I’m a writer and photographer in Oakland, California. Here are some of the places where you can find examples of my work:

Among the Fourth Graders (Oakland House Press, 2013): a non-fiction novel. Set in a San Francisco elementary school, it depicts a year-in-the-life of a fourth-grade class, told as a volunteer classroom assistant who has gently infiltrated the social world of the kids. In turn, the story is humorous and poignant, driven by dialogue, and focuses on the lives and families of the children, with a large ensemble cast. The kids are faced with life’s many tests each day, most of which they ace. And yet they and their school are ultimately declared “failures” when faced with the big state standardized exam at the end of the year. But, of course, they aren’t failures, and in this laugh-through-your-tears book you come to know these kids, their personalities, and their strengths and weaknesses intimately well in an active present-tense narration. Many readers are describing it as a compelling page turner. The story ran for a year in weekly episodes (2011-2012 at amongthefourthgraders.com), with a small but wholehearted readership. It is now presented in its full 392-page form, in hardback ($16) and paperback ($13), with e-book and audio versions to come, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and select independent bookstores.

Relationships (Oakland House Press, 2008): a photography monograph. Featuring selected images from 1977 through 2007, it is guided by the title’s theme, representing the core of my photo art. As such, the pictures are in black-and-white, mostly of people in small moments, un-posed, often lightly humored, with a humane touch—reminiscent of the warm style that dominated mid-20th century photojournalism. Produced in collaboration with the renown Steinhour Press of Vermont, it is a beautiful work physically, in addition to its content. Available at Amazon.

AMATEUR: My First Four Decades as a Photographer (terrycarroll.net, 2011-ongoing): currently a photo blog (though not a blog), but eventually a book. Begun as a way to talk about my photography, I have found a new narrative outlet for my non-fiction personal reportage. With it, I am weaving a collection of pictures and their stories that builds into an open-ended autobiographical guide to photography, friendship, psychology, travel, history, geography, love, weather, and aesthetics. I’m thinking that this might be my perfect format (Oakland House Press, circa 2015). Here is my Amazon Author’s Page.

TerrysPictures.com (terryspictures.com): an online photo archive & gallery. It features the best of and representative selections from my non-commercial black-and-white photography (as featured in Relationships, Amateur, and my line of TerrysPictures postcards). With images dating back to 1975, and from around the world, it is a substantial collection of hundreds of photos in a uniformly distinctive personal style, presented thematically, and hosted beautifully by VisualServer.com.

Rockridge Barber Shop (5409 College Avenue, Oakland): my favorite physical venue. An actual barber shop, run by Marty Hatton, it has served double-duty as an art gallery for the past quarter century. Since moving to the neighborhood and becoming one of Marty’s customers, I’ve been a regular annual featured presenter. My most recent six-week solo show, “Late Teen Seventies,” ran from November 2012 through January 2013, featuring a choice collection of framed prints from my early period as a teenage photographer in the 1970s.

Oakland House Press (oaklandhousepress.com): my personal publishing outlet. As a do-it-yourselfer, who loves graphic design, typography, and many of the technical and craft aspects of book publishing, I have made for myself a means of getting my work out into the world in the permanent legacy of books on shelves, with the classical style I prefer. With it, I have published my photo monograph (Relationships), my own line of greeting cards (TerrysPictures), announcement cards for my gallery shows, as well as currently having multiple book titles in production and/or development. I have also published a highly-regarded drum instruction book that I collaborated on as designer and editor: Steve Bowman’s Groove Control. As Oakland House Press, I contract-out my printing, binding, and distribution to respected entities (such as Steinhour Press, BookMasters, and Fotofolio) which set standards of production and service of for the publishing field (not to be confused with consumer-level print-on-demand operations). With Oakland House Press, I may not have a big corporate entity behind me, but I also don’t have a big corporate entity behind me.

On Facebook, I can be found here.