Today (4/11) at 6 p.m., Murray State University will host a minor literary event in the Murray Room of the CFSB Center. For those unfamiliar with the Murray State campus the CFSB Center is the basketball arena. It’s located near the intersection of highways 641 and 121 in Murray, Ky.
I say a minor literary event because of the venue and probable local and regional attendance. The work being released is anything but minor.
Monday night marks the release of Dr. Duane Bolin’s new book Home and Away: A Professor’s Journal. It’s being published by Acclaim Press www.acclaimpress.com.
I’ll tell you a bit about the work and its author.
Home and Away is a collection of essays that grew from Bolin’s weekly newspaper column. The book has been more than a decade in the writing. I know from my friendship with the author that it has been a struggle at times, a frustration at others, but mostly, a joy. The tone is homespun, but in a quiet, polished sort of way. The essay is one of my favorite literary forms and done correctly, it is akin to a small pebble tossed into a still pond on a summer evening: not much plunk but far reaching ripples. These stories ripple.
Most impressive, however, is what you won’t find in Home and Away. You won’t find sarcasm, cynicism or profanity; hate, bitterness or ugliness; jealousy, resentment or revenge. The stories are about family and friends and places and the things that get us from here to there. In many of these essays the people and places are local; the themes are universal.
Duane is a husband, father, brother and friend. He’s also a scholar, a gifted teacher, and a skilled writer. He talks about Home and Away with his local public radio station, WKMS, here. It’s worth a listen.
See for yourself Monday night. Come if you can. Check out the book if you can’t.
The Outdoor Notebook 