Wayne Batten

Born in Beaverlodge, Alberta, Wayne Batten immigrated with his parents in 1950 but remains a citizen of Canada. He attended public schools in Fort Washakie and Douglas, Wyoming. Having studied piano and organ since grade school, he served first as assistant and then as head organist at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Laramie from 1969 until 1973. Wayne holds degrees from the University of Wyoming and Vanderbilt University. After a two-year postdoctoral appointment at Vanderbilt, when his time on the reservation earned him the sobriquet “One Feather,” he taught English (regular, honors, and AP) at Montgomery Bell Academy, an all-boys preparatory school in Nashville, for thirty years. During this time, he directed the school’s art-and-literary magazine, Archives, and sponsored the Philosophy Club.  He has attended the Dickens Universe almost yearly since 1995. Since retiring from teaching in 2015, he has been researching and writing full time, largely in nineteenth-century literature. He has published articles on Kate Chopin, Jesse Hill Ford, and Charles Dickens. His current research extends to the art of adaptation and cinema.  He resides with his partner, Chuck Sullivan, in the forest of West Meade, Nashville, where they have raised a small herd of wild deer.