BEFORE the stream of bad news began breaking over the once Happy Valley, we enjoyed a wonderful visit from John Edgar Wideman. The novelist spent several days in residence, working with our graduate creative writing students, and he gave two readings. The first was from what appears to be the new novel in progress, an intriguing further meditation on fathers and sons following the earlier Fatheralong, incorporating materials from the court case and news coverage surrounding the murder of Emmett Till. This included as well material concerning Till's father, who appears twice in Pound's Pisan Cantos. At the second reading Wideman presented a work of short fiction in progress. As busy as he was kept by our creative writing folk, Wideman found time to have a dinner with graduate students working in African American literature, during which he generously gave of himself in a far-ranging discussion.
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