Michael N. McGregor

Latest Posts

  • Three Thoughts About…Symbols

    Three Thoughts About…Symbols

    1. A symbol is an object or action invested with greater significance than it would have if taken only at face value. Pearls, for example, are simply bits of organic residue left by an oyster. Because we prize them for their beauty and rarity, however, they can become potent symbols in a story. A poor woman’s refusal to sell a string of heirloom pearls inherited from her mother might symbolize: her love for her dead parent, her pride in her family of origin, the feeling of dignity she derives from her ancestry, or her unwillingness to give up hope of a better life. If she becomes so desperate for food or shelter or love she considers selling the pearls, their symbolic value helps us understand just how deep her desperation is.

    2. A symbol is often used to: a. highlight an important aspect of a particular character; b. focus the reader’s attention on some particular part of a story; c. point to a greater possible meaning.

    3. One of the dangers of symbols is they can become easy shorthand for ideas and especially emotions that should be developed more fully and organically in a story. Sentimentality relies heavily on symbols to create what some call “unearned emotion.” So does melodrama. And politics. Symbols misused in this way include: American flags, babies, suffering animals, and racist caricatures (such as the infamous Willie Horton ad used by the George H. W. Bush presidential campaign).

    Since this is the first in my series of entries about different aspects of writing and being a writer, here’s a bonus thought:

    Many short stories are built around the central symbol in their titles. Oft-anthologies examples include: William Faulkner’s The Bear, Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl, Louise Erdrich’s The Red Convertible, Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, Tillie Olsen’s I Stand Here Ironing, John Cheever’s The Swimmer, D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado.

  • Announcing a New Series of Posts about Writing and Being a Writer

    Announcing a New Series of Posts about Writing and Being a Writer

    Just over a year ago, I took early retirement after 20+ years of teaching writing at the college level to focus on my own work. Most of those years I taught literary nonfiction or fiction to both graduate and undergraduate students. The students at my last school, Portland State University, honored my efforts by voting me the English department’s Outstanding Teacher five times in 17 years, almost every year I was eligible.

    I continue to work with individual writers and teach in summer programs at the Collegeville Institute in Minnesota and the Manhattanville College MFA’s Summer Writers’ Week, but I no longer have regular, year-long exposure to students. So, before I forget all I talked about in those classes, I’ve started writing a book about writing and being a writer.

    As I work on the book, I’m going to be posting a series of short meditations on different aspects of both writing and living as a writer, to be called Three Thoughts About… The thoughts in the individual entries might be formal or informal, technical or creative, practical or whimsical. I’m hoping mostly just to have fun with them and share some of what I’ve learned in my decades of both teaching and writing.

    To see the many kinds of writing I’ve done myself, click on the About link above. And please let me know what you think of my Three Thoughts About… entries or, better yet, share them with others by linking to them on social media or your own website.

  • Great New Books for Your Reading List!

    Every year around this time, it seems, friends, acquaintances and former students publish a bunch of wonderful books. To help get the word out and give you some reading ideas, here are brief descriptions and links:

    1. TWO of the best books of ROBERT LAX‘s poetry are being reissued in paperback after many years of being impossible to find for a reasonable price:

    33 POEMS (my favorite Lax collection), New Directions–out today!

    LOVE HAD A COMPASS, Grove Press. This one came out last week.

    2. THE ATLAS OF REDS AND BLUES by my grad school classmate Devi S Laskar, Counterpoint Press. This chilling and deeply personal novel shows the ramifications of racism in this country. It has been praised everywhere. Published in early February.

    3. MOTHER WINTER by my former student Sophia Shalmiyev, Simon & Schuster. Another book being lauded all over, this one is a feminist memoir about Sophia’s harrowing early childhood and the move to America that meant leaving her troubled mother behind. It’s also about becoming a mother herself. Released two weeks ago.

    4. SURVIVAL MATH by another former student of mine, Mitchell S. Jackson, Scribner. In this memoir/social investigation, Mitchell looks at the various members of his African-American family and the different ways they dealt with and were affected by the poverty, violence, drugs–and community and love–in his North Portland neighborhood. This one doesn’t come out until March 5 but it’s already receiving all kinds of press.
    (If you haven’t read Mitchell’s prize-winning novel, The Residue Years with a similar theme, do that too!)

    5. THE GOSPEL OF TREES by yet another former student, Apricot Anderson Irving, Simon & Schuster. I wrote last winter about this beautiful memoir of growing up in a missionary family in Haiti and the questions about faith, cross-cultural interactions and one’s own place in the world it addresses. I’m including it this year because the paperback comes out March 26.

    6. HALF THE CHILD by another grad school classmate, William J. McGee, William J. McGee. This novel takes you inside the relationship and struggles of a divorcing dad and his toddler son–a rare, compassionate view. Already available.

