#14: Brian Doyle 2012

Episode #14 of Rewrite Radio features Brian Doyle talking about the power of bearing witness via the stories we tell at the 2012 Festival of Faith & Writing. This is a particularly poignant episode for us, as Brian passed away from complications related to a brain tumor on May 27, 2017, less than two weeks before this episode's publication.

Just 60 years old at the time of his death, Brian was a prolific writer, producing more than two dozen books of fiction, nonfiction, essays, poems, and prayers all while editing Portland Magazine for over two decades. His many awards included three Puschart Prizes, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing, and a Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature. Seven of his essays appeared in The Best American Essays anthologies.

Brian’s good friend and his fellow speaker at the 2012 Festival, essayist Patrick Madden, helps to introduce the session. Patrick’s work has been published in journals including the Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, and Hotel Amerika, as well as in the Best Creative Nonfiction and the Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies. His own books include two collections of essays--Sublime Physick and Quotidiana--and a co-edited volume After Montaigne: Contemporary Essayists Cover the Essays.

Many thanks to Patrick Madden. You can learn more about his work and the art of the essay at www.quotidiana.org/.

And to Brian Doyle: you will be missed. In the words of the last prayer you wrote, we are sure that “no one ever laughed more at the ocean of hilarious things in this world, or gaped more in astonishment at the wealth of miracles everywhere every moment.” Thank you for making us laugh and teaching us to pay attention.