Life
William S. Penn is an urban mixed-blood Nez Perce. Born and raised in the West, he has lived in many different regions of the United States, as well as in England. He was educated at the University of California at Davis and at Syracuse University. He has previously taught at the State University of New York at Oswego and at Hostos Community College in the South Bronx. Recently awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award by Michigan State University, he teaches courses in the oral tradition, comedy and cultural survival, the literatures of the Americas, and creative writing.
Penn uses his writing to explore and reconcile his mixed ethnic heritage, writing fiction, essays and reviews. His works have been included in Antaeus, Missouri Review, Quarterly West, Stand, and Southern Humanities Review, Guest Editor for Callaloo.
He lives in East Lansing with his wife, Jennifer, and their two children, Rachel Antonia and William Anthony. He is working on a new novel-in-five-essays titled, The Death of Consuela.
"I write to amuse and entertain, but I write from a center I take seriously, a center given to me by my grandfather, encouraged by my sisters, and nurtured by my wife and by my daughter and son with whom I tell stories. Indeed, All My Sins Are Relatives is dedicated 'For Grandfather, who knows / And Rachel and Willy, so they may.' Thus, I would say that much of my work is so they—the children, not just my own—may know my attempt to bridge the gap between the urban mixblood and Euramerican worlds to which I belong."
He currently teaches fiction and non-fiction writing at Michigan State University.
Read more about this topic: William S. Penn
Famous quotes containing the word life:
““Mother” is the first word that occurs to politicians and columnists and popes when they raise the question, “Why isn’t life turning out the way we want it?””
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannnot endure it.... Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“There are situations in life to which the only satisfactory response is a physically violent one. If you don’t make that response, you continually relive the unresolved situation over and over in your life.”
—Russell Hoban (b. 1925)