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YOUNG'S LIFE Born in ships deployed throughout the Far East . This experience would form the basis for his first novel, '' One Of The Guys '', published by HarperCollins in 1999 . When not writing, Young has been active in the Anti-war movement and was arrested twice in 2003 for Nonviolent Protest of the Iraq War . CONTROVERSY OVER ''ONE OF THE GUYS'' '' One Of The Guys '' is a Satire about a man impersonating a U.S. Navy Chaplain on a ship that suffers a series of comic misadventures in the Far East. The novel gained notoriety shortly after publication when the American Family Association objected to Young's portrayal of a man posing as a Christian chaplain during deployment to ports where an alcoholic crew avails itself of Child Prostitution . The AFA, which had previously used the work of Artists to attack the funding practices of the National Endowment For The Arts , lobbied the U.S. Congress to have the agency defunded. Young responded, in '' The Washington Post '' and elsewhere, that the controversial sections of '' One Of The Guys '' were not Pornographic , but had been written to expose what he saw as the U.S. Navy's complicity in Child Prostitution overseas. He perceived an inconsistency in the AFA objecting to taxpayer funding of a book that exposed and criticized sexual exploitation, when the AFA should have been objecting to taxpayer funding of the exploitation itself. '' One Of The Guys '' was subsequently nominated for the PEN/Newman's Own Award, which recognizes authors who have stood up to Censorship in the United States. THE NEILSON/KINGSOLVER AND WIND DONE GONE CONTROVERSIES In May, 2001 Young published an article in the vacated an Injunction against publishing the book in '' Suntrust V. Houghton Mifflin '' . CONFLICT WITH BRAD VICE AND SEWANEE WRITERS' CONFERENCE Young also wrote a much-publicized article in the Dissertation draft of ''The Bear Bryant Funeral Train''. "A Charming Plagiarist: The downfall of Brad Vice" by Robert Clark Young ''New York Press'', Vol 18, Issue 48, November 30-Dec 6, 2005. Accessed Dec. 3, 2005. Young's article stimulated a great deal of , called the article "poor journalism" New attack on Brad Vice is merely poor journalism by Jason Sanford . storySouth. Accessed Dec. 4, 2005. and others questioned the article's findings. Sifting Through Information by Dan Wickett. Emerging Writers Network. Accessed Dec. 5, 2005. The Atlantic Monthly 's C. Michael Curtis, who edited and published the short story which Young said proved an additional case of plagiarism, later said he "...decided to postpone (the story's) publication until we had worked with Vice to prevent easily-avoided overlap in some particular details. The story of Bear Bryant’s first A&M football team seemed to us well-known and not the property of (the author of Vice's source material) or anyone else. Further, the heart of the story we believed, then and now, to be the invention of Brad Vice, even though elements of its drama is placed in the familiar setting." Sifting Through Information by Dan Wickett. Emerging Writers Network. Accessed Dec. 5, 2005. Young's article also featured a lengthy attack on the Sewanee Writers' Conference and Barry Hannah . Vice's supporters mentioned that Young had previously had a run in with Hannah and Vice at the Sewanee Conference and suggested that his article about Vice was an attempt at revenge. Comment by P.M. Cormano on the blog From Here To Obscurity (Accessed Dec. 3, 2005) and comments by Leah Stewart and others on Emerging Writers Network blog (Accessed Dec. 15, 2005). In response to this, some of Young's supporters said that a smear campaign was being conducted against Young by Vice's advocates. Brad Vice Fans Shoot the Messenger . Mediabistro, Dec. 5, 2005. Accessed Dec 15, 2005. YOUNG'S OTHER WRITINGS Young continued to write and publish in the wake of the ''One of the Guys'' controversy. He began work on a multi-volume historical novel based on the half-century of conflict between the alcoholic pro-German newspaper publisher , and won the ''Black Warrior Review''’s Best of the 1990s Nonfiction Award in 2002. NOTES EXTERNAL LINKS
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