Author Archives: william

About william

Author (fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, children's literature), editor, professor of creative writing. Adult novels: Gentle Sinners, The Girl With The Botticelli Face; Short story collections: Bloodflowers, Red Dust, What Can't Be Changed Shouldn't Be Mourned, God Is Not A Fish Inspector: Children's books: Thor, Winter Rescue, Frances, The Divorced Kid's Club, Garbage Creek. Taught at Cottey College, Nevada, Missouri; University of Victoria, British Columbia. Retired editor of Logberg-Heimskringla, Canada's oldest ethnic newspaper (Icelandic). Interests: all things Icelandic, Icelandic emigration in the 19th Century, New Iceland, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, other Icelandic settlements. Fiction, poetry, radio drama, stage drama, film, culture, history, education.

The Adolescent in Me

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In the 1950s it was Ford Fairlanes, big motors, ducktail haircuts, drapes (pants that were as wide at the knee as possible and as tight at the ankle as your foot would allow), Buddy Holly, and when he died, the hard piano of Little Richard and soon after, Elvis Presley. In those days Elvis still had two names.
We necked with the girls in our high school classes, girls in jeans so tight that only putting them on, then sitting in a bathtub of hot water would shrink them that tight, girls with long, bouncy hair, wearing angora sweaters that showed off their new breasts. We double dated, necking in the front seat, the back seat, turning the cars into passion pits, steaming up the windows on cold winter nights. Gas was cheap, three gallons for a dollar and even though odd jobs didn

The Best Days

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(From my diary)

There will be no better days than today. There may be days as good. Days that are good but different. But today was as good as it gets.

My mother and father are visiting. They dithered until my sister-in-law, she-who-makes-decisions-instantly, bought them airplane tickets. I moved the firm guest mattress from the back bedroom to the front guest bedroom. My mother