October, 2004
Minnesotan writer Valerie Miner openly admits to not being interested in “catharsis.” It's an unusual statement for an author, perhaps more because readers expect catharsis at the end of a novel or story, but it's precisely the reader this award-winning writer has in mind when avoiding it. “The poet Eugenio Montale talks about the 'the second life of art',” she says in soft, considered tones. “He's talking about how the painting or the dance performance or the piece of literature recurs later in one's life, and how that's what's really most important.”

A quiet resonance is a sound characterization for both the author and her work, and it's her attempt at this more sophisticated level of impact that has made her 12 books consistently successful. Miner equates good writing with “providing a meadow in which readers will continue to walk and recall throughout their lives,” and the themes she often explores are as open-ended. Whether working in memoir, nonfiction, short fiction, or novels, she has probed the silent transitions: in friendship, in the negotiations of family, all among larger but equally unspoken influences of social justice and culture.

“I like writers who raise questions about how to live life, how to engage responsibly with the world as a civic person, how to engage responsibly and emotionally with others. The Hollywood world changes our vocabulary so the notion of action becomes violent. But there's action that's much deeper that doesn't come with a semiautomatic gun.”

Whether the world thirsts for quiet fiction is something Miner doesn't like to generalize about, though she is willing to say that in the last 10 years, she has noticed more interest in the internal among her readers and fellow writers. “Americans are really grappling with moral and spiritual questions about our role in the world. I think we've come to see we need to be more introspective, and readers have responded to my work from that perspective.”

Valerie Miner, the author of twelve books, including the feminist literary classic, Blood Sisters: A Novel, and the current collection Abundant Light, will read selections from her work for October's MacDowell Downtown on Thursday, October 7th at 7:30 pm. She will also give a brief talk beforehand on the craft of writing and the challenges and joys among the many genres she's worked in. She will take questions and sign books afterward. As always, MacDowell Downtown is free and open to the public. Refreshments are served.

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