Synopses & Reviews
Pat Carr may be the only person in the United States who spent her childhood next door to a Japanese relocation camp in Wyoming in the 1940s, grew up to pass for black in 1950s Texas, started teaching college in the Jim Crow South of the 1960s, and crossed paths with scores of other authors over half a centurys journey as a professional writer. But universal truth is found in every writers singular experience, and Carrs memoir illuminates the path for others who have chosen the writing life. “Everything we do, everywhere weve been, influences us,” Carr believes. Pacing her revealing memoir as a series of single-page episodes, she offers distilled glimpses of the people, places, and moments that made a lasting impression and provided the fabric and fuel of her writing. At the same time Carrs pages reveal her attempts to find the authentic centers of her life: relationships with family, friends, lovers, fellow writers; struggles with racial and gender discrimination; and above all her writing identity.
Synopsis
Carr spent her childhood next to a Japanese relocation camp in Wyoming in the 1940s, grew up to pass for black in 1950s Texas, and started teaching college in the Jim Crow South of the 1960s. In a series of single-page episodes, she distills glimpses of the people, places, and moments that provided the fabric and fuel of her writing.
Synopsis
"Presented in single-page episodes, this memoir highlights formative moments of author Pat Carr's life, ranging from childhood to adulthood, that touch on her role as a writer. Reveals struggles with her mother, her husband, racial and gender discrimination, and--above all--her place within the world of professional writers"--Provided by publisher.
About the Author
Pat Carr has taught creative writing and literature in universities across the South. She is the author of fifteen books, including The Women in the Mirror, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and more than a hundred short stories in the Southern Review, the Yale Review, Best American Short Stories, and other publications. She lives in northwest Arkansas.