Writing the Southwest

by David King Dunaway, Sara L. Spurgeon (Editor)

First published in 1995, this assemblage of interviews, bibliographies, excerpts, and criticism on fourteen of the Southwest's most important authors has been updated and expanded. The accompanying 74-minute compact disc provides excerpts from the authors. Tony Hillerman discusses how blindness in the army helped shape his writings; Terry McMillan explains her start as a writer and why she thought, when she was young, that African-Americans didn't write books. Each recorded interview ranges from 4 to 10 minutes.
Reviews of the first
"Much more than an ordinary compilation. . . . A vivid composite of the region's best-known writers, Writing the Southwest is an excellent sampling of unique viewpoints and deep roots."- Publishers Weekly
"The writers included here . . . represent the vital ethnic mixture of the Southwest past and present. . . . For modern literature students, as well as those who are curious about the backgrounds of some of their favorite writers, this is a good choice."-- Kliatt

315 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

David King Dunaway received the first Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in folklore, history, and literature. For the last thirty years he has been documenting the life and work of Pete Seeger, resulting in How Can I Keep From Singing: Pete Seeger, published initially by McGraw Hill in 1981 and currently revised, updated, and republished by Villard Press at Random House in March, 2008. He has served as a visiting lecturer and Fulbright Scholar at the Universities of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Copenhagen University, Nairobi University, and the Universidad Nacional de Columbia. Author of a half dozen volumes of history and biography, his specialty is the presentation of folklore, literature, and history via broadcasting. Over the last decade he has been executive producer in a number of national radio series for Public Radio International; his reporting appears in NPRs Weekend Edition and All Things Considered. He is currently Professor of English at the University of New Mexico and Professor of Broadcasting at San Francisco State University. "

Reviews

[River James · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a couple memorable stories in here that I hadn't encountered within a 30 year period of reading about my adopted homeland, the southwest. And no, Texas is not a part of the southwest, it is unto itself. Necessary for the completist but not the place to start if you are new to the genre.

[in8 · Rating 3 out of 5]

in 1996: https://5cense.com/20/719.htm

[James Prothero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful bio/biblio of southwestern writers.