Midwest: Region Four
Kearns, Josie
October 1, 1984—
Place of Birth: Flint, MI
Place of Principal Residence: Flint, MI
Biography
Josie Kearns was born to
James and Gladys Kearns in Flint, MI on October 1, 1954. Kearns’ first connection to writing occurred when she started to drown at 7 years old. She had waded on the bottom of a lake and had gotten turned around and started to drown. A teenage boy saved her and the experience provided a story to write about from then on. She continues to explore this story to this day. Kearns calls this event her “defining moment.”
Kearns graduated from the University of Michigan Flint with a B.A. in English and Psychology. She spent time as a reporter and grants writer before becoming a professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is the editor of New Poems from the Third Coast: Contemporary Michigan Poetry and has received many awards and grants for her work.
Selected Works
- Life in the Line (Wayne State University Press, 1990),
- New Numbers (Western Michigan University Press, 2000)
- The Sphinx
Awards
- Grants from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs
- Creative Artist Award, Michigan Council for the Arts 1986, 1990
- Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan for poetry 1981, 1982
- Major Hopwood Award for poetry 1983
Critical Reception
Critics view Kearns’ work New Numbers as a set of poems that helps explore a “new language.” Her prose book Life after the Line is viewed as a necessary read for people considering assembly line work. The poems of Josie Kearns have appeared in The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, and Poetry Northwest Passages North. Her work has been anthologized in Are You Experienced? and Boomer Girls (both Iowa University Press), Contemporary Michigan Poetry, Industrial Strength Poetry, Songs From Unsung Worlds, and Passages North Anthology and others.
Relevance of Place to Author’s Work
Kearns visited Florida twice to write her recent book The Woman of Sand Dollars. She said that “it certainly changed the scope and subject matter, the content.” Furthermore, Life After the Line chronicles a group of GM plant workers after the closing of the plant. Living in Flint, Michigan, Kearns has real life experience with this issue.
Pahz, James Alon
September 11, 1943 -
Place of Birth: Chattanooga, TN
Place of Principle Residence: Shepherd, MI
Biography:
James Alon Pahz was born to Abraham and Katherine Goldfeder in Chattanooga, TN. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University for three years before switching to Tennessee Temple and graduating with his B.A. in 1967. In 1972 he received his M.S. degree and in 1975 his M.P.H. degree, both from the University of Tennessee. Pahz started as a director for the Comprehensive Service for the Deaf, and subsequently served as a coordinator for the Tennessee School of the Death, and then a teaching assistant in Public health at the University of Tennessee. Pahz ended up moving to Sheperd, MI with his wife Cheryl, where he now is a professor in public health education. Pahz has co-written several books with his wife, most of which concern deaf awareness. In addition, Pahz and his wife started an adoption agency, Children’s Hope, helping families surpass the difficulties of international adoption. Pahz has three children from Honduras and has done much traveling abroad.
Selected Works:
- The Girl Who Wouldn’t Talk (1975)
- Robin Sees A Song (1977)
- Total Communication : The Meaning behind the Movement to Expand Educational Opportunitties for Deaf Children (1978)
Awards:
- 1999 Community Service-Learning Award
- Certificate of community service from Chattanooga Area Council on Alcoholism and Other Substance Abuse
Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
Pahz currently works as a professor in public education at Central Michigan University. He is actively involved in his community, raising awareness for handicaps and helping families adopt internationally. Many of his books concern his passion for helping others.
Roethke, Theodore
1908—1963
Place of Birth: Saginaw, MI
Biography:
Theodore Roethke was born to Helen and Otto Roethke in Saginaw, Michigan in 1908. His father was a German immigrant who owned a large greenhouse, where Theodore spent much of his childhood playing. His father and uncle both died in 1923, and these two events powerfully shaped his physiological health and writing for the remainder of his life. Theodore attended the University of Michigan and spent a short time in law school before attending Harvard University. While at Harvard, Theodore learned under the poet Robert Hillver. He did not complete his graduate studies at Harvard because of financial reasons and instead became a professor of English. He taught at several universities including, Lafayette College, Pennsylvania State University and Bennington College. Theodore Roethke had a troubled life, beginning with the deaths of his father and grandfather when he was very young. In his older years he taught at Michigan State University in East Lansing when he began to suffer from deep depression. His depression often served as a catalysis for his poetry. In 1953 Theodore married his former student, Beatrice O’Connell. Beatrice was a faithful wife to Theodore and she continued to publish his poetry in his name, after his death in 1963.
