I was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1943, the youngest of identical twins with four older siblings.

I grew up in Tupelo and Hattiesburg, Mississippi and later lived in Nashville, Tennessee and New York. In New York I worked for an organization called Everything for Everybody that provided housing, meals and clothing for the poor. There I met my wife, Gabi. We later moved back to my home state of Mississippi where we founded a similar organization called Persons Service. We also published an alternative weekly newspaper called Persons and a literary and arts magazine called Mississippi Arts & Letters — until we went bankrupt. 

In 1988 we moved to Olympia, Washington. We love it here.

I am an artist and writer.  My paintings have been widely shown throughout the Pacific Northwest. However, since having open heart surgery in 2002 I have stopped painting and I now focus my creative work on writing.

Since 2000 I have self-published seven novels:
Until the Dawn
Imprudent Zeal
The Wives of Marty Winters 
The Backside of Nowhere
Reunion at the Wetside
Return to Freedom
Visual Liberties
and a book of art criticism
As if Art Matters

I am a regular freelance contributor to:

Weekly Volcano (Tacoma, WA)
The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA)
Thurston Talk (Olympia, WA)

My art and theater reviews, personal comments, and new paintings posted weekly (or when completed) on my blog, South Sound Arts.

My wife, Gabi and I are proud PFLAG activists.  The following are all personal stories, some published and some unpublished.  

• 30+ Years in a Nutshell — life and love from graduate school to old age, with an emphasis on the development of my art
• Father and Son — a coming out story
• Tupelo of Memory — a memoir of growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi
• A different room — a story about my son Bill's first week in school
• Twins — adventures growing up as an identical twin
• Survivors — music, suicide, healing broken spirits -- life and love on the Internet in the age of AIDS
• Forgiving — an essay on thoughts about the men who assaulted my son Bill
• Justice Delayed — Commentary on the conviction of Edgar Ray Killen for manslaughter for the Killing of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in 1964 and reminiscences of living in Mississippi at the time.
• Everything for Everybody — life, love and marriage communal style in the 1970s.
• Remembering New York — remembering my first days in New York

copyright © Alec Clayton 2009-2012