Guest Blog Post / 5 Books
Kristin Bair O’Keeffe
Author of THIRSTY, A Novel
(Swallow Press, October 1, 2009)
Intro:
Today I’m featuring Kristin Bair O’Keeffe. Kristin’s debut novel Thirsty (Swallow Press, Oct 2009) tells the story of one woman’s unusual journey through an abusive marriage, set against the backdrop of a Pittsburgh steel community at the turn of the twentieth century. Her work has been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Poets & Writers Magazine, San Diego Family Magazine, The Baltimore Review, The Gettysburg Review, and many other publications. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago and has been teaching writing for almost fifteen years. Kristin lives in Shanghai, China, with her husband and daughter. If you’d like to learn more about Thirsty, visit thirstythenovel.com and kristinbairokeeffe.com.
I asked Kristin to name five books that have influenced her as a writer. She said:
1) Kerry the Fire-Engine Dog (a Rand McNally book-elf book) – My kindergarten teacher Mrs. Davies gave me this book for my birthday, and I read it until the pages were tattered. I’m not sure if it was the story itself or the fact that it was the first book I ever received as a gift that drew me to it again and again, but whatever it was, Kerry the Fire-Engine Dog mattered.
2) The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale by Sara Teasdale – I spent hours, days, and weeks curled up in the poetry stacks of the Bethel Park Public Library with this collection. Teasdale was a cool woman and an amazing poet who lived and wrote at the turn of the twentieth century. She wrote about love and longing, kissing and moons…perfect subjects for a middle-school girl hitting puberty.
3) The Odyssey by Homer – I read The Odyssey for the first time in my tenth- or eleventh-grade English class, and I mean READ IT. We read it out loud, took copious notes (which I still have somewhere), and dug deeply into the story. At night I dreamed of Cyclops, blind seers, women who could turn men into swine, and melodious Sirens. It appealed to the adventurous side of me.
4) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston – When I first read this novel in grad school, I was shocked that I’d never been exposed to it before. Not in high school English. Not in four years of pursuing an undergraduate degree in English. Not while combing the fiction stacks in any number of libraries I frequented. I was floored by the imagery, the language, the rhythm and music of the sentences, and this confident, passionate woman…Janie Crawford.
5) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez – Every time I read the first sentence of this book, I fall to my knees and shout, “Thank you, thank you!” García Márquez gives me permission...to take risks in storytelling, to tell stories with my own voice, to break rules, to blur lines, to be fearless. These are some of the most important lessons I learned as a writer. [First sentence of One Hundred Years of Solitude: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”]
Links:
http://www.thirstythenovel.com
http://www.kristinbairokeeffe.com
http://www.swallowpress.com
