Author Joyce Dyer Presents Wolf Lecture at Mount Union College
April 6, 2010
Dr. Joyce Dyer, professor of English and director of writing at Hiram College presented the Wolf Lecture Wednesday night at Mount Union College with a public reading of some of her selected books and essays.
During a convocation Thursday morning, Dyer presented "Remembering, We Discover:'How a Memoirist Searches for Her Life.''''
She highlighted different writing processes that she found to be important while writing memoirs about her family members' lives.' Specifically, she referred to her book 'Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town.' Dyer, raised in Akron, explored the life of her father in the book, and through that journey of discovering her father's life, she recalled the importance of not simply relying on memories to write the nonfiction.'
'Memoirs can't stay exclusively in memory,' she stated.' 'Perception is not infallible.''
Although memories are not enough, she asserted that memoirists should not be discouraged, because through discovery the author will find truth.'
'I write memoirs not to remember but to discover my story,' said Dyer.'
Through her journey of writing various memoirs, she has realized 'all great literature is regional or local.'' With that in mind, she outlined several methods of research specifically helpful in gathering the information needed for memoirs ' the importance of the land; letters, diaries and interviews; and trips to places where the memoirs refer.
Dyer concluded by explaining that writing is not only horizontal by using a pen and paper, but vertical, which means that writing is shaped by research.
Dyer is also the author of 'The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings' and 'In a Tangles Wood: An Alzheimer's Journey''and the editor of 'Bloodroot Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers.'' She has published over 100 essays in magazines such as 'North American Review' and 'High Plains Literary Review.'' She has won numerous awards for her writing, including a 1997 Individual Artist Fellowship for the Ohio Arts Council and the 1998 Appalachian Book of the Year Award.'
The Eleanor Mincks Wolf Lecture was established by John L. Wolf of Medina in memory of his wife Eleanor. A'1939 graduate of Mount Union College, she was a former teacher of English and Latin in Richfield and Highland school districts.' The Wolf Lecture is free and open to the public.