Visiting Writer Brian Doyle
'We are story catchers'—Acclaimed author, essayist, novelist, and poet Brian Doyle urged creative writing students to pay attention to others and catch the stories around them, then demonstrated how it’s done in two readings on the eve of the College’s spring break.
Doyle enjoys talking with creative writing students during a lunch meeting in the Sparks Center.
Ryan Lutz and Doyle extend the conversation after lunch.
Students listened, learned, and laughed during Doyle's talk with Professor Marc Hudson's creative non-fiction class.
Doyle talks with Charlie Hintz ’13 after class.
For his afternoon reading, Doyle talked about his book The Grail, written over a year's time visiting the Lange Winery in Oregon and learning about the people and the process required 'in search of the perfect pinot noir.'
Professor Eric Freeze, who did a reading of his own on campus last when his short story collection Dominant Traits was published, introduces Doyle at the evening reading. Freeze included student comments on Doyle's work, which has been part of recent senior comprehensive exams.
Doyle begins his readings with thanks to the audience for attending and listening to his stories.
Doyle's evening talk was as eclectic and the emotional roller coaster promised by it's title—'Notes on Wonder and Kids and Mercy and Hawks and Other Wild and Confusing Miracles, with Sidelong Jaunts into Tall Tales, and Whopping Lies, and Hilarity and Pain and Grace and Basketball and the Dalai Lama and Other Riveting Matters, Like Laughter as Prayer and Weapon Against the Dark.'
Students and Crawfordsville community members enjoy Doyle’s evening reading.
'No god can forgive what we do to each other; only the injured can summon that extraordinary grace, and where such grace is born we cannot say, for all our fitful genius and miraculous machinery. We use the word god so easily, so casually, as if our label for the incomprehensible meant anything at all; and we forget all too easily that the wriggle of holy is born only through the stammer and stumble of us, who are always children. 'So we turn again and again to each other, and bow, and ask forgiveness, and mill what mercy we can muster from the muddle of our hearts.' —Brian Doyle
Doyle and Professor Freeze enjoy a lighter moment after Doyle's talk.
Doyle was the second of visiting writer to work with students this semester, and one of many this academic year. Fall visitors included award-winning author Bonnie Jo Campbell…
and Jess Walter.
Senior creative writing track student Ian Grant enjoys an earlier workshop.
Bestselling and award-winning author Dan Simmons ’70 returns to campus in April to conduct a writer's workshop, and Pulitzer Prize nominee Karen Russell visits Wabash later this month to work with students and read from her work.