Odd title for a blog. I wonder where the term deadlines origingated? Did they kill writers who were late??I’m happy to be starting my second course in the Wilkes Low Residency Creative Writing Masters Program this month. It is fun to be activley learning again. The deadlines are a bit less fun but necessary.
Professionally this is an exciting month for me. A ‘Writer’s Interview’ is published in July’s online www.WritingRaw.com. Carol Smallwood interviewed me several weeks ago.
I wrote a review of Women on Poetry, it’s included in Wilderness House Literary Review, 7-2 edition, online at http://www.whlreview.com/n-7.2/reviews/AnnMcCauley.pdf.
I am still reeling from the Time magazine cover a couple weeks ago, featuring dozens of illegal immigrants, blatantly defying the laws the U.S. Immigration laws by declaring, ’We are Americans.’ Even though they are illegally in the country, perhaps through no fault of their own. I am not by nature legalistic but don’t we have to draw a line at some point? I know of no other country in the world where such obnoxious defiance of it’s national laws would be tolerated. The politcian’s pandering on the issue seems way too obvious and yet it is barely, actually not even, mentioned by the main stream media.
I have read two books this week: A young adult novel Three Rivers Rising by Jamie Richards about the Johnstown flood of 1889. It was engrossing, the author gave credit as one of her main sources to David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood which eclipses everything else written about the flood. He is the master!
Crackpot by Sara Pritchard, who is a writing instructors at Wilkes Creative Writing M. A. program. It is a novel written in memoir style. Packed full of nuances that will take baby boomers on a nostalgic ride back to the America we grew up in. My favorite line fromthe book was when the protagonist, age six and asked her father about a photo of Atlas holding the world with his hands high above his head…”What is he standing on if he’s holding the world?”
Great website about forgivenness and dedication, really worth watching: http://wimp.com/missinghusband/
Tomorrow my dad will have surgery to determine the stage and type of lung cancer he has. So hard to realize this is happening. He has always been my rock. Now we all must be strong for him. There will probably be at least fifteen family members in the waiting room…
Till next time, keep reading. Later, Ann