He graduated from Albion High School in 1910 and entered his father's alma mater, Hamilton College, where he earned his undergraduate degree.
He wrote about the people, places, and events he witnessed, such as a Ku Klux Klan rally and interactions with ordinary Alabama men and women.
Crowds were huddled outside each window singing lustily...there were surely more than two thousand people...Hard blows of sound beat upon the walls and rafters with inexorable regularity.
He credited folklorist Ruby Pickens Tartt with providing some of the folklore and songs for this book, and he based the character Mary Louise on her.
Literary critic R. L. Duffus of The New York Times praised the book and said Carmer had a gift for "extracting from what he sees, hears and feels an essence which is fundamentally poetic.
Sections of Carmer's book were adapted by Brad Vice in his short story "The Bear Bryant Funeral Train."
His failure to acknowledge his debt to Carmer led the organizers of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction to revoke the prize he was given in 2004.
He documented the myths and stories of the region, including the Cardiff Giant hoax, and wrote a new book, Listen for a Lonesome Drum.