PSU Magazine Spring 1997

oily Gloss '66 has a terrific laugh. It rings out often when he de cribe a phone call she rece ived last fall. "I thought they were trying to se ll m something," Glos remember of her initial conversation with repre- entative of the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. "First they asked if I wa aware of the foundation, and I sa id, 'No.' So they told me that it give awards to promising writers. Then they told me I'd won $30,000. And I sa id, 'Right. ' And then they asked me for my Social Security number." Glo bursts into laughter. "I'd just seen that '60 Minutes' show where peop le take your Social Security number and ruin your life and I thought, 'Boy! These people are good!' And I said, 'I'm not going to give you my Social Security number.'" Her friends in the writing community convinced Gloss of the foundation's existence and credibil– ity, and in October, she received her ch ck-as the first Oregonian to win the award-at the foundation's award dinner in Manhattan. It was a great moment in a writing career that has already seen some great moments. Her book The Jump Off Creek was one of five finalists for the 1990 PEN/Faulkner award; the book she's currently writing is sold to a publisher; and her new book The Dazzle of Day is being released this June by TOR Books, the nation's largest hardcover science fiction publisher. Science fiction ? From an author best known for an award-winning western? Where's the The Jump Off Creek sequel that her fa ns are wait– ing for? "I'm telling people they may not even like thi book if they liked Jump Off Creek," says Gloss. "It's very different. But l really wanted to explore how sc ience and technology and progress relate to art and the community. This was the most straightforward way to do it." Gloss used the themes from The Dazzle of Day for delivering the 33rd annual Nina Mae Kellogg Lecture at PSU on April 23. The event, which includes awards for outstanding English students, was started with 14 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING I997 funds donated by the late Carl Dahlstrom, professor emeritus of English, in memory of his wife. Gloss is one of a star-studded list of past Kellogg lecturers including Ivan Doig, Tobias Wolff, Tess Gallagher, William tafford, Ursula LeGuin, and J s ica Mitford. "I'll talk about contemporary utop ian novels-Dazzle is one-and whether or not they are valid fo rms of fiction. We tend to accept without questioning that science and progress are good. This book challenges that belief," ays Glo . The Dazzle of Day tells the story of 2,000 Quakers, drawn from around the world, who leave a rapidly deteriorat– ing Earth for another planet. The space trip takes nearly 200 year , and the book explores both the journey and its aftermath: what happens when, after several generations of living in an enclosed world, people are exposed to uncontrolled nature and weather. It add resses questions of morality, as well as: are the characte r continuing the hi torical frontier mentality of conquest and conflict? Is there a differ– ent way to approach new worlds? "I wondered what would have happened if when the Europeans arrived in America they had sa id, 'This is a different world. Maybe we should try to fit in with those who already live here, instead of beating it down and conquering it,'" ays Glos . G ' lo s is in many ways a se lf- taught writer. She began writing when her son, now in hi s 20s, was an infant. At first, she simply kept a journal- trying to make sense of the endless rounds of diapers and laundry and repetitive tasks. After a while, she moved from journal writ– ing to fiction. The fall her son entered kindergarten, she saw a notice about a western novel writing competition fo r unpublished writers. Gloss packed her n off to school and tarting writing. "I began in September and the contest deadline wa March 3 l st," she says. "I wrote every day for four or five hours, and learned how to write a novel by simply writing it. I wrote a whole book. It wa n't very good, but it