Earlier this week I was shocked and saddened to read the New York Times obituary of author Larry Woiwode. We were not close nor can I say he influenced me in any tangible way. But for a brief while, he was my creative writing instructor at the University of Wisconsin in the spring of 1974.
It was a period of great emotional stress in both our lives. After the success of his first book, What I’m Going to Do, I Think, Larry was struggling to complete his master opus, Beyond the Bedroom Wall. I was struggling to find myself returning to graduate school after a traumatic interval of military service during the wind down of American involvement in the Vietnam War. According to the Times, writing this blockbuster nearly cost Mr. Woiwode his health, his wife, and his sanity. But it never showed in his conduct of our class nor in his comments about the quality and style of our writings. He was always incisive and supportive. And I, who had entertained aspirations of becoming a writer before being drafted into the Army, appreciated that.
Two things stand out in my memory of that class. One: Larry preached to us time and again that prose had to be written at least as well as poetry. Two: after I quit graduate school mid-semester and left for Boston with the woman who later would become my wife, Larry sent me his comments on my final short story which ended with “Best of luck to you and your chosen one.”
Did I need this blessing to justify my decision? I doubt it. Has it made a difference in how I view the world and my success within it? Perhaps. Though we write in different genres with different philosophies, I’ve always strived to maintain the reverence for the printed word that he did. That has shaped my life more than anything.