“I like to say that I was born in the shadow of Monticello. In truth, the shadow of that little mountain would have fallen far short of the University of Virginia hospital in Charlottesville on the snowy—my father says blizzardy—morning that I was born. It was 1955, just a few months after Brown v. Board of Education, and so, in regard to the potentialities of my life, the umbra of whatever shadow Jefferson and his cronies might have cast was beginning to lighten.”

Anthony “Tony” M. Grooms was born in rural Virginia. Grooms grew up as the eldest of six children in an African American family that also claimed Native American and European heritage. His father, a refrigeration mechanic, and his mother, a textile worker, strongly encouraged his educational pursuits. In 1967, they enrolled him in Virginia’s Freedom of Choice plan, an early effort at limited racial integration in the public schools. This experience profoundly shaped his perspective on race and class, themes that would become central to his writing.

Grooms earned a Bachelor of Arts in theatre and speech from the College of William and Mary in 1978, where he honed his storytelling skills through playwriting. He later pursued a professional interest in creative writing at George Mason University, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in English in 1984. Shortly after graduate school, he relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1988. In Atlanta, Grooms found profound inspiration in the history of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, which became a foundational subject for his narratives.

A dedicated educator, Grooms taught at numerous institutions, including Clark University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. He has also taught in Sweden, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. He spent a significant portion of his career as a professor of creative writing at Kennesaw State University, where he directed the master’s program in professional writing until his retirement in 2022. Beyond the classroom, he co-founded the Georgia Writers Association in 1994, cementing his role as a mentor and supportive leader in the regional arts community.

Grooms’s published works include the poetry collection Ice Poems (1988), the short story collection Trouble No More (1995), and the novels Bombingham (2001) and The Vain Conversation (2018). His best-known piece, Bombingham, is frequently taught in schools for its powerful narrative on civil rights, portraying two young friends who come of age witnessing the violence of the movement. The Vain Conversation similarly probes the depths of racial injustice, exploring the lingering trauma of a 1946 lynching in Georgia. His writing has been featured in prominent journals like Callaloo, African American Review, and Crab Orchard Review.

Throughout his distinguished career, Grooms has been recognized with numerous prestigious writing awards and honors. He is a two-time recipient of the Lillian Smith Book Award for fiction, honoring his works Bombingham and Trouble No More. In 2006, the Georgia Center for the Book selected both Ice Poems and Trouble No More for its “Top 25 List of Books All Georgians Should Read.” His novel, The Vain Conversation, was named a finalist for the 2020 Townsend Prize for Fiction. Additionally, Grooms has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Sweden, an Arts Administration Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sokolov Scholarship of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a Yaddo Fellowship. He was also a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Foundation’s Legacy Award.

In recognition of his enduring impact on literature and social justice, Grooms received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Georgia Author of the Year Awards and was named a 2025 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. Through his storytelling, Grooms continues to inspire readers, offering an empathetic and unflinching look at the human condition.