A loss

Helen Dunmore

1952-2017

I learned of Helen's death on Facebook. Her birth and death dates were posted by Lynne Reese, one of my seven "cohorts" in my Masters in Creative Writing program(me) at Glamorgan University, Pontypridd, Wales and a poet whose work I adored.

The program had four aspiring poets and four hopeful novelists who spent eight weekends at the university over a two-year period, plus a writing retreat week at the retirement home of former prime minister David Lloyd George. In between we were sent home to write and write and write. 

The poets were expected to produce a publishable collection of poetry, the fiction writers a novel. All of us needed to write an academic thesis on an author or poet.

My novel, The Card, was later published in the US and Germany. My thesis was on John Irving.

Each weekend started on Friday night with a published writer, talking about their work. The rest of the weekend was critiquing. Each one of us had a reader/mentor whom we worked worth one-on-one. They scrutinized each word we produced.

Besides our grueling sessions with our mentors, we spent the rest of the time in a group critiquing session with the other cohorts and the other mentors, except for the one in session with their own person which might run an hour or more. Examining each other's work closely taught us much about writing as the writing-rewriting process itself.

Helen was one of the mentors, although not mine. She had not yet won the Orange Prize, for A Spell of Winter, the first given. The Orange Prize was awarded only to women writers, who were too often overlooked for the Man Booker Prize. She was long listed for that in 2010 for The Betrayal. Over the years she picked up many other prizes for her work.

We bemoaned in one cafeteria session (the refractory's food was terrible) that women's subjects were not taken as seriously as men's. It is true in all the arts. Mary Cassatt's and Camille Claudel's domestic paintings and sculptures were never given the consideration that male artists of the period were. Poet Erica Jung made a similar comment: "When Random House's Modern Library imprint issued a list this past summer of the best novels in English published during the twentieth century, surely I was not alone in noticing that only nine books written by women were among the designees."

As both a poet and novelist, Helen's comments during those long critiquing session were invaluable.  She'd push her long blond hair out of her eyes, hold the manuscript in her hand, mention the page number and paragraph and give her opinion. Our eyes would follow. Heads would nod.

When I was the target of  Helen's comments, I never felt attacked. She had a way about her delivery, that made me think, "Of course, why didn't I write it that way?" If she asked about motivation or back stories, order or any other part of the work, I knew she had honed in on a weakness and that her motivation was only to make the work stronger.

Last year she was supposed to come to the Geneva Writers Group as one of the master teachers and then had to cancel. I was disappointed because I would have loved to have seen her again, but more disappointed because the other writers would not get a chance to benefit from her writing wisdom.

Her novels and poetry rest a tribute to her talent, and for readers to enjoy.

 

When Random House's Modern Library imprint issued a list this past summer of the best novels in English published during the twentieth century, surely I was not alone in noticing that only nine books written by women were among the designees. The list created controversy–as lists are meant to do. - See more at: http://www.ericajong.com/articles/nation9812.htm#sthash.EPXJq3Oj.dpuf

When Random House's Modern Library imprint issued a list this past summer of the best novels in English published during the twentieth century, surely I was not alone in noticing that only nine books written by women were among the designees. The list created controversy–as lists are meant to do. - See more at: http://www.ericajong.com/articles/nation9812.htm#sthash.EPXJq3Oj.dpuf