On Oct. 4, The Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative and Mary B. Martin School for the Arts presented speaker Margaret Renkl, contributing opinion writer of the New York times and author of the books Late Migrations and Graceland, At Last. The event was held in Roger Stout 118 where Renkl spoke about her experiences as a writer, a mother and a born lover of nature.
Rooted in her work, Renkl includes her sense of family orientation and her attachment to nature in her writing as she recalls early pictures of her home in Nashville, Tennessee, alongside her mother and her younger brother, Billy.
“One of the gifts of being 60 years old is that I grew up in a time before cable television, cellphones, before air conditioning for much of my childhood,” Renkl said. “So, the line between the natural world and the human world was so blurry for me.”
Before her career at New York Times, Renkl was an editor for an online magazine named Chapter 16, A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby, where she supported and promoted small Tennessean authors.
“There was not anything else like Chapter 16. It didn’t exist anywhere else; we were making that up as we went along,” Renkl said.
From humble beginnings, Renkl’s one-word advice to aspiring writers is: write.
Professor of English and poet in residence, Dr. Graves is the director of the Bert. C Bach Written Word Initiative, a sponsored series that ETSU Provost, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Intern president Dr. Bach founded. This is the 7th year of the series, and having Renkl’s visit in the making for a few years, Dr. Graves hopes for the initiative’s success to grow.
“I think to read Margaret Renkl is to be treated with kindness, to be given something,” Dr. Graves said on her visit.
Renkl’s books Late Migrations and Graceland, At Last are on sale now and can be found at local bookstores across Tennessee. For more information about her and her work, visit her website at Margaretrenkl.com.
