Corvallis writers

On Wednesday, amid the lovely snow, I enjoyed a lunch lecture at the Corvallis city library by the OSU English department chair Tracy Daugherty on the subject of Janna Malamud Smith's new memoir My Father is a Book. Although I walk past the Malamud Room, the English department student lounge in Moreland Hall, many times each day, I really didn't know much about Bernard Malamud, OSU professor back when it was still Oregon State College. (This unofficial Malamud page has some information, with some incorrect links, sadly.) Tracy - himself author of a number of novels and short stories, winner of the Oregon Book Award 3 times, and now writing a biography of his mentor, author Donald Barthleme - did a lovely job providing background, evocative glimpses of Malamud, reading some excerpts, and interpreting the intersections between biography, memoir, and fiction.