Sunday
Sep. 12, 1999
My Dad's Wallet
Poem: "My Dad's Wallet" by Raymond Carver from Where Water Comes Together with Other Water, published by Random House, 1985.
It's the birthday of Canadian poet and author MICHAEL ONDAATJE, born in Sri Lanka, 1942, whose fifth novel, The English Patient, won Canada's highest literary prize, the Governor General's award, as well as Britain's Booker Prize, then was made into the movie that won nine Academy Awards.
It's the birthday in London, 1934, of novelist ALAN ISLER, who was 60 years old when his first book came out in 1994, The Prince of West End Avenue, which took about a year to write, followed by about 10 years of rejection letters before it was published.
It's the birthday in 1880 Baltimore of H.L. MENCKEN the journalist, humorist, critic, who spent most of his career writing for the Baltimore Sun. He championed novelists like Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis before anyone had ever heard of them. Mencken coined the term "booboisie" for the middle class, adding, "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®