    7. PLACEMAKER: CULTIVATING PLACES OF COMFORT, BEAUTY, AND PEACE by Christie Purifoy, Zondervan. I worked with Christie during one of my Collegeville Institute writing weeks. Starting from her restoration of a Pennsylvania farmhouse and the idea that we are all gardeners in one way or another, Christie writes about the need to create and live within beauty. Comes out on March 12.

    8. CONFESSIONS OF A BAREFACED WOMAN by Allison Joseph, Red Hen Press. Allison was my colleague at Southern Illinois University two decades ago and has sent many beautiful poetry books into the world since then. This is one of her most personal, “highlighting in turns light-hearted and harsh realities of modern black womanhood” (says the Amazon description).

    9. LOSING MY RELIGION by William Mills, Resource Publications. I worked with Bill at Collegeville too. This is his story of taking over as the priest at an American Orthodox congregation and the chaos that ensued.

    10. INHERITANCE by Dani Shapiro, Knopf. I taught with Dani in the Manhattanville College MFA Summer Writers’ Week last year. If you’ve been paying attention, you probably know about this memoir of learning through DNA testing that her father wasn’t her biological father and the upset that caused in the life Dani had made for herself. It came out in mid-January and has become a bestseller already.

    11. REAL DAUGHTER by Lynn Otto, Unicorn Press. Lynn was in the poetry program at PSU but took a couple of classes from me and has become a good friend. I heard her read from the book and it is lovely. You can hear her read poems from it yourself here: https://player.fm/…/flash-briefing-lynn-otto-reads-yolked-f…

    12. SEARCHING FOR SYLVIE LEE by Jean Kwok, William Morrow. Jean was my classmate in the MFA program at Columbia. This novel doesn’t come out until June 4 but it is already receiving HUGE press, including appearing on many “most anticipated” lists. It looks amazing.

    13. I AM A STRANGER HERE MYSELF by my former colleague in the nonfiction program at PSU, Debra Gwartney, University of New Mexico Press. It comes out March 1. This book won last year’s River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. I’ve read excerpts and it’s wonderful. It’s a researched meditation on Narcissa Whitman, the first white woman in the Northwest, and a memoir of the strong women in Debra’s family, who have lived in the NW for generations. (If you haven’t read Debra’s last memoir, the popular and intense Live Through This, go get that one too!)

  • Here’s to You, Mr. Robinson

    I keep thinking about Frank Robinson, the Hall of Fame baseball player who died at 83 three days ago. He was the first African American to manage a MLB team and the only man to be named MVP in both leagues. I’ll list some of his other achievements below, but first a personal story:

    The 1970 Baltimore Orioles (with the two Robinsons, Frank and Brooks) were one of my favorite teams of all time. That October, when they beat Frank’s old team, the Cincinnati Reds, in the World Series in five games, I had just “purchased” a tiny, tiny transistor radio, probably with Bazooka Joe bubblegum wrappers. In those days, Series games were played during the daytime during the week. I took that radio to my grade school and listened to the Series in class, with the left side of my head turned away from the teacher so he couldn’t see the thin line of the wire attached to the earbud in my left ear. I never got caught.

    That 1970 Orioles team had seven All-Stars on it, and except for Frank, who was paid $125K, none of them made more than $65K. The Series that year, by the way, featured the first African American ever to umpire a Series: Emmett Ashford.

    Okay, here are some more of Frank Robinson’s achievements:

    1956 Rookie of the Year
    1958 Gold Glove
    1961 National League MVP (Cincinnati)
    1966 Triple Crown (tops in HRs, RBIs & batting average)
    1966 World Series MVP (Baltimore won it that year too)
    1966 American League MVP (Baltimore)
    12-time All-Star
    1975 1st black MLB manager (Cleveland Indians)
    1989 American League Manager of the Year (Baltimore)
    2005 Presidential Medal of Freedom

    Career stats:

    1,829 runs
    2,943 hits
    528 doubles
    586 HRs
    1,812 RBI
    204 stolen bases
    .294 batting average

    RIP, Mr. Robinson. Thank you for giving so much pleasure and inspiration to a little white boy with a tiny radio.

  • IN HIS OWN WORDS: A TRIBUTE TO BRIAN DOYLE — 7 p.m., Thursday, March 28, in Portland

    IN HIS OWN WORDS: A TRIBUTE TO BRIAN DOYLE — 7 p.m., Thursday, March 28, in Portland

    I’m thrilled to announce I’ll be part of a reading called IN HIS OWN WORDS: A TRIBUTE TO BRIAN DOYLE at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, with these amazing authors:


    Robin Cody, David James Duncan, John Freeman, Jordan Imani Keith, Brenda Miller, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Kim Stafford, and Joe Wilkins. Chip Blake, editor of ORION, and Sy Safransky, editor of THE SUN, will speak too.


    The event will take place at the McMenamins Mission Theater & Pub (1624 NW Glisan, Portland, OR). It’s FREE but you need tickets, which will be available starting at 4 p.m. (PST) TODAY. (The theater seats about 200 people, but the organizers–ORION and THE SUN–think tickets will be snapped up quickly, so don’t wait!)

