|
|
|
|
The
Marcy Stories
The
2002 Banta Award BOOK The bittersweet tales tell of growing up as a sensitive child in a dysfunctional family in which unspoken secrets lurk beneath the surface. The reader gets to know and like Marcy and feels that she is a real person. The photographs included in the novel are actual photos from the author’s own childhood, which helps readers form a mental picture of Marcy. We experience many "firsts" in Marcy’s life, for example: first kiss, first love, first loss, first lessons. Searching for her own identity and moving beyond her past, Marcy evolves from attending the school of her father’s choice, and majoring in Home Economics, also his choice, to an adult who has found her own career teaching communications at a Wisconsin university. The book opens with "Daddy’s Car," in which Marcy visits her aged and frail father and coping mother. The visit--Marcy’s first trip home in years-- triggers her childhood memories as well as painful questions about the past. Succeeding stories flash back to those early years, then move forward into Marcy’s adult life and quest for understanding and forgiveness. In the closing story "Reinventing Leah," her mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and we view the world and mother-daughter bonds through Leah’s confused and fanciful eyes. Wisconsin author Jane Hamilton says of The Marcy Stories, "The passages that Fran Zell’s characters make into knowing the world, and knowing themselves, are vividly felt in these stories that are funny and sad in just the right way." The
AUTHOR Fran Zell grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and attended Cleveland Heights High School. She is a graduate of Michigan State University and has a Masters of Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She moved to Madison in 1992. Fran is a former feature writer and restaurant critic for the Chicago Tribune. Her work has appeared in numerous other publications, including Other Voices, Playgirl Magazine, The Writers of Wisconsin, 1995, Lonesome Traveller Press, Key Log Press, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, Madison Magazine, Isthmus, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Wisconsin Poets Calendar. Her plays include the musical "Lavender Rose" and "Meat Marketing," which was produced in New York City during a one-act play festival. Fran has been a resident writer at Ragdale, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Dorset Colony. She is a recipient of a Spring, 2000 grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund/Money for Women Foundation. Fran has taught poetry in Wisconsin schools through the Wisconsin Arts Board Arts in Education Program. She recently completed the teacher certification program at Concordia University and is currently an English teacher. The Marcy Stories is her first book of published fiction. She also wrote a book for middle school children called A Multicultural Portrait of the American Revolution (Benchmark Books, 1995). She writes poetry, plays, reviews, radio essays and other nonfiction. She is currently working on her second novel Where Cats Go, Ghosts Follow. It has been a runner up in two national novel-in-progress competitions. 2002
WLA Literary Awards Committee Members
|
Readers Home Page| LAC Home| WLA Units | WLA Home | A to Z | Search
Please send Committee
questions to:
Chair
|
