Rilla Askew Explained

Rilla Askew
Birth Place:Poteau, Oklahoma, U.S.
Occupation:Author
Alma Mater:University of Tulsa (BFA)
Brooklyn College (MFA)
Genres:Fiction, nonfiction
Spouse:Paul Austin

Rilla Askew (born 1951) is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in Poteau, in the Sans Bois Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, and grew up in the town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.[1]

Early life and education

Askew graduated from the University of Tulsa with a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance in 1980. She moved then to New York where she studied acting at HB Studio with Herbert Bergoff in New York and later Curt Dempster at Ensemble Studio Theatre.[2] She began writing—plays first, then fiction—with her theatre background supporting the use of language and rhythm in her works. She went on to study creative writing at Brooklyn College, where she received her MFA in 1989.[3]

Rilla has taught in MFA writing programs at Syracuse University, Brooklyn College, the University of Arkansas, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[4]

Askew is married to actor Paul Austin.

Career

In 1989 Askew published her first short story “The Gift” in Nimrod’s “Oklahoma Indian Markings” issue.[5] Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Tin House, TriQuarterly, Nimrod, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. Her story "The Killing Blanket" was selected for the collection Prize Stories 1993: The O. Henry Awards (Anchor, 1993). Her first book of fiction, Strange Business, was published in 1992 by Viking Books.

Often capturing life in Oklahoma,[6] Askew’s work handles themes of place,[7] outsiders, religion and politics, greed and ambition, race, and women’s lives.[8] [9] In his citation for the American Academy of Arts and Letters, writer Allan Gurganus likens Askew's writing to a mythic cycle that unsettles popular notions of the settling of the American West[10] Writer Patricia Eakins notes Askew’s filiation with other American writers of the epic tradition, exploring tragedies of history and family and unforgiving landscapes, with comparisons to William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy.[11]

Inspired by her family history, Askew's first novel, The Mercy Seat (1997) follows two rival brothers, and transforms the family drama into the drama of a community. It was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award,[12] the Dublin IMPAC Prize, was a Boston Globe Notable Book, and received the Oklahoma Book Award and the Western Heritage Award in 1998.

In 2002, her second novel Fire in Beulah (2001), about the Tulsa Race Massacre, received the American Book Award[13] and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights.[14] In this historical novel, as in her other works, some critics have discussed how Askew offers the strong presence and prominence to the Other as a corrective to a-historic and romanticized visions of the American southwest.[15]

Askew's third novel, Harpsong (2007), is set in 1930's Oklahoma and concerns the dispossessed and homeless during the Dust Bowl era.[16] [17] Harpsong received the Oklahoma Book Award,[18] [19] the Western Heritage Award,[20] the WILLA Award from Women Writing the West,[21] and the Violet Crown Award from the Writers League of Texas in 2008.[22] [23] Poet Mary Green described it as "a love song to the American voice and the American perspective…about the love that is involved—with all the accompanying stark failings and supreme acts of kindness—in being fully human."[24]

Her fourth novel, Kind of Kin (2013), is set in Cedar, Oklahoma and focuses on state immigration laws, race, religion, and class.[25] Published by Ecco, Kind of Kin was a finalist for the 2014 Western Spur Award,[26] the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award in 2013,[27] and was long-listed for the 2015 Dublin IMPAC Prize.[28]

Askew’s 2017 collection of creative nonfiction Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place, which reckons with truths obscured by collective memory,[29] was long-listed for the PEN/America Diamonstein-Spielvogel Art of the Essay Award in 2018[30] .

Her latest novel Prize for the Fire, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in October 2022, follows the 16th century Protestant martyr Anne Askew, one of the first women writers in the English language.[31] Author Pamela Erens calls it "a deeply sensitive and ambitious act of historical imagination," noting that "the struggles of this sixteenth-century protagonist echo in our own contemporary battles over women’s voices and bodily autonomy."

