VGCC English instructor publishes book on growing up a Boomer
Memories of his childhood have inspired Chris Brockman, an instructor of English at Vance-Granville Community College, to write his first book. Brockman’s memoir, entitled Growing Up in Boom Times, was recently published by AuthorHouse. He focuses on his life growing up in Oakland County, Michigan, but Brockman says the book calls up experiences that were typical of the times and shared by nearly all Baby Boomers — the generation referenced in the “Boom” of the title.
“Times were simpler, and life much more straightforward,” according to Brockman (pictured above, holding a copy of his new memoir) . “If you remember your mom setting you free to play in your neighborhood for hours at a time and both she and you feeling safe in your doing so; learning not to do stupid things through your own experience; enjoying the outdoors and nature from regular, first-hand exposure; appreciating music, T.V. programs, and movies when they were special, before their value became diminished through inflation; discovering the irresistible seduction and crushing disappointment of young love, then chances are you’ve lived through Boom Times.”
A resident of Wilton, Brockman has taught for VGCC since 2005. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Oakland University in Michigan and a master’s degree at Eastern Michigan University. Brockman has lived in the area for 13 years and previously taught language arts at Bunn Middle School and G.C. Hawley Middle School in Creedmoor. Brockman has also taught writing classes for the Granville County Senior Center.
Although this is his first book, Brockman has written and published scores of articles, essays, reviews, poems, and creative non-fiction pieces in magazines, newspapers, journals and anthologies, most recently in Looking Out, Seeing In: Brief Personal Essays on Real Life, edited by former UNC Press editor Sandra Eisdorfer.
Growing Up in Boom Times is available from Amazon.com, from the publisher , or directly from the author .
