A writer’s gift

Our family Kris Kringle exchange led to a magical moment for all of us and, especially, for two writers we love.

Our daughter Molly, a current Iowa Writers Workshop student, presented her uncle Clay Lewis, a 1969 graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, with a bound copy of his MFA dissertation.

The gift confirmed something we know to be true about both words and love: they transcend time.

At first glance, Molly and Clay might seem to have little in common. He stands with a Marine’s precision, speaks gently and dresses with a well-pressed dignity.

Molly gestures wildly when she tells a story, sews copious pockets on her clothes and mends them with floral appliques.

But they both love people and words, and they know how to coax a good story out of that juxtaposition. Though 56 years separate their time in the Iowa MFA program, they’ve also bonded over that shared experience and they’ve both made the most of their time there.

Prior to his acceptance into the program, Clay served as first lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps from 1958 through 1961. He worked as an advertising copywriter, before becoming a collegiate teaching professor and, eventually, senior program officer for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

He has written several short stories, and a southern memoir called “Battlegrounds of Memory.”  

Molly recently won the Richard Yates award for a short story she wrote. She has been exploring the magical realism genre and, as I read her story, I wondered briefly if elephants really had once roamed America’s western plains.

Molly’s gift to Clay was, in essence, a gift to all writers – the acknowledgement that their words matter and that people will read them long after they are gone.