    To order tickets, go to: https://www.mcmenamins.com/mission-theater. You will go through what looks like buying a ticket, but in the end, there will be no charge, no asking for credit card info, etc.


    We’re all going to be reading pieces of Brian’s work. It should be a wonderful evening.

  • “The Story Catcher” is a Best American Essays 2018 “Notable Essay” Selection

    “The Story Catcher” is a Best American Essays 2018 “Notable Essay” Selection

    I just learned that my essay on Brian Doyle, “The Story Catcher,” published in the Autumn 2017 issue of Notre Dame Magazine is listed among the “Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction 2017” in Best American Essays 2018, edited by Hilton Als.

    A piece by Brian called “Everyone Thinks that Awful Comes by Itself, But It Doesn’t,” published in the February 2017 issue of The Sun, was selected too.

    It makes me very happy to see Brian honored in this way.

  • On TV: A Shot of John Belushi and Me in Our Only Movie Together

    On TV: A Shot of John Belushi and Me in Our Only Movie Together

    I went to the Stanford-Oregon game on Saturday night, which was broadcast nationally, and jokingly told a friend to look for me on TV, not knowing a picture of me had already appeared on that morning’s ESPN College GameDay. They showed a short video about “Animal House” that included this still. That’s me (in the center) and my college buddy Brad McCuaig behind John Belushi.

    The movie was shot on the University of Oregon campus in the fall of 1977 when I was just beginning my sophomore year there.  All you had to do to be in it was get a haircut, they said, so I lined up with the others and had my head shorn.  Then I worked as an extra for a week, meeting Belushi and the movie’s other future stars and playing fussball with Karen Allen once.  After a week, though, the standing around was too boring and I didn’t want to miss any more classes, so my time as a film actor ended.

    No one had any idea, of course–not even the director, John Landis–that the movie would go on to be one of the most iconic comedies of all time.  I remember a quote from Landis saying that the movie might do only modestly well but it would make stars of its young actors.  He was wrong on the first point but prescient on the second.  The young and mostly unknown actors in the movie who went on to big careers included Belushi, Allen, Kevin Bacon, Tom Hulce, and Peter Riegert.  In the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, my Bacon Number is 1.

  • My TIN HOUSE Essay on Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s THE EVERGLADES is now online

    Tin House has selected my essay on Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s classic environmental book, The Everglades: River of Glass, as one of their sample pieces online for the fall 2018 “Poison” issue.  Here’s the link.  Let me know what you think.

  • Speaking at a Celebration of Robert Lax at Poets House in NYC: 7 p.m., Friday, November 30

    Speaking at a Celebration of Robert Lax at Poets House in NYC: 7 p.m., Friday, November 30

    If you live in or around New York City, come down to Poets House at 10 River Terrace at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 30, for a Celebration of Robert Lax on his 103rd birthday.  I’ll be sharing stories about Lax and reading some of his poems, along with poet and former Lax literary assistant John Beer and poet Stacey Tran.  Lax’s niece and literary executor, Marcia Kelly, will be in attendance too.  It should be a wonderful evening of great poetry, fellowship and reminiscences.  The cost is: $10, $7 for seniors & students, free for Poets House members.

    Note: We were hoping we’d have copies available of New Directions’ reissue of Lax’s classic collection 33 Poems, but publication has been delayed until next February.  We’ll have advance copies for you to look at, though.

  • More About my Writing Residency in China This Fall

    I announced a couple of months ago that I’ve been asked to be a resident writer at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, this fall.

    I have a few more details about it:

    The residency is sponsored by the English Creative Writing Center at Sun Yat-Sen University, the only program in China focused on creative writing in English.  The programs founder and director is a writer herself, Dai Fan.

    The residency begins on October 22 and lasts through Nov. 18.   For the first two weeks, we’ll be in Yangshou in the Guangxi Autonomous Region with no duties other than writing.  (The featured image here, of Yangshou, is from the China and Asia Cultural Travel website.)  Next, we’ll spend a week at Sun Yat-sen’s main campus in Guangzhou, giving talks and readings and meeting with faculty and students.  Then, the last week, we’ll be back to writing, this time in Meizhou in Guangdong Province.

    I’ll be there with seven writers from six other countries–for information on them and their work, click on their names below:

    Charlson Ong, the Philippines

    Elisa Biagini, Italy

    James Scudamore, Great Britain

    Monica Aasprong, Norway

    Sally Ito, Canada

    Vladimir Poleganov, Bulgaria

    Zdravka Evtimova, Bulgaria

    I’ll post some of their work in the days ahead.

    I haven’t been blogging on this site lately but I will during my time in China.  For now, if you’re interested in learning more about the program and what I’ll be experiencing, check out this edition of Ninth Letter with links to creative works by participants in the program two years ago.