Selected Works
- Open House (1941)
- The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
- Praise to the End! (1951)
- The Waking (1953)
- Words for the Wind (1958)
- I am! Says the Lamb (1961)
- Party at the Zoo (1963) — written for children
- The Far Field (1964) — published posthumously
- On Poetry & Craft (1965) - a collection of prose
Awards
- 1953 Pulitzer Prize
- The Bollingen Prize
- 1958 The National Book Award
- 1964 posthumous National Book Award for his last poems, The Far Field
Critical Reception
One critic said of Theodore Roethke, “Roethke is among the most celebrated American poets of the twentieth century. His poetry employs dynamic, descriptive imagery to convey the process of self-realization and discovery.”
Relevance of Place to Author’s Work
Roethke was born and spent most of his life as a writer in Michigan. He received many literary awards while working as an English professor at the University of Michigan. Much of Roethke’s poetry was inspired by his childhood and adulthood in Michigan. Roethke suffered from depression because of the deaths of his father and uncle when he was a child, and his depression often inspired his poetry as well.
Scieszka, Jon
1954—
Place of Birth: Flint, MI
Place of Principal Residence: Brooklyn, NY
Biography
Jon Scieszka was born and raised as one of six boys in Flint, Michigan. After graduating in three years from Culver Military Academy in Indiana, Jon attended Albion College in hopes of becoming a doctor. Instead, Scieszka changed career directions and attended Columbia University where he received his BA in writing in 1976 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1980. Like his father who was also a teacher, Jon Scieszka’s career path led him to teaching. At different times he has worked with young people from first through eighth grades teaching computers, math, science, and history. Along with teaching, Jon worked in a variety of capacities: writing for magazines, painting apartments, and working as a carpenter and lifeguard.
He decided to take a year off from teaching to work with illustrator Lane Smith in order to develop ideas for children’s books. Many of his books are “fractured fairy tales” where the story is told from a different point of view than that of the classic narrative. The results are invariably funny. Scieszka’s motto in his work with children is to, “Never underestimate the intelligence of your audience.” Along with constantly being impressed by his audience’s intelligence and wit, Scieszka just loves to make kids laugh. Readers of all ages enjoy his great stories and Lane Smith’s delightful illustrations in their quirky renditions of classic tales.
He and his wife Jerilyn, an art director, have two children.
Selected Works
- Baloney, (Henry P.) (Viking Press, 1991)
- The Frog Prince, Continued (Viking Press, 1991)
- The Stinky Cheese Man (Viking Press,1992)
- Math Curse (Viking Press, 1995)
- The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (Viking Press, 1996(
- The Book That Jack Wrote (illustrated by Daniel Adel) (Viking Press, 1997)
- Squids Will Be Squids (Viking Press, 1998)
- Science Verse (Viking Press,2004)
- Cowboy and Octopus (Viking Press, 2007)
Awards
- 1994 Rhode Island Children’s Book Award for The Stinky Cheese Man
- Georgia’s 1997 Children’s Choice Award for The Stinky Cheese Man
- 1996 American Library Association Notable Book for Math Curse
- 1995 Blue Ribbon Book from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books in 1995 for Math Curse
- 1995 Publisher’s Weekly Best Children’s Book for Math Curse
Critical Reception
The Book that Jack Wrote (1997):
“This book is about a Rat, a Cat, a Cow over the moon, and a Baby humming a tune. It’s about what the Bug did to the rug. It’s about how the Egg fell off the wall. It’s about the crazy mayhem that can occur when nursery rhymes go awry. Children and adults alike will enjoy reading this book over and over. This one will wow even the most sophisticated.—Kirkus Reviews,
“Clever, madcap text. A twisted treat in rhyme and pictures.”—Children’s Book Review Service
Thrush, Betty M.
September 28, 1925—
Place of Birth: Bay City, MI
Place of Principal Residence: Bay City, MI.
Biography
Betty Thrush was born to Titus and Eva Dodd in Bay City on the 28th of September. Raised in Bay City, MI, Rush dropped out of high school in the 11th grade in 1943. Forty years later, a friend of hers talked her into going back and she found that she had enough credits to graduate high school at the age of 58. Betty married Russell B. Thrust in the spring of 1944. They had two children together, Marilyn and Lenore. She now has five grandchildren and two great grand children. Thrush began writing poetry when she was in high school and has continued throughout her life to write poems. As a homemaker and a housewife, Betty did not think to publish her poetry until much later in her life. After her husband died in the year 1991 she began compiling her better works and put together a collection of poetry, which she published in January 2002.
Selected Works
- “America” – Bay City Times (1975)
- Echoes of the Heart (2002)
Relevance of Place to Author’s Work
Betty has lived all her life in Bay City and many of her poems reflect aspects of her life. For instance, she wrote a poem about the year she graduated from high school called “The Class of 83,” then she wrote another poem “Drivers Training” when she took her driving test in the year 1984, which would have made her 59 when she got her license.