Portland State Magazine Fall 2009

TOM BISSELL Bissell, new to Portland State this fall, started out as a fiction writer, but he had an urge to write about Uzbeki– stan, where he once was a Peace Corps volunteer. Harper's Magazine took a chance, and Bissell's thought– ful article eventually became his first book. He now successfully mixes fiction, travel, history, and memoir writing . His newest book is inspired by his father's experiences during the Vietnam War. WORK: The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam, memoir; God Lives in St. Petersburg, short stories; Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia, travel book REVIEWERS SAY: "A stunning and prodigious talent"; "Scabrously fun– ny"; "Razor sharp, blackly comic"; "The literary assurance of a young Hemingway" EXCERPT: "Bleszinski drove into Epic's parking lot in a red Lamborghini Gal– lardo Spyder, the top down despite an impending rainstorm. His current haircut is short and cowlicked, his bangs twirled up into a tiny moussed horn ... He could have been either a boyish Dolce & Gabbana model or a small-town weed dealer." - from "The Grammar of Fun," The New Yorker PAUL COLLINS Quirky and obscure figures from his– tory are the fodder for Collins' books and articles. His passion is indulged by National Public Radio, which has made him its "literary detective." A PSU professor of nonfiction writing since 2004, Collins won a Guggen– heim Fellowship that will fund his next book about crime reporting and the birth of yellow journalism in the 1890s. WORK: The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World; The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine; Not Even Wrong: A Father's Journey Into the Lost History of Autism; Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books; Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World REVIEWERS SAY: "Passionate"; "Knowledgeable"; "Sassy"; "Witty, detailed, highly entertaining"; "Ex– emplary scholar-adventurer writing" EXCERPT: "Our stretch of Waller Street was crammed with Victorian flats, and we all oohed and aahed over each other's wainscoting, box ceilings and carved mantels. Yet, walking away from the whole thing, stuffed with architecture and potato salad, I felt a nagging doubt. "Did you notice," I asked my wife, "ours was the only house with books?" - from Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books