Stephanie Nikolopoulos

Do you think writers are defined by where they were born?  Where they live?  By whether or not they’ve moved?  By how much they’ve traveled?

Yesterday, I wrote about how at the Faith & Writing Festival Circle we’ll be discussing is the idea of how where you write can actually affect your writing.  Today, I’m bringing you another little preview.  This time on writers from Michigan.

I’ve only been to Michigan the one other time I was at the Festival of Faith & Writing, and from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty unique.  It’s a rather large and diverse state.  Michigan is definitely Midwest — so different from where I grew up on the East Coast.  Yet each city and town seems to have its own culture and identity.  I think if two people from Michigan meet they’d probably judge each other based on where they live.

Yet, Michigan seems integral to America’s history as a whole because of the car industry in Detroit and the way cars began to define a certain type of American identity.

Below is a list of Michigan writers.

Books Set in Michigan or Written by Michigan Authors

• Mitch Albom, born in New Jersey and now lives in Detroit, is the author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
• John Malcolm Brinnin, raised in Detroit, is the poet credited with bringing Dylan Thomas to the US.
• Bruce Campbell, born in Royal Oak (MI), wrote a New York Times bestselling autobiography; he also has written a novel and writes about the film industry and politics.
• Jeffrey Eugenides, born in Detroit, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Middlesex.  His most recent book is The Marriage Plot.
• M. F. K. Fisher, born in Albion (MI), is a preeminent food writer.
• Robert Frost, moved to Ann Arbor for a teaching fellowship at the University of Michigan, and his home can be viewed at The Henry Ford museum near Detroit.
• Nancy Hull is a Calvin College professor and children’s book author.
• Jerry B. Jenkins, born in Kalamazoo (MI), is the co-author of the Left Behind series.
• Ring Lardner, born in Niles (MI), is best known as the author of the baseball novel You Know Me Al; he was also a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s.
• Elmore Leonard, raised in Detroit, is the author of Get Shorty.
• Philip Levine, born in Detroit, is the 2011 – 2012 Poet Laureate for the US; the Pulitzer Prize winner is known for writing poems about Detroit’s working class.
• Joyce Carol Oates, born in New York and lived in Detroit for a decade, is a three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and the winner of a National Book Award for Them.
• Theodore Roethke, born in Saginaw (MI), is the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet of The Waking and the National Book Award for Poetry winner for Words for the Wind and The Far Field.  His immigrant father owned a greenhouse, and Roethke went on to use natural imagery in his work.
• Gary D. Schmidt is a Calvin College professor and children’s book author.
• Freshwater Boys, by Michigan author Adam Schuitema, is a collection of short stories about Michigan.

Who are your favorite Michigan-based authors?

Tags: Adam Schuitema, Bruce Campbell, car, Elmore Leonard, Festival of Faith and Writing, Gary D. Schmidt, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jerry B. Jenkins, John Malcolm Brinnin, Joyce Carol Oates, M. F. K. Fisher, Michigan, Mitch Albom, Nancy Hull, Philip Levine, place, Ring Lardner, Robert Frost, Theodore Roethke, writing place