Rebecca McClanahan Brings the Sights, Sounds, Tastes and Feelings of the Big City to Life “In the Key of New York City”
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:07:30 — 62.0MB)
In this episode 140, we visit with Rebecca McClanahan, author of eleven books, including her most recent release, “In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays.”
taRecipient of numerous writing awards, Rebecca shares what life was like–what she saw, felt, heard, tasted and experienced–while living in New York City from 1998 through 2009. She covers everything from the sounds and wonders of the setting to events that changed the world and her own life.
Abigail Thomas, New York Times bestselling author, comments on Rebecca McClanahan’s powers of observation, saying: “Rebecca McClanahan has such an intensely curious, observant, and highly intelligent mind that her take on anything would be interesting,” and of the book, she says: “particularly absorbing.”
We start the show with a reading from the essay, “Signs and Wonders,” where we hear the sounds of New York City artillery going off early in the morning.
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About the Author:
Rebecca McClanahan’s eleventh book, In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays, is published by Red Hen Press. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, Brevity, The Sun, River Teeth, and in anthologies published by Simon & Schuster, Beacon, Norton, and Bedford/St. Martin, among others.
Recipient of two Pushcart prizes, the Glasgow Award in Nonfiction, the Wood Prize from Poetry Magazine, (twice) the Carter Prize for the Essay, and the N.C. Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education, Rebecca teaches in the MFA programs of Rainier Writing Workshop and Queens University and in the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop.
In 1998, Rebecca and her husband Donald moved to New York City and returned to Charlotte in 2009 to be closer to family. Her life in New York is reflected in her latest book.
Rebecca’s interest in words came early. Thanks in part to her Great Aunt Bessie, who was an avid reader and with whom she shared a room for several years, Rebecca read everything she could get her hands on–from the Bible and classic novels and poetry to crime thrillers and Hardy Boys mysteries and seed catalogues and the backs of cereal boxes
When Rebecca isn’t writing or teaching, she is mentoring, or giving talks and readings and putting in hours at another occupation: professional aunt. The current count is 15 nephews and nieces and 21 greats-. Some days she fears she is channeling her Great Aunt Bessie and that she will live out her twilight years sharing a double bed with one of the great nieces, reading seed catalogues aloud until they both fall, exhausted, into dream. Other days, she thinks maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad way to go. Certainly there are worst fates. And, yes, she still composes songs in the bathtub.
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Rebecca McClanahan’s Books:
In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays (Red Hen Press, 2020)
Word Painting: The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively, second edition (Writer’s Digest Books, 2014)
The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change (Indiana University Press, 2013)
Deep Light: New and Selected Poems, 1987-2007 (Iris Press, 2007)
The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings (University of Georgia Press, 2002)
Write Your Heart Out (Walking Stick Press, Writer’s Digest Books, 2001)
Naked as Eve (Copper Beech Press, 2000)
Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively, first edition (Writer’s Digest Books, 1999)
The Intersection of X and Y (Copper Beech Press, 1996)
One Word Deep: Lectures and Readings (Ashland Poetry Press, 1993)
Mrs. Houdini (University Presses of Florida, 1989)
Mother Tongue (University Presses of Florida, 1987)
I Dream So Wildly: An Anthology of Children’s Poetry (Edited, with Frye Galliard, Briarpatch Press, 1986)
Scenes of Rebecca in New York
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