Alex Vernon teaches post-1900 American literature as well as writing. He is the author of two memoirs,
most succinctly bred
(2006) and
The Eyes of Orion: Five Tank Lieutenants in the Persian Gulf War
(1999; Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award); two books of literary criticism/history,
Soldiers Once and Still: Ernest Hemingway, James Salter, and Tim O'Brien
(2004) and
Hemingway's Second War: Bearing Witness to the Spanish Civil War
(spring 2011); the cultural study
On Tarzan
(2008); and four edited collections,
Arms and the Self: War, the Military, and Autobiographical Writing
(2005);
Approaches to Teaching the Works of Tim O'Brien
(2010);
Critical Insights: War
(2012); and
Teaching Hemingway and War
(2016).
He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (NEH) for 2020-2021 to work on a biography of Tim O'Brien. Other ongoing projects include
Reading Hemingway's
For Whom the Bell Tolls
: Glossary and Commentary
, for Kent State University Press. From 2017-2019, he led a local program for veterans as well as the general public, funded by the NEH's "Dialogue on the Experience of War" program.