Writers' Bloc: Using Examples to Make a Point

If I told you that the Capital District is one of the most fertile areas for American novelists, you might view my comment with a bit of skepticism. After all, usually when people think of literary hot spots in this country, they think of major metropolitan areas such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago before they think of upstate New York. However, I do have four major examples to back up my argument, and as a writer, you, too, can use examples to make a point.

My first example is William Kennedy, an author who actually visited the campus during the spring of 2007 as part of HVCC READS. Kennedy grew up in Albany, graduated from Siena College, wrote for the Albany Times Union, and taught at the University at Albany. During his working years, he also began writing novels, primarily about the rich, political history of Albany. While his first few novels did not garner a lot of recognition, his fourth novel, Ironweed, was a phenomenal success. Not only did the book win the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, but it was also later made into a movie with Hollywood stars Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in the leading roles.

Another writer with ties to the Capital District is Toni Morrison. Originally from Ohio, Morrison earned her master’s degree from Cornell University in Ithaca. Before achieving literary fame, Morrison, like Kennedy, combined teaching and writing, and she, too, taught at the University of Albany. Though Morrison only worked at The University for five years, during that time, she wrote a book called Beloved. This book also won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988.

At about that same time, Steven Millhauser began teaching English at Skidmore College in Saratoga. Born and educated in New York City, Millhauser is still teaching at Skidmore over 20 years later. Though he maintains a rather low profile, Millhauser is well known in the literary world, and he has also won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He won the award in 1997 for his novel entitled Martin Dressler: the Tale of an American Dreamer.

Finally, the last member of this local Pulitzer-Prize-winning quartet is Richard Russo. Russo was born in Johnstown and grew up in Gloversville, two cities on the edge of the extended Capital District. Like William Kennedy, Russo draws upon his community of origin for his early novels. His fictional setting for those novels is a town called Mohawk, but the characters and the conflicts Russo writes about come straight from the dying industrial towns with which he is most familiar. In 2001, Russo published a novel called Empire Falls, and even though this novel takes place in Maine and Russo now lives in Maine, the theme of life in a dying mill town is reminiscent of his earlier works. And, yes, Russo’s Empire Falls also won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2002.

So what is the Pulitzer Prize, and why is it that authors with connections to the Capital District have won four times in the last 25 years? The answer to the first question is easy.
Each year, Columbia University in New York City offers a prize of $10,000 in various categories such as journalism, drama, music, and fiction. According to the website of the Pulitzer Prize committee, the annual award that Kennedy, Morrison, Millhauser, and Russo won is for “distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.”

If this were a cause-and-effect essay, I would definitely have to provide you with an answer to that second question. Since this is an example essay, however, I only need to provide you with the names and stories of Capital District writers who have achieved literary success to support my main idea that this is a fertile area for American novelists. Obviously, I don’t know why the novelists from this area are thriving, but if you have a theory or an idea, I’d love to hear from you; please send your thoughts to j.labate@hvcc.edu.

The Writing Center is located on the second floor of The Marvin Library, and you can go there for help at any stage of the writing process.