{"id":3901,"date":"2019-09-01T15:28:32","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T19:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/?page_id=3901"},"modified":"2019-09-01T15:28:34","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T19:28:34","slug":"m-b-mclatchey","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/m-b-mclatchey\/","title":{"rendered":"M.B. McLatchey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I grew up in a town where our parents were ship builders, bakers, waitresses, and cashiers, and where books found their right and proper place in the local library. Ours was an oral tradition, with the sounds and voices of elders and neighbors in inflections of Portuguese, Greek, and Italian \u2013 all of which I quickly learned to imitate. The result was a technical training that served a writer. I learned by ear the necessity for music in language, the power of truths told in nods and quiet breaths, and the critical importance of timing. And, I learned at my kitchen table that if you\u2019re going to tell a story, it must be artful and it better be worth everyone\u2019s time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of ten, I met the\nwoman who would become my lifetime mentor \u2013 Miss D.<\/em>, my fourth grade\nteacher. She would unleash my passion for literature and the arts and teach me\nhow art connects us. A few years later, at the age of fourteen, I was awarded\nmy first literary prize \u2013 1st<\/sup> place in a poetry contest hosted by\nBoston\u2019s Emerson College. In a packed campus theater, the contest judge,\nrenowned poet Charles Simic, handed me a check for a hundred dollars and\nmumbled, \u201cGood job, kid.\u201d Even at that early age, I understood that writers\nthrive on affirmation \u2013 not because the ego needs it, but because it confirms\nthat through our art, we connect<\/em>. At that moment, my life as a writer\nwas confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My passion for languages and\nliterature took me on a course of studies to some of the best colleges in the\nworld. At each college, it would be the Poet in Residence<\/em> that I would\nseek out. At Williams College, Lawrence Raab and Richard Wilbur taught me to\nunleash the mystery in poetry; at Brown university, Michael Harper tuned my ear\nfor the music in poetry; at Goddard College, Alfred Corn and Michael Klein honed\nmy technique in poetry; and at Harvard University, the Nobel-prize winning\npoet, Seamus Heaney mentored me in the mercy in poetry. I was immensely\nfortunate to share countless hours and discussions with Seamus (sometimes over\na PBR and Powers) not only on the topic of how to write good poetry, but on how\nto be a good poet. \u201cIt takes a good person to be a good poet,\u201d Seamus often\nsaid to me. I knew that this \u201cgoodness\u201d was what Seamus himself strived for; it\nwas a positioning of himself in service to the world that I continue to try to\nemulate in my work \u2013 empathy, authenticity, and self-effacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is Seamus and the mentors\nwho preceded him that walk with me in my recognitions: The May Swenson Award\nfor my debut poetry collection, The Lame God<\/em>; Finalist in the\nnational Women\u2019s Voices Competition<\/em> for my poetry collection, Advantages\nof Believing<\/em>; and among recent awards, the Penelope Niven Creative\nNonfiction Award; the Editor\u2019s Prizes in Poetry from FOLIO<\/em> and from the Spoon\nRiver Review<\/em>; The Robert Frost\nPoetry Award;the National Poetry Review<\/em>\u2019s Annie Finch\nPrize, and the American Poetry Journal\u2019s <\/em>American Poet Prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My forthcoming book with Regal House Publishing, Beginner\u2019s Mind<\/em>, examines a topic that I have made my life\u2019s focus: namely, education. In a time when our schools are dogged by institutionalized goals for our children, Beginner\u2019s Mind <\/em>gives us a classroom where personal growth and innovative thinking happens in unimaginable ways because of my remarkable fourth grade teacher. <\/em>Though my soul naturally defaults to the poetic, I have chosen a prose format for this book to more directly reflect the classroom dynamics. Beginner\u2019s Mind <\/em>is a collage of teaching moments that forever changed a generation of ten-year-olds, and examines the question, \u201cHow do we want teachers to educate our children?\u201d  The answer is given to us through a series of classroom vignettes that put on display the possibilities before us when a teacher\u2019s love is combined with the beginner\u2019s mind.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.B.<\/strong> McLatchey<\/strong> holds her degree in Comparative Literature from Harvard\nUniversity, a Masters in Teaching from Brown University, the M.F.A. in\nwriting from Goddard College, and a B.A. from\nWilliams College. She has over thirty years of teaching college students and\nhas been recognized by her university as Distinguished Teacher of the Year<\/em> and as Distinguished\nScholar<\/em>. She was awarded Harvard University’s coveted Danforth Prize in\nTeaching <\/em>as well as the Harvard\/Radcliffe Prize for Literary\nScholarship<\/em>,\nand she received the Elmer Smith Award for Excellence in\nTeaching<\/em> from Brown University. <\/em>M.B. has authored\nnumerous literary reviews, compiled several text books for Humanities courses,\nand has contributed to many books on teaching. She has received national and\ninternational literary awards including the May Swenson Poetry Award <\/em>for\nher debut poetry collection The\nLame God<\/em>\npublished by Utah State University Press and the FLP national Women\u2019s Voices Competition<\/em> award for her book, Advantages\nof Believing. <\/em>Her recent\nawards include the American Poet Prize<\/em> from the American Poetry\nJournal<\/em>, the Editor\u2019s Prizes in Poetry <\/em>from FOLIO<\/em> literary\njournal and the Spoon River Poetry Review<\/em> , the Annie Finch\nPrize for Poetry<\/em>, the Robert Frost Award in Poetry<\/em>, the Penelope\nNiven Creative Nonfiction Award,<\/em> the New South Writing Award<\/em> from\nGeorgia State University, the 46\u2019er Prize<\/em> from the Adirondack Review<\/em>,\nand the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Award<\/em>. She has been featured in Verse\nDaily<\/em> and as a \u201cWriter in the Spotlight\u201d by AWP.  A tenured Professor of Classics at Embry-Riddle\nAeronautical University, she also serves as Florida\u2019s Poet Laureate for Volusia County and\nas Arts & Wellness Ambassador for the Atlantic\nCenter for the Arts. Visit her at: www.mbmclatchey.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up in a town where our parents were ship builders, bakers, waitresses, and cashiers, and where books found their right and proper place in the local library. Ours was an oral tradition, with the sounds and voices of elders and neighbors in inflections of Portuguese, Greek, and Italian \u2013 all of which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-3901","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9DpGh-10V","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14021,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/thomas-cochran\/","url_meta":{"origin":3901,"position":0},"title":"Thomas Cochran","author":"Jaynie","date":"January 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Thomas Cochran was raised in Haynesville, Louisiana.\u00a0 After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he studied English and writing with, among others, William Harrison, John Clellon Holmes, Ben D. 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