The Blowing Rock Stage Company also produced Inman’s play The Christmas Bus, and his adaptation of Dairy Queen Days will premiere in October 2006. Inman has written six motion picture screenplays, including two Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations, one of which, The Summer of Ben Tyler, was awarded the 1997 Writers Guild of America Award for best original television screenplay. Inman claims to take the same approach to writing a screenplay as he does a novel or even a newspaper column: “start with the basics, start with the people and tell their story.”

Inman graduated with a bachelor of arts in radio and television and a master of fine arts in creative writing from The University of Alabama, and he holds an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Queens College of Charlotte. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Authors Guild, Writers Guild of America, Dramatists Guild, PEN American Center, North Carolina Writers Network and Alabama Writers Forum. A member of the College’s Board of Visitors, in 1989 he was named “Outstanding Alumnus” by the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama, and in 2002 he was inducted into the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity Hall of Fame. Inman currently resides in Charlotte and Boone, North Carolina, with his wife, Paulette; they have two daughters. Despite numerous accomplishments and awards, this hugely successful broadcast journalist and author likes to think of himself as “just a small-town kid and a storyteller.”