Carol Bly
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| Born: | April 16, 1930 Duluth, Minnesota (USA) |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | short story writer, essayist, nonfiction |
| Nationality: | American |
| Writing period: | 1970s - present |
| Website: | http://www.carolbly.com |
Carol Bly (b April 16, 1930 in Duluth, Minnesota as Carol McLean) is a teacher and an award-winning American author of short stories and essays, as well as nonfiction works on writing. Her work often features Minnesota women who must identify the moral crisis that is facing their community or themselves and enact change through empathy, or opening one's eyes to the realities of the situation.
Bly is the mother of Mary Bly, who writes best-selling romance novels as Eloisa James.
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[edit] Early Years
[edit] Childhood
The youngest of four children, and the only female, Carol McLean was born in Duluth, Minnesota[1] and was exposed to literatue from a very young age. Her uncle was a personal friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and her own neighbor was Sinclair Lewis.[2]
Because her mother suffered from tuberculosis and spent much time away from the family being treated in sanitariums, Bly was sent to live with two of her aunts in rural North Carolina for ten years. Although Bly thought her aunts were incredibly mean to her, they also did their part to encourage her to love stories and the characters she found in books.[3]
Bly's mother died in 1942, at a time when two of her older brothers were also fighting in World War II. As a young teen, Bly worried for the safety of her family and often had nightmares about the Gestapo. Although her family dismissed her fears, telling her that dreams aren't real, Bly never lost her preoccupation with the damage that evil people could do.[1]
[edit] Marriage
After graduating from the Abbot Academy boarding school[3] Bly received her B.A. in English and history from Wellesley College in 1951 and spent several years working in New York and Boston[1] before undertaking graduate-level work at the University of Minnesota in 1954 and 1955.[4] While at Wellesley, Bly met Robert Bly, a future author and poet, on a blind date. They married in 1955 and moved to the small town of Madison, Minnesota to live on Robert Bly's family farm, which at the time had no running water.[1] The family lived a relatively simple life, and as she once told a disbelieving census taker, instead of owning a television they entertained themselves with their five thousand plus books.[5] Their house was usually filled with visiting poets, including Donald Hall, James Wright, and Bill Holm, all of whom were asked to do their share of chores before Bly would feed them.[1]
The couple had four children, Micah[citation needed], Bridget, Noah, and Mary, who is now an English professor at Fordham University and a best-selling romance novelist under the pseudonym Eloisa James. Although Bly has often wished that her daughter would concentrate on writing more literary works, she is supportive of Mary's career, even contributing a crossward puzzle to the Eloisa James website[6]
[edit] Career
While her children were small, Bly worked in the fields when necessary and somehow found time to manage the literary journals published by her husband and William Duffy,[1] Fifties and Sixties, as well as managing their business, the Sixties and the Seventies Press.[7]
At the beginning of the next decade, Bly was asked to write a monthly column, "A Letter from the Country" for the Minnesota Public Radio Magazine. Writing these short essays about rural life taught her how to think and to express herself well in a relatively small number of pages. Thses essays were later compiled into the book Letters From the Country, published in 1981. Several of her other stories were also combined into the movie Rachel River, which starred Craig T. Nelson.[8]
[edit] Works
Bly's short stories are known for their realistic characters and situations, which are fully developed within the small number of pages the story allows.[9] Although many of her stories are set in Minnesota, the people and the situations transcend local boundaries, emphasizing pride in your work, resourcefulness, the ability to laugh at yourself, and the ability "to hold values beyond one's own immediate welfare."[10]
Inspired by Robert Bly's co-founding of American Writers Against the Vietnam War in 1966, Bly uses her literature to reflect modern-day conerns.[1] Her work is in many ways an ethical treatise, always featuring a "bully", embodied by either a person or a corporation, who takes pleasure in forcing his will on another person or group of people. Some of her stories also feature "evil," which, to her, is seen in people or organizations which find enjoyment in enslaving, humiliating, or crushing their opponents. The stories emphasize redemption through empathy, which, to Bly, is the step of deliberately looking at how one's actions impact others.[11]
A typical Bly protagonist is usually a very conventional woman who has been content to live in "ignorant complacency," but, through her own strength and intelligence must first identify the moral crisis facing either her or her community and then work to accomplish change. In her best works, the moral center is hard to find, as each character has some claim to the reader's sympathies.[10]
[edit] Teaching
After Bly and her husband were divorced in 1979[12], she left the farm and began a second career as a teacher. She has taught at Hamline University, the Vermont Studio Center, Centrum, and the University of Minnesota,[7] as well as serving as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Carleton College.[13]
