WLA Literary Awards Committee

1986 Notable Wisconsin Authors

Mark L. Dintenfass, 1941-

Although he grew up in Brooklyn, Mark Dintenfass now lives in Appleton, where he has been a member of the faculty at Lawrence University since 1968. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University in 1963 and 1964, respectively, and served for two years in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia, teaching English at Haile Selassie 1 University. Upon his return, he received an MFA degree from the University of Iowa, where his first novel, Make Yourself an Earthquake, was written while he was at the Writer's Workshop.

Dintenfass has written five other novels, all of which have received national critical attention. His most recent novel, A Loving Place, was published earlier this year. He also has had a short story, "Picture of Em," published in the Wisconsin Academy Review. All of his novels have a strong New York flavor and primarily New York settings; however, in several of his works, casual references to Wisconsin create an added interest for state readers.

As an undergraduate, Dintenfass had considered becoming a movie or theater critic and wrote drama reviews for the campus paper. He also thought about writing plays, but he decided "pretty early on not to write plays, because the thought of other people mucking around with my work turned me off." Although his main duties at Lawrence are the courses that he teaches in creative writing and twentieth-century American fiction, he has maintained his interest in the theater, teaching a modern drama course and directing several student productions. His most recent directorial outing, a production of Brecht's Mother Courage performed in February of this year, received enthusiastic reviews.

Dintenfass is married and is the father of two sons.

Writings:

Novels:
Make Yourself an Earthquake, 1969.
The Case Against Org, 1970.
Figure 8, 1974.
Montgomery Street, 1978.
Old World, New World, 1982.
A Loving Place, 1986.

Short Story:
"Picture of Em," Wisconsin Academy Review 30.3 (1984)

Edna Kritz Meudt, 1906-1989

Edna Meudt was born on a farm in Wyoming Valley, Wisconsin, in 1906. In 1924 she married Peter Meudt and began a career as a farm wife. After her husband died in 1972 she continued to manage their two farms. Her first poem was written out of pain and shock when her second son was reported "lost at sea". Although the report proved to be false, the poem was published in 1944, and Meudt's second career was launched. Since then her poems have appeared in American Weaver, Beloit Poetry Journal, National Wildlife, American Forests, Sign, Christian Century, Creative Wisconsin and other journals. Five volumes of poetry have been published, and her works have been included in anthologies published by the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

Meudt has taught at the Rhinelander Seminar and Festival of the Arts and has conducted poetry workshops at writers conferences and in Wisconsin high schools. She has lectured on poetry in colleges, has participated in Poets-in-the-Schools projects, and edits a quarterly poetry journal, The Country Poet. Herbert Kubly writes in his introduction to The Ineluctable Sea,

She is an earth mother, the Grand Dame (an epithet she does not cherish) of the arts in Wisconsin. She is a raconteur, folklorist and historian, and all these roles are projected in her poetry which is at varying times lyric, nostalgic, elegiac and monumental.
She has received several awards and honors, including the National League of American Pen Women prize, 1976, for The Ineluctable Sea; Council for Wisconsin Writers prize, 1977, for Promised Land; and the University of Wisconsin award of distinction, 1978.

Writings:

Poetry
Round River Canticle, 1960.
In No Strange Land, 1964.
No One Sings Face Down, 1970.
The Ineluctable Sea, 1975.
Plain Chant for a Tree, 1980.
Promised Land: Life and Times of Henry Dodge, 1981.
Play
A Case of Semantics

1986 WLA Literary Awards Committee Members