Topic: Silas House

Kentucky Novelist Babcock to Read at APSU tomorrow

February 10, 2010 |

Squire Babcock

Squire Babcock admits that for much of his early life, he was an aimless, drifting soul. The low point came after an arrest for possession of heroin, but for years afterward, he moved from job to job, working as a ballroom dance instructor, a farm hand, a hunting guide, a pool table repair mechanic, carpenter, a free-lance journalist, a small business owner and blues drummer.

But throughout all the struggles and new starts, there always lingered that memory of being a 9-year-old boy in Kentucky, reading the novel “My Side of the Mountain,” by Jean Craighead George.

“It was a transforming experience,” Babcock said. “I identified so strongly with the character, his predicament, and his ultimate triumph, and I so loved the words and the power that the narrative had on me, that somewhere in my child’s mind I said, ‘I want to do that; I want to write books like that; I want to live inside books like that.’”

At 8 p.m. on Feb. 11, Babcock, director of the low-residence Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Murray State University, will read from his debut novel, “The King of Gaheena,” in room 303 of the Morgan University Center. «Read the rest of this article»

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