Writings
Ohio and Ohio Valley writers and writing, literary and cultural history with occasional ventures into the greater Midwest and Upper South.
Winter in Kentucky, c. 1810
I recently finished reading Robert Penn Warren’s remarkable narrative poem Brother To Dragons: A Tale in Verse and Voices. The poem concerns a real incident that occurred near Paducah, Kentucky—the murder of a slave by Thomas Jefferson’s two nephews in 1811. Robert Penn Warren, who was born in Guthrie, Kentucky in 1905, is the only…
CONTINUE READINGNew Toni Morrison Novel Set For Spring Publication
Nobel Prize winning author and Lorain, Ohio native Toni Morrison has a new novel coming out in April of 2015. The novel is entitled God Help The Child, and it concerns the impact of childhood traumas on several adult characters. This will be Toni Morrison’s eleventh novel. Her last novel, Home, appeared in 2012. She…
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President Lincoln: Master of American Prose
February 12 marks the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who is not only one of our greatest Presidents—perhaps the greatest American President—but one of the great leaders in world history. Lincoln is also arguably the greatest writer among the Presidents. All of our Presidents have left behind a body of writing, usually consisting of policy…
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Clark Gable, Son of Cadiz, Ohio
Clark Gable, the legendary actor who has been called “The King of Hollywood,” was born in Cadiz, Ohio, a small town in eastern Ohio’s Harrison County, on February 1, 1901. His father, William Henry “Will” Gable was an oil well driller who later attempted farming. Gable’s mother died when he was ten months old,…
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Born on January 6: Wright Morris and Carl Sandburg
Two important writers from the Midwest were born on January 6: Carl Sandburg in 1878 and Wright Morris in 1910. Since Morris is the lesser known of the two, I will start with him. Wright Morris was born in Central City, Nebraska. His mother died within a week of his birth. His father was a…
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Remembering Thomas Berger
The distinguished postwar American novelist Thomas Berger died on July 13, 2014 in Nyack, New York. As this was a great loss for American letters in the past year, I wanted to post an entry on this very unique and gifted writer, who will be featured in the future on this blog. Berger was a…
CONTINUE READINGMerry Christmas–and Happy Rod Serling’s birthday!
Merry Christmas! And Happy Rod Serling’s birthday! The noted screenwriter and television show host was born on December 25, 1924 in Syracuse, New York. His family moved to Binghamton, New York two years later and he attended local schools before enlisting in the U.S. Army, where he served with the 511th Parachute Regiment of the…
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