Posts Tagged ‘Ohio’
Cincinnati’s Books By The Banks: October 11, 2014
The eighth annual Books By The Banks: Cincinnati USA Book Festival will be held from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 11 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati. More than 100 authors will be there to sign copies of their books and talk with interested readers. Categories of books represented…
Read MoreThe Children’s Books of Elizabeth Spires
This marks the fiftieth post to appear on Buckeyemuse, so I wanted to write something a little different. Today I’m featuring some of the children’s books by the distinguished poet Elizabeth Spires, who was born in Lancaster, Ohio in 1952, grew up in Circleville, Ohio, and later attended Vassar College and Johns Hopkins University. She…
Read MorePublished 90 Years Ago: Sherwood Anderson’s “A Story Teller’s Story.”
Sherwood Anderson was born 138 years ago on this day in Camden, Ohio: September 13, 1876. I’d like to mark the occasion by noting that the first of three autobiographical works that Anderson composed—A Story Teller’s Story—came out ninety years ago. The two other autobiographical volumes are Tar: A Midwest Childhood (1926), and the posthumously…
Read MoreMary Oliver: At Home in the Natural World.
The recent date of September 10, 2014 marks the seventy-ninth birthday of the distinguished poet Mary Oliver, born on September 10, 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. She is one of America’s most popular and best-selling poets, and she has accumulated numerous honors, having won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize,…
Read MoreHarlan Hatcher: Buckeye Extraordinaire.
The author Harlan Hatcher was born 116 years ago today on September 9, 1898 in Ironton, Ohio. He lived for nearly a century, dying at the age of 99 in 1998. Harlan Hatcher was a true man of letters: a novelist, editor, historian, and literary critic, as well as a teacher who became a successful…
Read More“American Giant:” Theodore Dreiser
Despite a famously ponderous prose style, novelist Theodore Dreiser, born August 27, 1871 in Terre Haute, Indiana, remains one of our most impressive American novelists. The distinguished American critic Irving Howe wrote that Dreiser is “among the American giants, one of the very few American giants we have had.” Although best known for his novels…
Read MoreLouise Erdrich Wins Dayton Literary Peace Prize For Fiction
Minnesota author Louise Erdrich has won the 2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction. Erdrich, who is of Ojibwa, French, and German ancestry, and a member of the Turtle Creek Chippewa nation in North Dakota, is known for her novels about Native American life. She has also explored themes related to German-American life in the…
Read MoreAnnie Oakley: Little Sure Shot.
In the “About” section of this blog I mention doing occasional “Beyond The Books” special features concerning historical and cultural topics outside of literature. I’m kicking off that feature today with a quick look at an important Ohioan, whose birthday is today: legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley, born Phoebe Ann Mosey on August 13, 1860 in…
Read MoreHart Crane: Torment and Triumph.
The recent date of July 21 marks the birthday of American poet Hart Crane, born in Garrettsville, Ohio in Portage County in 1899. In his short lifetime—he lived to be only 32 years old—Crane created two memorable collections of poetry. Like so many artists who die young, the details of his life have become legendary.…
Read MoreMay-June 1850: Emerson Tours The Heartland.
June, 1850. In the deep quiet of Mammoth Cave, a group of men and women look at the weird formations around them revealed by lantern light. They have walked nine miles into the cave, and they will walk the same distance out only to be greeted in the night by a heavy spring rain falling…
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