Ask the Author: Alan W. Powers
Answered Questions (14)
Alan W. Powers
I’ve written all my life since college, but mostly academic papers and theses, though also verses all along. My Worlds of Giordano Bruno is pretty academic, but I tried to open chapters for wider,usual readers.
Alan W. Powers
It’s not as amusing as the better Dickens, like Nicholas Nickleby, but it is a good precursor of social realism. I taught it maybe six times because it’s short, for D. Nickleby, my fave, I only taught once.
Alan W. Powers
I haven't completely read* any new bio of Grant, but I have read his autobiography (published by Twain), and I used to aloudread parts of it to my community college classes. *I've seen parts of both Chernow's and White's books, but not enough to really assess them. My point is they have a tough job to surpass Grant's own account, one of the best autobiographies in English, along with Franklin and Frank Lloyd Wright and Maya Angelou.
Alan W. Powers
Great--glad to hear it, but can't find your posting. Could you send me a link either here or on my usu Goodreads? Alan W Powers
Alan W. Powers
I shall be aloudreading my newest book, Parodies Lost (see its page on FB), which includes parodies of Country Western (sung by California pro's), Angelou, Ashberry, R Wilbur, Dylan Thomas, Shakespeare and Dickinson, fifteen others. I've read at a couple libraries, and the book is ontheir shelves, as well as the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art.
Alan W. Powers
You mean, like the time I saw a murder, and the perpetrator was a good-looking person, didn't appear to be a murderer at all? (My tehory is that Iago should be good-looking, like John Boy Walton, since Othello trusts him, "Honest, honest Iago." And Othello's no fool, though given to suspicion because of his difference, a Moor growing up in Muslim N Africa, though he himself appears to be Christian.)
Alan W. Powers
Sorry I never got back to you. I'm interested, but have been under the gun in the launch of my own new book of parodies...including a Country Western!
Thanks for asking, and if I can still be of use, I'll have time in a month since my Italian daughter--here with family for a year, for the first time (much better, mor encouraging education though we're now test-happy ( J Joyce was judged better in Italian than English under Ital exams!) My grandson, in a Milan Classical HS, was flunked in English bec his English was better than his teacher's! The Dutch would never do this?
Thanks for asking, and if I can still be of use, I'll have time in a month since my Italian daughter--here with family for a year, for the first time (much better, mor encouraging education though we're now test-happy ( J Joyce was judged better in Italian than English under Ital exams!) My grandson, in a Milan Classical HS, was flunked in English bec his English was better than his teacher's! The Dutch would never do this?
Alan W. Powers
Try Nickleby, arguably his funniest, and greatest: it put several cruel "public schools" like Mr Squeers' out of business.
Alan W. Powers
Avoid writing well. Too much work, and nobody notices.
Alan W. Powers
No free time to waste. I'm like the birds I studied for one book, who talk a lot, but not about sports, or pharmaceuticals, or investments or insurance.
Alan W. Powers
Not telling. The last time I told a magazine, they took the idea and did their own, less intellectual--and probably more popular--version.
Alan W. Powers
I am sure my enemies would agree with me on this: I have never been inspired, except by air (in-breathe, the derivation). I work at what occurs to me over the years of reading in five languages--and attempts a three more.
Alan W. Powers
When working on Giordano Bruno's influence on lunar mappers Hevelius and Riccioli, who gave us the names we use like Sea of Tranquillity--Mare Tranquilitatis--I learned Bruno had written one comedy. I read it, found it hilarious and surprisingly modern, with a bisexual lead, fake cops who are really Neapolitan thugs. I thought, we know about security everywhere...
So I began translating Candelaio with grants from the NEH and NEMLA and the Whiting Foundation: in Carrara, Napoli, Rome, Venice, Milan, and London, where the British Library has a great Bruno collection becaue of its first librarian, Panizzi from Italy.
So I began translating Candelaio with grants from the NEH and NEMLA and the Whiting Foundation: in Carrara, Napoli, Rome, Venice, Milan, and London, where the British Library has a great Bruno collection becaue of its first librarian, Panizzi from Italy.
Alan W. Powers
No such thing for an author primarily of non-fiction and translations of plays and poems. Always more to do. If I had writers block, I'd take the hint and not write for a bit.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more