A new collection of stories, The Hungry & The Haunted, is forthcoming from Belle Point Press in September 2024.[32]

She teaches creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Awards and recognition

In 2009, she received an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[33]

In 2003, she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame.[34] Askew was a 2004 fellow at Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbertide, Italy,[35] and a featured writer at the 2008 World Literature Today and Chinese Literature Conference in Beijing. She served as a juror for the 2008 Neustadt Prize for Literature.[36] [37]

Askew received the 2011 Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book.[38]

Fire in Beulah was selected as the 2007 Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma book.[39]

Awards

Bibliography

Books

Selected essays

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Askew, Rilla The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture . www.okhistory.org . Oklahoma Historical Society . 4 May 2020.
  2. Askew. Rilla. 21 December 2011. Race and Redemption in the American Heartland. With an Introduction by Françoise Palleau-Papin. Transatlantica. Revue d'études américaines. American Studies Journal. fr. 2. 2–3. 10.4000/transatlantica.5598 . 1765-2766. 4 May 2020. free.
  3. Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers. http://poetsandwriters.okstate.edu/OKauthor/askew.html
  4. University of Central Oklahoma. Web site: University of Central Oklahoma: Master of Fine Arts . 2014-10-08 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090718205143/http://www.libarts.uco.edu/english/MFA/artists.htm . 2009-07-18 .
  5. Askew. Rilla. 1989. The Gift. Nimrod. 32. 2, Spring/Summer 1989.
  6. Web site: Reese . Linda W. . Askew, Rilla The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture . www.okhistory.org . Oklahoma Historical Society. . 20 April 2020.
  7. Askew. Rilla. 2009. Passing: The Writer's Skin and the Authentic Self. World Literature Today. 83. 4. 54–57. 10.1353/wlt.2009.0290 . 20621660. 245663649 . 0196-3570.
  8. Askew. Rilla. 2017. Epicenter: Deep Mapping Place in Fiction and Nonfiction. Great Plains Quarterly. 37. 4. 259–263. 10.1353/gpq.2017.0054. 165667978.
  9. Web site: Kind of Kin: An Interview with Rilla Askew. Erens. Pamela. 20 November 2013. Tin House.
  10. Gurganus, Allan. (20 May 2009). Verbal citation given for Rilla Askew's 2009 Literature Award for American Academy of Arts and Letters.
  11. Hada, Kenneth. "That truth beyond particulars: silence in Rilla Askew's The Mercy Seat." Southwestern American Literature, vol. 30, no. 1, 2004, p. 37+. Gale Academic OneFile, Accessed 10 May 2020. "'Rilla Askew's first novel, The Mercy Seat (1998), received highly positive reviews. Allusions to Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy were often made. Gail Caldwell of The Boston Globe has written, the 'extraordinary story owes its literary debt to Faulkner and its heart to scripture.' The novel, she continues, is 'driven by a narrative intensity that is humbling in its passion, consumed with the old-fashioned mysteries too large and too dark for most contemporary writers to go near.... Askew has gone after the mystery of mercy itself.'"
  12. Web site: Oklahoma Book Awards honor state authors. 2011-04-10. Oklahoman.com. en-US. 2020-05-28.
  13. Web site: American Book Awards Before Columbus Foundation - Winners of the American Book Awards. Before Columbus Foundation. Before Columbus Foundation. en. 2020-05-04. 2019-04-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20190407160124/http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/american-book-awards/. dead.
  14. Web site: Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award Book awards LibraryThing. www.librarything.com. 2020-05-28.
  15. Hada. Kenneth. 2007. The Power to Undo Sin: Race, History and Literary Blackness in Rilla Askew's "Fire in Beulah". College Literature. 34. 4. 166–189. 25115463. 0093-3139. Askew's historical fiction demonstrates the authority of what Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates Jr. understand as literary blackness. Askew writes the black presence into her novel as a corrective to the often romanticized notions white supremacy found throughout much of the history of the American southwest. Like Hogan, Askew unearths corruption concerning oil and greed, her novel culminating with the Tulsa race riot - the most costly race riot in American history. Askew's vision not only gives voice to the presence of the Other, she essentially crosses literary boundaries to appropriate and celebrate the minority presence. (Abstract).
