Measured Silence

by Joseph Coulson

67 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Joseph Coulson (born 1957) is a novelist, poet, and playwright. His writing is notable for its lyricism and its blending of American history and social criticism. Also an educator, Coulson was named president of the Great Books Foundation in 2014.
Coulson’s first novel, The Vanishing Moon (Archipelago Books, 2004), was a Barnes & Noble Great New Writers selection, and it won the Book of the Year Award, Gold Medal in Literary Fiction, from ForeWord. Chronicling the lives of working-class people, The Vanishing Moon was a critical success, and Coulson’s prose, themes, and historical range drew comparisons with John Steinbeck, William Maxwell, and Russell Banks. His second novel, Of Song and Water (2007) was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award. Both novels earned wide distribution in French and German translations, and The Vanishing Moon was later published as a Harvest Book, the perennial literary series from Harcourt.

Coulson has also published three books of poetry, The Letting Go (1984), A Measured Silence (1986), and Graph (1990). His first play, A Saloon at the Edge of the World (1996), a noir drama showcased by Theater Artists of Marin, enjoyed both popular and critical acclaim in the San Francisco Bay area. Coulson is a recipient of the Tompkins Award in Poetry and the David Gray Writing Fellowship, and his essays have appeared in journals and anthologies including The Barnabe Mountain Review, Walt Whitman of Mickle Street, The Critical Survey of Poetry, and The Greenfield Review.