Daniel, John 1948–

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Daniel, John 1948–

PERSONAL: Born 1948; son of Franz (a union organizer) and Zilla (A union organizer) Daniel; married; wife's name Marilyn. Education: Attended Reed College (Portland, OR).

ADDRESSES: Home—Canton, NY; Coast Range region, OR. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Shoemaker & Hoard, 1400 65th St., Ste. 250, Emeryville, CA 94608.

CAREER: Writer and educator. Oregon State University Center for Humanities, research and writing fellow; St. Lawrence University, Viebranz visiting writer. Also worked as a logger.

AWARDS, HONORS: Wallace Stegner fellow in poetry, Stanford University; creative writing fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts; Oregon Book Award for Literary Nonfiction, 1992, for The Trail Home: Essays and 1996, Looking After: A Son's Memoir.

WRITINGS:

BIOGRAPHY

The Trail Home: Essays, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 1992.

Looking After: A Son's Memoir, Counterpoint (Washington, DC), 1996.

Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History, Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis, MN), 2002.

Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone, Shoemaker & Hoard (Emeryville, CA), 2005.

POETRY

Common Ground: Poems, Confluence Press (Lewiston, ID), 1988.

(Editor) Wild Song: Poems of the Natural World, illustrated by Deborah Randolph Wildman, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 1998.

OTHER

Contributor of essays to Oregon Rivers, photographs by Larry Olson, foreword by David R. Brower, Westcliffe Publishers (Englewood, CO), 1997. Author of poetry collection, All Things Touched by the Wind, 1994. Contributor to periodicals, including Southwest Review.

SIDELIGHTS: John Daniel is a poet and essayist whose writing is often a product of having spent time in reflection, solitude, and nature. His 1992 collection, The Trail Home: Essays, deals with the natural beauty of the San Francisco Bay area, the relative merits of radical environmentalism, as well as approaching nature in a variety of ways—in the wild, in one's own garden, and even on television. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found the essays in the collection "delightful," and concluded the work presents a "personal, contemplative and satisfying view of nature." With his 1996 book, Looking After: A Son's Memoir, the author composed an account of the four years he and his wife cared for his aged mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He recounts his attempts to try and reach a woman who had always been such a force in his life and relates the strain performing as a caretaker put on his marriage. According to a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, the memoir contains "graceful, poignant prose."

If Looking After is an homage to his mother, then Daniel's 2002 memoir, Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History, is a tribute to Daniel's own youth. In the book Daniel details his move from the area around Washington, DC, to the West Coast and the influence particular writers have had on his development as an author. A critic for Kirkus Reviews praised the "reflective and polished text" in Winter Creek, while a contributor to Publishers Weekly commended the book's "vivid and thoughtful" prose.

A memoir of a different sort is served up in Daniel's 2005 book, Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone. As the title suggests, Daniel spent the winter of 2000–2001 alone in an Oregon cabin. Free from the trappings of modern life, he tends his garden, lives off the land, and notes the wildlife that abounds near his remote cabin—and journals what he experiences during his period of isolation. The resulting memoir also contains ruminations on the life and works of his father, Franz Daniel, a labor organizer. A critic for Kirkus Reviews stated that "Daniel's time alone is potent, a dilation on the amusements and scorchings of the simple life, and a distillation of the strange, human group that was his family."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Daniel, John, Looking After: A Son's Memoir, Counterpoint (Washington, DC), 1996.

Daniel, John, Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone, Shoemaker & Hoard (Emeryville, CA), 2005.

Daniel, John, The Trail Home: Essays, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 1992.

Daniel, John, Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History, Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis, MN), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2002, review of Winter Creek, p. 632; February 15, 2005, review of Rogue River Journal, p. 208.

Publishers Weekly, May 11, 1992, review of The Trail Home, p. 64; September 9, 1996, review of Looking After, p. 71; June 3, 2002, review of Winter Creek, p. 80.