Poet and professor Miller Williams: 'When I Am Dead, My Dearest'

The wry poet Miller Williams, who founded the University of Arkansas Press and was father of  singer Lucinda Williams, died Thursday in Fayetteville, Ark., of complicatons of Alzheimer's, reports the New York Times. He was 84.
Mr. Williams was the editor of my first book of poetry, and he called me one day at work to go over my manuscript. He named a few of the poems included and said, "These poems don't interest me at all. Let's get rid of them."
He spoke with such cool authority that those poems suddenly no longer interested me either.
"Yes," I agreed. "By all means, let's take them out."
I wish I could remember some of the nice things he said about the manuscript. But, of course, I can't.
Mr. Williams taught for three decades at the University of Arkansas, and he published 37 books. He delivered a poem at the Capitol for President Bill Clinton's second inauguration.

The New York Times story: 

When I Am Dead, My Dearest

Sing what you want to sing. Theologize.

Let anyone who wants to lie tell lies.

What will I care, back in the past tense

with no ambition and not a gram of sense,

back where I was before a fear and a wish

joined to form a sort of finless fish

that learned to walk and have lips and smile?

I will go there to wait an endless while,

and neither think that wrong nor wish it right,

more than a rock in darkness hopes for light.

You will say my name, but less with years,

the children less than you and more than theirs.

It's mostly our names, as they fray and thin,

blown on the breaths of aging friends and kin,

that in some tugging moments we may seem

to sleep on a little past the dream.

-- from "Adjusting to the Light," University of Missouri Press, 1992.

Interested in writing romance novels? Myra Johnson offers inspiration

Myra Johnson

Six years ago, Myra Johnson of Charlotte had not published a single adult novel. Eight years later, she's the author of 10 novels (the 11th due in October), and the most recent one, "When the Clouds Roll By" (Abingdon Press), has just won the 2014 Christian Retailing's Best Award in the historical fiction category.

So what's her secret?

Long years of hard work, she says. Writing, writing, writing. Showing up at critique groups. Re-writing, re-writing, re-writing.

Then, a boost. In 2005, Johnson entered a manuscript in a contest and received a RWA (Romance Writers of America) Golden Heart for Best Inspirational Romance Manuscript.
In 2008, she read a notice that an editor at Abingdon Press was looking for unpublished romance writers "who had paid their dues."

Johnson sent a manuscript, and within a month she had landed a book contract with Abingdon. Within another month, she had a contract for a second novel with another publisher.

Johnson and her husband moved to Charlotte three years ago from Tulsa, Okla., to be near one of their two daughters, who was expecting her third child. They settled in an area just southeast of Charlotte, near Matthews, which also happens to be the locale of a recent trilogy of Johnson's: "A Horseman's Heart," "A Horseman's Gift," and "A Horseman's Hope" (Harlequin Romance).
The latest trilogy, which opens with the award-wining "When the Clouds Roll By," is set in Hot Springs, Ark., as World War I is ending.

Johnson is president of the Charlotte chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers. If you'd like to visit the group, email her at mj@myrajohnson.com.