  16. Web site: Rilla, reading. Watts. James D. 22 April 2007. Tulsa World. en. 2020-05-28.
  17. Web site: Harpsong. Historical Novel Society. 2020-05-28.
  18. Web site: Oklahoma Center for the Book. 2008 Oklahoma Book Award Program.. 5 June 2020. Oklahoma Digital Prairie - your Electronic Library.
  19. News: 15 Feb 2008. Norman authors sweep the Oklahoma Center for the Book Awards. The Norman Transcript. 5 June 2020.
  20. Web site: Past Western Heritage Award Winners. 5 June 2020. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
  21. Web site: The WILLA Literary Award – Women Writing the West - Previous WILLA Literary Award Winners and Finalists . Women Writing the West . Women Writing the West . 5 June 2020 . en.
  22. Web site: Writers' League of Texas Book Awards Past Winners. 5 June 2020. Writers’ League of Texas.
  23. News: Jones. Kimberly. 11 September 2008. Writers' League of Texas Announces Nominees - 2008 Violet Crown Book Awards. The Austin Chronicle. 5 June 2020.
  24. Greene. Mary. 2007. Harpsong. The Literary Gazette.
  25. Web site: Neighbor Versus Neighbor. Evison. Jonathan. 25 Jan 2013. The New York Times.
  26. Web site: Winners . Western Writers of America . Western Writers of America . 5 June 2020 . 12 May 2012.
  27. Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association. (2014) READING THE WEST BOOK AWARDS 2013 Awards Year - Shortlist Selections [Press release]. 31 March. Available at: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Reading-the-West-Book-Awards---Shortlist-Selections-March-31--2014.html?soid=1101210809075&aid=O_QHBultlSY (Accessed: 5 June 2020).
  28. Web site: News: 2015 Printable Longlist. 5 June 2020. International Dublin Literary Award - The International Dublin Literary Award from the home of literature, proudly sponsored by Dublin City Council.
  29. Smith. Lindsey Claire. 2018. Review of Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place, by Rilla Askew. Western American Literature. 53. 2. 263–265. 10.1353/wal.2018.0050. 166210706. "As Askew reveals in her sensitive exploration of these features of the American character—optimism, skepticism, and amnesia—remembering is vital to personal and cultural transformation. . . .With this collection, Askew makes the case for a reckoning with collective memory that often obscures truth.".
  30. Web site: Announcing the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards Longlists . PEN America . PEN America . 5 June 2020 . en . 20 December 2017.
  31. Book: Askew, Rilla . Prize for the Fire. 2022 . 978-0806190723 .
  32. Web site: Forthcoming . 2023-09-03 . Belle Point Press . en.
  33. Web site: Awards – American Academy of Arts and Letters. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS. American Academy of Arts and Letters. 4 May 2020.
  34. Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame Web site: The Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20161108233916/http://poetsandwriters.okstate.edu/halloffame/index.html. 2016-11-08. 2017-03-01.
  35. Civitella Raniere Web site: Rilla Askew. 21 August 2018. Civitella Ranieri. Civitella Ranieri Foundation. 4 May 2020.
  36. May 2009. The Neustadt Prize. World Literature Today. 83. 3. 40. 10.1353/wlt.2009.0069 . 245663881 . ProQuest.
  37. Web site: 2008 - Patricia Grace. 2013-06-10. Neustadt Prizes. en-US. 2020-05-28.
  38. Web site: Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award – OK Dept. of Libraries. en-US. 2020-05-28.
  39. Web site: Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma / Fire in Beulah. www.okreadsok.org. 2020-05-28.
  40. News: Fire in Beulah. Rilla. Askew. Rilla Askew. (First chapter). November 10, 2001. The New York Times.
  41. Web site: Dear Tulsa. Askew. Rilla. 15 Oct 2019. AGNI.
  42. Web site: The Cost. 2014-12-17. Longreads. en. 2020-05-28.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Rilla Askew".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.