ACS Teacher to Publish Memoir on Gay Discrimination

ACS teachers bring a diverse range of life experiences to their work. Now, English Language and Literature instructor Garrard Conley is preparing to publish a memoir with Riverhead Books (Penguin) on the challenges which marked his upbringing as a gay man in the American South.

The as-yet untitled memoir describes how Garrard, the son of a Baptist Missionary preacher, survived a controversial “ex-gay” therapy camp that sought to “cure” people of their homosexuality. In a TEDxBG talk last spring in Sofia, he described how literature -- and particularly Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic American novel, The Scarlet Letter -- helped him to resist discrimination and find the compassion to rebuild his life.

“The world often seems messy and unjust”, he said. “But I feel like it’s within the mess that we understand the limitations of our compassion.”

Garrard’s memoir is expected to be published in the spring of 2016.

Photo by TEDxBG