Relief engraving of the author by Barry Moser
Over 20 years ago, I had the pleasure of getting to know Mary Ward. From being a bookseller and getting readers for her first collection of short stories, Tongues of Flame, our friendship developed. Tongues of Flame won the Pen/Hemingway Award for Fiction.
Fanning the Spark: A Memoir is eloquent, incisive and reflects her immeasurable delight derived from writing and reading. She relates the importance of reading books and getting the meaning behind the writer’s words. Fanning expresses the diligent effort of understanding rightful writing. First a reader, then a writer. Qualities deeply understood by this great short story writer are beautifully and precisely reflected in her memoir.
Mary Ward expresses clearly the difficulties of being in one lifetime a good writer and a good person. The constant struggle between her need to write and the practicalities of family, duty and day-to-day living. This is a story of the competing demands of art and life.
Reading Mary Ward’s expression of her love of community and place often caused me to reflect on Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginning, while her later speeches and essays remind me of Eye of the Story. For fans of Ms. Welty’s nonfiction, Fanning the Spark is the perfect fit.
A beautiful lady, Mary Ward, has once more given her readers wide wisdom for understanding the living of life in fullness.
Below, from the jacket: She lives in the village of Hamburg, between Marion and Marion Junction, Alabama, in the same house where she was born and raised.
Photo Credit: Jerry Siegel
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