The Radiance of Fossils

by Pat Carr

Pat Carr has a B.A. and M.A. from Rice University, a Ph.D. from Tulane and has taught literature and creative writing in universities across the South. She's published sixteen books, including The Women in the Mirror, winner of the Iowa Fiction Award, and The Death of a Confederate Colonel, winner of the John Estes Cooke Civil War Fiction Award and the PEN Southwest Fiction Award, and she's published over a hundred short stories in such places as The Southern Review and Best American Short Stories. Her novel, If We Must Die was a finalist in the PEN Book Awards and her latest book, a memoir, One Page at a On a Writing Life, was a finalist for the Willa Cather Nonfiction Award. She currently lives and writes with her writer husband, Duane Carr, three dogs, a cat, and eight black chickens on a farm in Arkansas.

100 pages, Paperback

First published July 17, 2012

About the author

PAT CARR has a B.A. and M.A. from Rice, a Ph.D. from Tulane, and sixteen published books, including the Iowa Fiction Prize winner, The Women in the Mirror, and the PEN Book Award finalist, If We Must Die. She’s published over a hundred short stories in such places as The Southern Review, Yale Review, and Best American Short Stories. Her latest short story collection, The Death of a Confederate Colonel, a nominee for the Faulkner Award, won the PEN Southwest Fiction Award, the John Estes Cooke Civil War Fiction Award, and was voted one of the top ten books from university presses for 2007 by Foreword Magazine. She’s won numerous other awards, including a Library of Congress Marc IV, an NEH, the Texas Institute of Letters Short Story Award, an Al Smith Literary Fellowship, and a Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt Writing Fellowship in Lausanne, Switzerland. She’s taught creative writing and literature in numerous universities across the South, has conducted writing workshops from Santa Fe to New York, and in August, 2011, taught the Civil War novel at New York’s Chautauqua Institute. Her writing text, Writing Fiction with Pat Carr appeared from High Hill Press in 2010, and her memoir, One Page at a Time: On a Writing Life, also published in 2010 by Texas Tech University Press, was a finalist for both the Willa Cather Award and the PEN Southwest Non-fiction Award. Her novella, The Radiance of Fossils, is scheduled to appear from the Main Street Rag Press in the summer of 2012. She lives and writes on a thirty-six acre farm in Arkansas with her writer husband, Duane Carr, three dogs, a cat, and fifteen black chickens.

Reviews

[Christian Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, Pat Carr outdoes herself in her latest novel, “The Significance of Fossils.” Timelessly funny, it’s a coming of age piece about an archeologist/teacher who discovers the lessons of a lifetime. Faced with a failed marriage at sixty, refusing to go gently into that deep abyss called getting old, Dalton Randall is attending a writing workshop to secretly find out what might’ve been or what might come to be with her ex-love from her very distant past who happens to be leading the workshop. It’s a great ride that won’t disappoint. I highly recommend it.

[C.S. S Bernhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dalton Randall is attending a weekend retreat for want to be writers. Although that is what she says she is there for she really is there to revaluate her love life and personal relationship with her mother.
The book is very well written. The aurthor is very articulate with words and descriptions. Where I felt it lacked a little was in the character building. I really felt no attachment to any of the characters. I never felt any emotion for the main characters.

[Margo Dill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book--one reason is because Pat Carr is an excellent writer and creates believable characters. The other reason--I'm a writer. I've been to these kind of writing retreats like are featured in this book. I was laughing and smiling and nodding right along with the main character who is not used to writing retreats and only trying to discover if she is still in love with the author leading the retreat!