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Reading: Martha Gies: Broken Open
About Broken Open:
A memoir told in 18 essays exploring a life robustly and thoughtfully lived by acclaimed writer, activist and teacher Martha Gies, who is now entering her eighth decade. With dry wit, sharp insights, and deep empathy for the underdog, the memoir's three sections explore: Act One: The Illusions and Disillusions of Childhood: Waking up to the world, as experienced through the lenses of rural living, a deep love of Russian literature, grief following two untimely deaths in the family, and other complications. Act Two: The Search for Right Livelihood: A chaotic journey towards finding a vocation - from driving a cab at night to assisting a third-rate traveling magician - before a short-story writing workshop with Raymond Carver changes everything. Act Three: A Forgiving Assessment Of What It All Means: Exploring the tension between the memories we try to find and the memories that find us. Essays include an encounter with a former Los Alamos scientist; a priest fighting for human rights in Chiapas; and a drug addict turned drug counselor, among others. Broken Open is a collection of beautifully crafted stories told with a gift for humor and lived with the courage to face heartbreak.
Martha Gies began publishing in the 1970s, beginning with scattered local journalism and later, upon studying with Raymond Carver, stories and essays. Her literary work appears in many quarterlies and in various anthologies. In 2004, OSU Press published Up All Night, her portrait of Portland told through the stories of twenty-three people who work graveyard shift. This book was selected by both Salem's Statesman Journal and Portland's Oregonian as one of the Ten Best Regional Books of the year. In addition to her literary work, Gies has contributed to journalism and opinion pieces on themes that have preoccupied her for years: the human cost of gentrification in Portland's downtown; the methodical displacement of African-Americans from their NE Portland homes; and the "war on terror" waged against U.S. citizens in the wake of 9/11. She taught creative writing for 34 years, at four universities, in three graduate programs, and for Traveler's Mind, a program she founded to take English-speaking writers to developing nations throughout Latin America, several of them still struggling from the effects of U.S. foreign policy.
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Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2556261-0
