Mourning Mentors
I lost another mentor this week. And her passing made me finally address the losses I’ve had this year. Kathleen E. Woodiwiss died this week. She was a romance novelist who blazed onto the scene in the 70s. Her work was groundgreaking because her stories did not end with a chaste kiss on the lips. Oh, no. there was acutal sex in her books. It was wonderfully, sensual sex and there was quite a bit of it. Moreover, the heroine’s had some backbone, and the cou
ples stayed together throughout the novel. That is a style I’ve longed admired and emulate in my own erotic works. Ms. Woodiwiss wrote highly engaging works that kept me enthralled (and thoroughly educated) in my teen years. Her first and most famous novel was The Flame and the Flower, but my favorite was Shanna. That may be because it had pirates in it at some point. And the hero, Ruark Beauchamp (I can remember his name off the top of my head, but still nothing from my economics classes), had a wicked sense of humor. She also inspired me to pick up a pen and give romnace writing a try. I owe her a great deal.
The other mentor I lost was a personal one. He died in January while we were still in the throes of finding an apartment. I couldn’t cope with his passing then. Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and poet. We met when he was a guest lecturer in my Graduate Writing Program at Temple University in the late 80s and kept in touch for a long time after that. He had seen a great deal of violence in his life covering the war in Angola, the fall of the Shah and Hallie Selassie, yet he was a gentle soul with a dry wit and a great sense of humor. His writing was much more than journalistic coverage of events. They were works of literature. I will always love him for agreeing with me that Jack Keroac had no deep insight into life in the US (what a fight that started during one lecture), and for telling me that I had talent as a writer at a time I really needed to hear it. His advice proved to be dead on. It has taken me decades of living to finally begin writing about a subject I was working on back when we met. Ryszard said I needed perspective to really write well about something close to my heart. It’s taken twenty years, but I’m finally ready to try. I’ll have a Heineken in his honor today to remember the night my fellow students took him bar hopping to talk about jazz and drink beer. It scandalized the Dean which I think tickled Ryszard to no end.
I am aware that these are divergent sources of inspriation, but that is the way of things with some writers. I caused no end of consternation in my graduate program. I think Ryszard admired that as well.
ples stayed together throughout the novel. That is a style I’ve longed admired and emulate in my own erotic works. Ms. Woodiwiss wrote highly engaging works that kept me enthralled (and thoroughly educated) in my teen years. Her first and most famous novel was The Flame and the Flower, but my favorite was Shanna. That may be because it had pirates in it at some point. And the hero, Ruark Beauchamp (I can remember his name off the top of my head, but still nothing from my economics classes), had a wicked sense of humor. She also inspired me to pick up a pen and give romnace writing a try. I owe her a great deal.The other mentor I lost was a personal one. He died in January while we were still in the throes of finding an apartment. I couldn’t cope with his passing then. Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and poet. We met when he was a guest lecturer in my Graduate Writing Program at Temple University in the late 80s and kept in touch for a long time after that. He had seen a great deal of violence in his life covering the war in Angola, the fall of the Shah and Hallie Selassie, yet he was a gentle soul with a dry wit and a great sense of humor. His writing was much more than journalistic coverage of events. They were works of literature. I will always love him for agreeing with me that Jack Keroac had no deep insight into life in the US (what a fight that started during one lecture), and for telling me that I had talent as a writer at a time I really needed to hear it. His advice proved to be dead on. It has taken me decades of living to finally begin writing about a subject I was working on back when we met. Ryszard said I needed perspective to really write well about something close to my heart. It’s taken twenty years, but I’m finally ready to try. I’ll have a Heineken in his honor today to remember the night my fellow students took him bar hopping to talk about jazz and drink beer. It scandalized the Dean which I think tickled Ryszard to no end.
I am aware that these are divergent sources of inspriation, but that is the way of things with some writers. I caused no end of consternation in my graduate program. I think Ryszard admired that as well.
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