Bibliographical Data

Books - Foreign Editions

The Living - Italian version
An American Childhood - French version

Partial World Book Data

Tickets for a Prayer Wheel
(1974) (poems)

Reprinted in: Vital Signs: Contemporary American Poetry from the University Presses, (2 poems).
Barlow, Connie. "Songs That Science Gives Us."
Anima, (Spring, 1994). Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung (2 poems). Individual poems reprinted many other elsewheres!

 

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
(1974) (nonfiction narrative)

Book-of-the-Month Club, May, 1974. New York: Bantam, 1975. New York: Harper Colophon, 1985, 1988. Harper Perennial 25th-Anniversary edition with author's intro, 1999. London: 1976. Amsterdam: 1978. Stockholm: 1978. Tokyo: 1989. Paris: 1990, 1995. Berlin: 1996. Rome--sometime in 90's I think. Japan, China, Korea— many others.
Parts printed separately before publication as essays in: Harper's, August, 1973, October, 1973, February, 1974; The Atlantic, November, 1973; The Living Wilderness, Autumn, 1973, Winter, 1973, Spring, 1974; Prose, Spring, 1974. Poland, 2008. Anthologized mucho. London, Hesperus Press, 2008

 

Holy the Firm
(1977) (nonfiction narrative)

Parts printed separately before publication in Harper's, May 1976.
Anthologized often,in Gregory Wolfe, The New Religious Humanists, 1998; Amy Mandelelker & Elizabeth Powers, Pilgrim Souls, 1999; John D'Agata, The Next Essay, 2003. Many other places. I lost track. Shanghai, 2011.

 

Living by Fiction
(1982)(non-fiction narrative)

Parts printed separately before publication as essays in Harper's, August, 1980; Massachusetts Review, Spring, 1982; Twentieth Century Literature, Spring, 1982.
Anthologized in The Norton Reader, 1988. Many other places. I lost track. Shanghai, 2011.

 

Teaching a Stone to Talk
(1982) (narrative essays)

Parts printed separately before publication as essays in The Living Wilderness, Summer 1974, Winter 1974-1975, Spring, 1975; The Atlantic Monthly, February 1981; Harper's, May, 1975, October, 1975, December, 1977; Potomac, December 21, 1975; Antaeus, Spring/Summer, 1982; Yale Literary Magazine, June, 1982.
"Total Eclipse" on Audio Prose Library, American Prose Series (radio tapes).
The Weasel -- a fancy chapbook (from Teaching a Stone to Talk) Rara Avis Press, 1981 (limited edition). Many other places. I lost track. Shanghai, 2011.

 

Encounters with Chinese Writers
(1984) (nonfiction narrative)

Parts printed separately before publication as essays in Harvard Magazine, July-August, 1983; Radcliffe Quarterly, September, 1983; and as a small excerpt in Harper's, September, 1984. Anthologized in The Road Within, edited by three brothers named O'Reilly (San Francisco, 1997) and likely elsewhere. Many other places. I lost track.

 

An American Childhood
(1987)(memoir)

Parts printed separately before publication as essays in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, PEN Newsletter, ERATO (Harvard Poetry Room), Books and Religion (Winter, 1988), Literary Cavalcade (December, 1987), Pittsburgh Press Magazine, Hartford Courant's Northeast Magazine, American Heritage
Anthologized often, including 75 pages in Living with the Past, Great Books Foundation, with 9 other writers including Freud, Wordsworth, Garcia Marquez, Proust; The Norton Book of American Biography; quotation on gate to Seattle Mariners' stadium, 1999; Women Writers on Baseball, and other weird places and normal places. Many other places. I lost track.

 

The Writing Life
(1989) (non-fiction narrative)

Germany, 1997; France, 2008; Korea, 2008. Parts reprinted separately before publication as essays in Tikkun Vol. 3, No.6 (Nov./Dec., 1988); Esquire Vol. III No. 1 (January, 1989); The New York Times Book Review (May 28, 1989); Writing and Well-Being: TriQuarterly 75 (Spring/summer, 1989); Boston Review (August, 1989); Ploughshares: The Virtue of Writing (Vol. 15, Nos. 2 and 3); The Writer (November, 1989); Lettre internationale (Automne 89); Boston Monthly, August 89. Anthologized: "The Stunt Pilot" in Best American Essays, 1990, edited by Justin Kaplan and Robert Atwan, and in Thinking in Writing, 1998, ed. Donald McQuade and Robert Atwan, and in other many other places. I lost track. Shanghai, 2011. Quoted in Fish, Stanley, How to Write a Sentence, 2011, p. 1.

