ISBN 1-58939-646-4. $13.95. Softcover. 182 pages.
In "Under the Heaven Tree,"
journalist and poet William Bridges paints a rich picture of growing
up in two Indiana towns, Franklin and Vincennes, from the 1930s through
the 1950s. It is the story of an unusual family of artists, of a
secret marriage, of hidden scandal, and the characters who once
populated small towns, including the creator of the world's only
six-person harmonica and a man who climbed the town monument to disarm
the Civil War soldier. Most of all, it is a valentine to the writer's
mother and father, and to a long-lost America. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Bridges has been a foreign correspondent in Germany for
United Press International, as well as day city editor of the
Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal and senior copyeditor for the Free
China Journal in Taiwan. Until his recent retirement, he was a
professor of journalism and a writing teacher at Franklin College in
Indiana as well as director of the Pulliam School of Journalism there.
He has published five books of poetry, and a textbook, Dear Viola:
Writing, Reporting, and Editing for the Student Journalist In 2000,
he was a member of an archaeological team on the remote Scottish
island of St. Kilda, and he is currently engaged in translating St.
Kildan poetry from the Gaelic. He and his wife, Karen Petersen
Bridges, live with two cats in Franklin, Indiana. They have four
sons, scattered from Kentucky to New York City. |
