Daniel Bowman, Jr. ›

Houghton College Fall Writing Festival

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Please come out to the Fall Writing Festival at Houghton if you can make it! Scott Cairns will be here!

“The Writer’s Journey”: Houghton College Writing Festival, 2009

Wednesday, September 16

10:15-10:55 a.m.

Chapel: Matthew Dickerson, “Lessons on Christian Ecology from the Writings of C.S. Lewis”

Location: Wesley Chapel

8:00-9:00 p.m.

Debra Reinstra, “Body, Soul, and Body: Language and Spirituality in Three Dimensions”

Reading from her three books, Debra Rienstra will consider the difficulties and delights of describing spiritual experience in language, considering the embodied personal experience, theological reflection, and the communal life of the church.

Location: CFA 145 (Recital Hall)

Opening reception and book signing to follow in Adelmann Atrium.

Thursday, September 17

10:00-10:50 a.m.

Matthew Dickerson Reading

Location: Library 323

This reading will be a collection poems and essays (narrative non-fiction) about Appalachian rivers, ecology, wild trout, and fly fishing.

1:00-1:50 p.m.

A Conversation with Debra Reinstra

Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb, interviewer

Location: Chamberlain Center 325

3:00-3:50 p.m.

A Conversation with Scott Cairns

Matthew Dickerson, interviewer

Location: Library 323

6:30-7:45 p.m.

Banquet for writers, faculty, majors, and prospectives

Remarks by Linda Mills-Woolsey

Location: Dining Hall, South End

8:00-9:00 p.m.

Scott Cairns Reading, “Pressing the Word for a Glimpse”

Location: Library 323

Reading new poems and selections from his published works in poetry and nonfiction, Scott Cairns will entertain the notion that writers seldom write simply to share what they think they know, but in order to apprehend a sense of what they do not know, perhaps can never exactly know.

Friday, September 18

10:15-10:55 a.m.

Chapel: Scott Cairns, “A Short Trip to the Edge”

Location: Wesley Chapel

12:00-12:50 p.m.

Luncheon with writers for majors, prospectives, and Department of English faculty

Location: Campus Center Dining Hall, South End

1:00-1:50 p.m.

Faculty Readings

Daniel Bowman Jr., Lori Huth, and James Zoller

Location: CFA 145 (Recital Hall)

2:00-2:50 p.m.

Panel: “The Writer’s Vocation”

Daniel Bowman Jr., Scott Cairns, Lori Huth, James Zoller

Laurie Dashnau, moderator

Location: CFA 145 (Recital Hall)

Refreshments will be served.

Filed in Art and Faith, Literature and Writing, MFA | | Comments (0)

Twitter

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Okay, I’m on Twitter now, too. I don’t know why. Not sure if I’ll “tweet” much. I have discovered some great links on it. Kind of fun for now. Long term: jury’s still out.

http://twitter.com/danielbowmanjr

Filed in Miscellaneous | | Comments (0)

Bearing the Mystery

Sunday, August 16, 2009

books_mystery_lg

We are so proud of our MFA program director, Greg Wolfe, and the amazing accomplishment represented in the new collection Bearing the Mystery. The team at Image has worked hard for many years not just to consume or criticize culture but to create it. This is a gorgeous book that debuted at the Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, where the atmosphere was electric. If you are inclined toward the intersections of art and religion, please consider ordering Bearing the Mystery from the Image bookstore.

Filed in Art and Faith, Literature and Writing, MFA | | Comments (2)

Sincere but Conflicted

Thursday, August 6, 2009

owl

Man, am I looking forward to Sara Zarr’s latest, Once Was Lost. If you haven’t read Story of a Girl or Sweethearts, check them out. At my recent MFA residency at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, I noticed the young woman scanning our meal cards at the cafeteria reading Story of a Girl, and my heart lifted. I remembered when I read it. I was riding the Q from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn into Manhattan, and I could not hold back tears at a particularly tender moment between the main character and her mother. I was somewhat embarrassed. But then I remembered that far stranger things happen every day on the NYC subway.

