2007 Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award
Isms
Author: M. B. McLatchey
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“Isms” is the work of an original, smart, and talented writer. She has a great
storehouse of knowledge and a penetrating understanding of many subjects,
including human beings. It is wonderful to read someone who knows a capella,
Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, as well as Carol Channing and Hepburn (and
knows the difference). When has a school room been given such vivid
enunciation -- the dioramas, shoe boxes, sticker-stars, and clay figures, the
comfort of “half-truths” for other children, but not for Miss D’s. With a
“sideways glance,” they took it all in, and were forgiving, like Miss D (whose
door says welcome, an endless acquittal). It is difficult to see any of us
“condemned,” and yet, there are standards. Standards! I can’t go on admiring
line after line, when I am only on the first two pages in my commentary (and
my language is so stupid and pale in comparison), but that’s what this essay
does to me; it says look, see, remember. Word for word, sentence by
sentence, I am enthralled. Thank God for Miss D, and for being reminded that
at least one or two of my own teachers were, if not her equals, close sisters.
While the writer appears like a new comet on my horizon, I am wild to know
what this writer will do next. Meanwhile, she will be “graded,” though A+ hardly
describes my admiration.
-- Emily Herring Wilson, Judge
2007Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award