Award-Winning Author Shares Her Stories

10/15/2009
“Show 10 percent of your characters but know them 100 percent.”

Award-winning author Annie Dawid offered this advice last week to the “Writing from Within” class, a senior elective taught by English Department Chair Dave Reynolds. Earlier in the day at All School, she read a chapter from her latest book, “And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family.”

Dawid is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and although this book is fiction, it is based on interviews with her extended family, both here and in Europe.

“Interview your elders now,” she told students, “because they have the stories, and when they die, their stories will be gone.”

Dawid is one in a series of guest authors Reynolds is inviting to present to his classes.

“I think it’s valuable for the students to meet and hear real life authors,” he says.

Dawid was English professor and director of creative writing for 15 years at Lewis & Clark College. She left teaching for writing and has published three books, and numerous short stories and articles. She lives in the Sangre de Cristo range of southern Colorado.