2008 Woodie Awards
Professor pens memoirs
John Forrester
Issue date: 12/8/04 Section: News
One of the things that makes Suffolk stand out from other universities is that the professors and adjunct faculty are not only drawn from the world of academia, but from many of the professions that the school offers as majors.
Most students who take courses in the English department don't realize accomplished writers often teach them. Suffolk University is home to quite a few published writers, one of whom is Professor Carol Dine.
Dine, author of numerous poems and essays, has recently finished her memoir, "Places in the Bone," which will be published by Rutgers University Press this coming spring. The book, which coincides with her creative non-fiction workshop, "The Memoir: Write Your Own Story" at Suffolk this upcoming spring semester, is about how she used writing to overcome personal tragedies and deal with the stinging memories of a painful childhood.
"I was the product of a violent household, so I had to go inside myself to create a voice," recalled Dine. "A writer writes about what they know."
Since 1977, Dine has published over 50 poems, essays and journals as well as two books of poems: "Naming the Sky" (Golden Quill, 1988) and "Trying to Understand the Lunar Eclipse" (Erie Street, 1992). She has written about topics as diverse as paintings by Vincent van Gogh, the female reaction to September 11, 2001, and photographs of Mexican mummies; but the catalyst for her writing career was the personal tragedies she has endured in her life.
"The memoir is connected by two themes: first, my abusive childhood and second, my incidents with breast cancer," said Dine.
Much of Dine's earlier work was an outlet for the pain harbored as a result of the physical abuse she suffered as a child. "I had a secret I didn't fully tell. I didn't know I was writing about the abuse," explained Dine, adding that she made this realization years later, through therapy and self-realizations.
"Places in the Bone" details the complexities of the relationship between Dine and her father and the process of overcoming long-buried, painful feelings as an adult towards her family as a result of the abuse.