 

The Living
(1992) (novel)

Parts printed separately before publication in Elvis in Oz, an anthology, and Harper's ("The Living," November, 1978, and "A Trip to the Mountains," August, 1991). France, 1992; Italy, 1992; Denmark ,2007; Copenhagen, 2010; Warsaw, 2010. Many other places. I lost track.

 

Mornings Like This
(1995) (poems)

Parts anthologized in Charles Talkoff, ed. The Troubador: A Journal of International Writing, Vol I, Fall, 1995; in Scott Cairns and W. Scott Olsen, The Sacred Place; and in Impasto; Upholding Mystery, Oxford, 1997. Many other places. I lost track.

 

For the Time Being
(1999) (a non-fiction narrative)

Quoted in Foreign Policy web exclusive, Paul Slovic, March 2007. Quoted in DECISION RESEARCH from University of East Anglia July 14, 2005, Honorary Doctorate address by Paul Slovic. Parts printed separately (occasionally under bizarre titles)before publication in Ontario Review, Harper's Magazine, Paris Review, News from the Republic of Letters, Notre Dame, Northeast, Raritan and broadcast in altered form on NPR Morning Edition about a month after the 2004 Christmas tsunami. Many other places. I lost track.

 

The Maytrees
(2007) (novel)
France, 2006; United Kingdom, 2007; (Oi Maytrees) Athens, Greece, 2008; Korea, 2008; Poland, 2008, London, 2008. Athens, 2008 (Oi  Maytrees). Copenhagen, 2008. Athens, 2009. Shanghai, 2012.

Musical Compositions, Art Exhibits, and Plays

Sir Michael Tippett, "The Mask of Time," symphony commissioned for Boston Symphony, for Boston Centennial, Text partially from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. (Also recorded.) April 5, 1984.

Atlanta's Imaginary Theater, Holy the Firm, a 5-act play.

Triptych Productions and Small Change Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: The Unquiet Bestiary, August 91. Adaptations from Teaching a Stone to Talk and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

(unlikely) theatre: Mannie Manim Productions performed 5 narratives from Teaching a Stone to Talk at National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa

World Bank Choral Society, composition by Peter P. Pease. "Feast Days: Thanksgiving - Christmas," a choral celebration with orchestra. Text from poem of that name from Tickets for a Prayer Wheel. December 12, 13, 1989.

Masterworks Choral Ensemble. a composition by Liz Kennedy for Washington Centennial Celebration, Olympus, Washington, October, 1989. Text based on Holy the Firm.

Ram Island Theatre Company, Pentimento, choreographed by Daniel McCusker, text from an essay in Teaching a Stone

"An Expedition to the Pole" (from Teaching a Stone to Talk) adapted for the stage with orchestration by Gwyneth Walker, Gwyneth Walker Musical Productions, published by E.C. Schirmer Music Co., New York, 1990.

Jim Boros, composer. "Bivouac" (from poem of that title), performed April, 1992, by the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, at Merkin Concert Hall in Manhattan, and also at at SUNY Stony Brook.

Sally Heron, artist. Exhibition based on The Writing Life, HarperCollins Gallery, New York, 1992.

Mannie Manim Productions, Johannesburg, S. Africa, Civic Theatre, May: dramatization of 5 essays from Teaching a Stone to Talk.

Peter Adams, "Anthem" for Cathedral Choir on text from Holy the Firm (Birmingham, Ala)

James Harley, "Tyee," a duo for bass flute and percussion-- January 96, Toronto; "flung loose into the stars," February, 96, Toronto. Both from The Living.

Dan Welcher, composer. International Viola Congress, "Tickets for a Prayer Wheel" --based on my poem of that name, a work for baritone voice and solo viola. 1972.
"Words to an Organ Grinder's Music," in Vox Femina for soprano and 5 players, 1985
"Firewing: The Flame and the Moth" for oboe and percussion, 1987

David Evan Thomas, "An Epistemology of Planets" (poem) used as the text of "What We Know about Planets" Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY, May, 1999 premiere

"Holy the Firm," composition based on my book of that title written (?) or performed(?) by Primosch for Chamber Music Northwest may 99

"Holy the Firm," subtitle composition for cello and orchestra by Jake Heggie, premiere Oakland, CA Nov 15, '02.

Jenny Holzer, installation "For Pittsburgh," the entire book An American Childhood along with a John Edgar Wideman novel, in David L. Lawrence Convention Center, 2005.

One of the Few Things I know About Writing beautiful book, 2009, Best Design Award