Funeral Director Brings Award-Winning Prose to Alma College
Look
at Thomas Lynch's resume and an odd combination leaps out;
award-winning essayist, poet and funeral director. Characterized as a
cross between Garrison Keilor and one of the Irish poets, Lynch breaks
the dark stereotype of mortician with his direct, earthy and funny
manner.
The Milford, Mich., resident brings his outlook on life to Alma College Jan. 26 for a workshop titled “Good Death, Good Grief, and Good Funerals” and a public speech “Hearing Voices, Heeding Calls."
Lynch is the author of three collections of poetry: Skating with Heather Grace, Grimalkin & Other Poems and Still Life in Milford. His collection of essays, The Undertaking - Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, won the Heartland Prize for non-fiction, the American Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. A second collection of essays, Bodies in Motion and at Rest, won the Great Lakes Book Award.
He is an adjunct professor in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He lives in Milford, where for the past 25 years he has been a funeral director, and in West Clare, Ireland, where he keeps an ancestral cottage.
His evening public lecture, followed by a book signing, begins at 8 p.m. in the Remick Heritage Center Presbyterian Hall. His talk is free and no ticket is required. For ticket information visit http://www.alma.edu/news/remick_heritage.
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#050104 EV
Posted: Sun, January 16th, 2005 at 1:07PM