Of Once Was Lost, Sara Zarr has said, “I’ve long wanted to write a YA novel that involved a character with a sincere but conflicted religious faith. That’s how I usually feel: sincere but conflicted. So, in some ways Once Was Lost is about faith. In some ways it’s a mystery. But, at its heart, it’s about what all my books are about: family, identity, and growing up. Mostly, I just hope it’s a good story!” So do I. And I’m sure it is.

Filed in Literature and Writing, MFA, Miscellaneous | | Comments (0)

The Roaring ’20’s

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

ddd

Have you often thought, “What I’d really like to hear right now is some great Big Band music from the 1920’s”? Who hasn’t? Well, your wish has been granted. There are some good streaming Big Band stations online, but this is probably my favorite. Enjoy the days when swing was king. Happy listening.

Filed in Big band, Miscellaneous, Music | | Comments (0)

2 from ‘02 You Might’ve Missed

Thursday, May 21, 2009

zhivago-20021

Has anyone else seen this 2002 remake of Dr. Zhivago? It’s very good. It originally aired as a Masterpiece Theater production on PBS in 2003.

Scottish actor Hans Matheson is terrific as the title character, finding appropriate on-screen chemistry with both Lara Antipova and Tonya Zhivago, played by Alexandra Maria Lara, a superb and beautiful Romanian actress who had a small role in last year’s The Reader.

Lara is played here very well by Keira Knightly, but for my money, Matheson steals the show. I discovered that he played Alec D’Urberville in a 2008 miniseries version of Tess which I have not seen but definitely will now.

As a side note, I just found out that Knightly will be starring in an upcoming film of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922). Yes, she will be playing the formidable Zelda.

last-call2

Speaking of F. Scott, did anyone see the 2002 Showtime movie Last Call, in which Jeremy Irons plays Fitzgerald and Sissy Spacek plays Zelda? As you can see, the film also stars Neve Campbell as Frances Kroll…she is terrific in the role. I own this film on VHS if anyone still has a VCR and wants to watch it.

So revisit 2002. Go to your Netflix and queue up Zhivago and Last Call, two of that year’s lesser-known but very good films.

And have a great weekend.

Filed in Film, Literature and Writing | | Comments (0)

Uganda Water Project

Friday, May 8, 2009

jesse_with_kids

Please take a sec to check out the great work being done by the folks at Uganda Water Project. My friend Jesse Sprinkle is about to go to Uganda for a third time to help with the cause. Consider donating if you can.

While many of us are dealing with very real and difficult issues relating to money, jobs, and education, our brothers and sisters in Uganda need clean water. Please help.

Filed in Uganda Water Project | | Comments (0)

Kimura Nobuko

Friday, May 1, 2009

kimurabs3

Last week I discovered Japanese poet Nobuko Kimura, whose collection The Village Beyond happened to be sitting in the delightful mess on Monroe Avenue known as Rick’s Recycled Books. (Incidentally, congrats to Rick on City Newspaper’s 2008 Best of Rochester award in the category of Best Place to Pick Up ’80’s Movies on the Cheap.)

Anyway…The Village Beyond is filled with stunning surreal dreamscapes. The poet is quoted as saying, “A dream is not just a set of images but an actual experience.”

In an attempt to characterize Kimura’s work, poet Fujiwara Sadamu accurately writes, “The contents of her poems may be far more surrealistic than Surrealist poems, but they press upon the reader with an odd sort of realism and immediacy.”

These are the best poems I’ve read in a very long time. Absolutely original and gorgeous. My hat is off to you, Ms. Kimura, as well as to translator Hiroaki Sato.

Filed in Literature and Writing, MFA | | Comments (1)

Gimme a swoller and I’ll pay ya back someday

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Dillards, who played “The Darlings” on Andy Griffith, are one of the first families of bluegrass. “Dooley” is a terrific example of their music. I love the deadpan singer.

Filed in Miscellaneous, Music | | Comments (0)

University of Cincinnati Alumnus of the Week

Monday, April 20, 2009

BE050584

Sandy Koufax came to the University of Cincinnati on a basketball scholarship, and decided to try out for the baseball team in the spring. That worked out nicely for him…

bearcats

Go Bearcats!

Filed in Baseball, Cincinnati, Miscellaneous | | Comments (0)