My Writerly Life

Category: Uncategorized

  • JOE TURNER CLASSIC

    Sometimes it is easy to forget that literary fiction is not limited to a novel, but played out on the theatrical stage–but we get a jarring reminder when we sit three rows back from a Roscoe Lee Browne performance in August Wilson’s masterpiece, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” It was way back in 1989, when…

  • WORLD LITERATURE

    Sometimes I find myself struggling to expand my reading habits to include foreign authors. Because I am from an English-speaking nation, I suppose, my reading habits tend toward American, Irish, and British authors, but even historical records show a slant toward English literature. Shakespeare dominated the 16th Century; Milton the 17th; Samuel Johnson (England) and…

  • HARDING – AUTHOR OR DRUMMER?

    Back in the early 2000s, Paul Harding left the world of music, got an MFA from the Iowa writers’ Workshop, and wrote his first novel—Tinkers—about an itinerant Maine peddler in the 1800s. The book won the 2010 Pulitzer and launched Harding’s career as a university Prof, adding one more facet to his life.  If you…

  • MELANCHOLY VERSE

    To the Greeks, melancholia was one of the four humors to be avoided—a black bile that brought on an unhealthy state of sadness, fear, mania; a condition that was negative and to be avoided. Over time, humans came to realize that there were appropriate times to be melancholy; to reflect; to grieve. I tend toward…

  • COMING THROUGH SLAUGHTER

    Michael Ondaatje is a Sri-Lankan born Canadian poet and novelist best known for The English Patient, which won the Booker Prize and was made into an award-winning film. Ondaatje writes thought-provoking, lyrical novels about outsiders, the “other” – which makes his books rich for analysis and study. His early novella, Coming Through Slaughter, tells the…

  • HAMLET BY ANOTHER NAME

    I came to William Shakespeare late in life, when pursuing a second Bachelor’s and then an MFA in literature. Multiple studies of the Bard were required at Portland’s Liberal Arts school, Marylhurst University. In those classes, I learned of the magnitude of Shakespeare’s contribution to literature–the timeless lessons on the nature of humans. Later, I…

  • LITERARY WESTERNS

    While I worked on my MFA and the writing of my master’s thesis (WRANGLE, a novel based on Texas quarter horse racing) I also immersed myself in the best of the literary westerns published over the years. And that was a challenge—because there are not many of those. To look back in time, the West…

  • THE HALF-KNOWN WORLD

    There are a raft of good writers, excellent craftsman that never gain international fame. Men and women who publish small works, teach at universities, coach and inspire the young writers coming behind them. Percival Everett was one of those yeoman for quite some time. He shunned publicity, taught at the University of Southern California, published…

  • WRITING WITH A LILT

    Over the years I’ve noticed that I am drawn to literary writing with a lilt—a cadence as though the author was a poet or came from a culture like Ireland or Scotland, with their shared Gaelic history. Anne Michaels, a Canadian poet, writes in a loosely structured novelistic style and infuses her poetic self throughout.…

  • THE REAL CROMWELL?

    History is written by the victors. . . and then rewritten over the following decades, as it suits those in power. Or makes good reading or an exciting film. This is never more obvious than the changing descriptions of Thomas Cromwell, who rose from relative obscurity to great wealth as the chief adviser to King…