Fiction writer, Geoffrey Clark (1940-2021), was raised Petoskey, Michigan, in the northern part of the lower peninsula. He received his BA and MA in English from Central Michigan University and MFA in Creative Writing and LIterature from the University of Iowa.
Much of Clark’s writing is about young people growing up in a rural community like the one he grew up in. His full-length works include Jackdog Summer, Wedding in October, and Two, Two Lily-White Boys. His shorter fiction has appeared in literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Mississippi Review, Witness, Flying Horse, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Pittsburgh Quarterly.
Clark joined the Creative Writing department at Roger Williams College in 1973. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he served as faculty advisor for Aldebaran - a student run literary magazine which began in 1971. He also edited The Best I Can Wish You: Stories from Five Women Writers (1985) and How the Weather Was: An Anthology of Stories by Rhode Island Writers (1990), both published by the College's Ampersand Press. Clark continued to write after his retirement in 1999. He resided in Warren, Rhode Island, until his passing in 2021.
Bibliography
Many of Clark's short stories were published multiple times, in different anthologies. It appears that some of the manuscripts (listed in the following inventory) were never published.
There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment.
Although Roger Williams University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
The Geoffrey Clark papers include drafts of his writings – short stories and longer works. Some pieces appear to be unpublished.
The Geoffrey Clark papers, Roger Williams University Archives.
The collection was a gift (2021) from Joy Warren, Geoffrey Clark’s sister-in-law.
Includes Summer Gothic; Species and Gender; At the Geyser; Two-Tone Blue; Bernice Encounters Neccessity; Haybaling
Includes Quick Friends; A Place for Your Guests; Summer Gothic; Summer Lightning; Geyser; Bernice Encounters Necessity; The Whole Nine Yards; Lunar Frisson; Rabbit Fever; The Best I Can Wish You; and a partial/unititled story.
Inlcudes typescript and handwritten drafts.
Published as Edge of Summer, in Schooling the Spirit, in 1993.
Includes a "quasi-memoir" and six stories -- The Best I can Wish You; Remembering, Rediscover; Primary Sources; Travelling; The Flowing Bridge. The memoir was published in Rabbit Fever: 12 Stories and a Memoir (2000).
Includes seven of his "Notebooks" (1977-1978).
Box 5 contains six (of seven) stories that were later published as Schooling the Spirit in 1993. The novella Edge of Summer, in Box2 , was also published with these short stories in Schooling the Spirit.