Oklahoma’s Bounty of Talent
Lunch with Tim was very nice. What do I know about him you might not after our lunch…. He worked in a university library Special Collection, working with sheet music and magic. He attended a writing program at Brown University. Grew up in Midwest City, teaches at Rose State. Found out about being a finalist for the National Book Awards from a Tulsa World reporter (his agent left a voice mail but the reporter beat her to the news). Journalism is still alive. Can Rap but should probably not give up his day job for a music career. Changed to writing young adult novels because he was inspired by the immediate emotion of the younger readers to his first novel Falling Dark, which was written for an adult audience . He writes to explore characterization, language and themes. And brings literary fiction to the young adult reader in a way that doesn’t talk down or dumb down.
Then later in the afternoon I went to the panel discussion with the authors I mentioned in the previous post. Tim Tharp, Bob Burke, Nathan Brown, Anna Myers and illustrator, Mike Wimmer.
Tidbits from them… Burke has written 88 nonfiction books and is working on five more for next year! Myers has won FOUR Oklahoma Book Awards in the Children/ Young Adult category. She’s got a new one coming out in the fall called Time of the Witches, about the Salem witch trials.
Coming out in September
And a new first adult novel that sounds like a lot of fun with some serious on the side. Tharp likes revising. Wimmer is happiest with his first pencil drawing, because the beginning is the best and the ending will always disappoint. And Nathan Brown wants us to escape all the previous scarring of bad poetry teaching and find out it can be understandable and enjoyable. He’s got a new one in the works called My Sideways Heart.
My final comment is something Mike Wimmer said when talking about wanting to inspire and in the course of meeting and talking with people, he discovered two important concepts from successful people. They are the choices they made about what they want to do with their lives and that they picked something they love to do. Something to think about this spring afternoon, choice and passion, and I’m glad I got to visit with people who’s choice and passion bring us art and literature.
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Sounds like it was a great panel/lunch!