To reach a broader audience, Bly has written several books to assist others in learning to write well. Rather than concentrate on the technical basics of writing a story, these books provide tips for writing a story that is "morally, politically, and emotionally deep."[14] Her books are somewhat controversial, as they encourage students to use "the sort of 'empathetic questioning' therapists and social workers use" in order to find their strongest feelings and amplify their ideas.[3]
These principles are demonstrated during the four creative writing workshops that Bly teaches each spring in St. Paul, Minnesota as well as in the talks and readings she gives throughout the year.[4] The workshops are of limited size, usually including only eight students, with Bly lecturing as well as providing individual advice and criticism of the student's works.[15]
[edit] Recognition
Bly was awarded the 2001 Minnesota Humanities Award for Literature. She has previously been named the University of Minnesota Edelstein-Keller Distinguished Minnesota Author (1998-1999) and the Minnesota Women's Press Favorite Woman Author (2000).[4]
A past member of the Board of Directors for both The Loft (1991-1994) and Episcopal Community Services (1978-1979), Bly was also a member of the Minnesota Book and Literary Arts Building Authors' Advisory Group in 1999. She has designed workshops for Women Against Military Madness, National Association of Social Workers, and the Midwest Institute of School Social Workers, and was a consultant to the Land Stewardship Project from 1983-1992.[7]
[edit] Later Years
In 2003, Bly donated her correspondence, notes from writing workshops and classes she has taught, and drafts of her works to the University of Minnesota. The eighty-nine boxes of papers range from ones written when she was just a child to those written in her later years.[16] That same year, Bly and a friend, Cynthia Loveland, opened Bly and Loveland Press, a small publishing company which has so far published four books that they have written together.[17] Their press also sells custom crossword puzzles, which Bly designs.[18]
Bly has been successfully cured of breast cancer.[1] She lives in Sturgeon Lake, Minnesota and St. Paul, Minnesota.[2]
[edit] Selected Bibliography
[edit] Fiction
- Backbone: Short Stories
- The Tender Organizations
- The Tomcat's Wife and Other Stories
- My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories (2000)
- Shelter Half
[edit] Essays
- Letters from the Country (1981, reissued 1999)
- An Adolescent's Christmas: 1944 (1999)
- Bad Government and Silly Literature: An Essay
- Soil and Survival: Land Stewardship and the Future of American Agriculture
- Changing the Bully Who Rules the World (1996)
[edit] Books on Writing
- Beyond the Writer's Workshop: New Ways to Write Creative Nonfiction (2000)
- The Passionate, Accurate Story (1990, reissued 1997)
[edit] With Cynthia Loveland
- Three Readings for Republicans and Democrats
- Stopping the Gallop to Empire
- A Shout to American Clergy
- Against Workshopping Manuscripts
[edit] Awards and Recognition
- 2001 - Minnesota Humanities Award for Literature
- 2000 - Minnesota Women's Press Favorite Woman Author
- 1998-1999 Edelstein-Keller Author of Distinction, University of Minnesota
- 1994 - Friend of School Social Work, Minnesota School Social Workers' Association
- 1992 - Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Northland College
- 1991 - Friend of American Writers Award
- 1991 - Bush Foundation Artists Fellowship
- 1990 - Minnesota State Annual Book Award, for essays
- 1990 - Minnesota State Arts Board Individual Artist Grant
- 1985 - South Dakota Council of Teachers of English Certificate of Honor
- Seabury-Western Theological Seminary Distinguished Christian Service Award
- Ramsey County Women's Political Caucus Founding Feminist
- Minnesota Women's Consortium Distinguished Minnesota Leader Award
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Grossmann, Mary Ann (1999). Reviews For: AN ADOLESCENT'S CHRISTMAS: 1944. Star Tribune. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ a b Carol Bly. Writers Rising Up. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ a b c Trespas, Paula. Close Up: Carol McLean Bly - Teaching students to dig deep for writing gems. Spring 2002. Andover. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ a b c d Carol Bly Biographical Information. CarolBly.com (2003). Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Bly, Mary (June 2005). What It's Like to Lead a Double Life. More Magazine. Retrieved on February 7, 2007.
- ^ Grossmann, Mary Ann (February 14, 2006). Secret Romance. St Paul Pioneer Press. Retrieved on February 7, 2007.
- ^ a b c d Carol Bly. Minnesota Historical Society. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ James, Caryn (February 17, 1989). Review/Film; Plain Jane, Her Perils and Pathos. New York Times. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Books: My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories. CarolBly.com. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ a b Thoreen, David. Ask Me About Carol Bly. PeaceWork. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Weshues, Kenneth (March 30, 1997). Review of Carol Bly, CHANGING THE BULLY WHO RULES THE WORLD (Milkweed Editions, 1996). Catholic New Times. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Quinn, Francis (April 2000). An Interview with Robert Bly. Paris Review. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Welcome to the Carol Bly website!. CarolBly.com (2003). Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Books: The Passionate, Accurate Story. CarolBly.com. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Upcoming Talks and Workshops. CarolBly.com (2003). Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Carol Bly Papers, 1936-2003. University of Minnesota Elmer L. Andersen Library. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ About Bly and Loveland Press. Bly and Loveland Press. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
- ^ Nifty Crosswords. Bly and Loveland PRess. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
