Author Background                             

Timothy Bascom

 

I have been writing for publication since I was in college in the 1980’s, when one of my professors secretly submitted a classroom project to a magazine and it was accepted.  Over the years, I have tried nearly everything across the spectrum from journalistic writing to literary.  I have published features, profiles, reviews, children’s stories, poetry, short stories, a standing column, and a wide range of personal essays (narrative-based memoirs, braided biography-and-autobiography, topical essays on current issues, and reflective or contemplative pieces).   I have also authored three books.  See below for a list of awards and publications. 

 

 


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Books

Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia (memoir).  New York: Mariner

Books/Houghton Mifflin, 2006.  Winner of the Bakeless Literary Prize.

The Comfort Trap: Spiritual Dangers of a Convenience Culture (essays).  Downers Grove,

Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

Squatters’ Rites (novel).  Manila: New Day Press, 1990.

 

 

 

Writing Awards

 

Awards are listed above and below, in relation to given publications.  They include:

          The Bakeless Literary Prize in Nonfiction / Breadloaf Writing Conference. 

Judge: Edward Hoagland.

          Selection for Best American Travel Essays 2005.

Guest editor: Jamaica Kincaid

          The 2004 Florida Review Editor's Prize in Nonfiction.

          The 2003 Missouri Review Editor's Prize in Essay.

          Semi-Finalist for “Discovery”/the Nation Poetry Contest.

          Essay and Poetry Awards from The Associated Church Press.

 

 

 

Selected Essays

 

“At the Lake’s Edge.” Rock and Sling.  Forthcoming (Spring, 2007).

“What Kind of Children?”  Fourth Genre.  Forthcoming (Fall, 2006).

“Baboons on the Cliff.” Boulevard.  Spring, 2006.

“A Vocabulary for my Senses.” Best American Travel Essays 2005.  Boston: 

Houghton Mifflin, 2005.  Guest editor: Jamaica Kincaid.

          “Chasing Charles Wesley.”  Western Humanities Review Fall 2005: 5-19.

"And I'll Fly Away."  The Florida Review 29.2 (Fall 2004): 59-65.

                   The 2004 Florida Review Editor's Prize in Nonfiction.

          "A Vocabulary for My Senses."  The Missouri Review 27.1 (2004): 55-60.                           

The 2003 Missouri Review Editor's Prize in Essay.

"Borobodur." Dynasty: The Inflight Magazine of China Airlines December, 2002: 60-63. 

"Mother of My Soul." The Other Side July/August 1999: 10-13. 

          Associated Church Press Honorable Mention.

"Windstruck." The Kansas City Star Magazine 14 March 1999: 14-15.

"House of the Archangel." Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion Spring      

1998: 106-116.

"For Better or For Worse." Modern Bride June/July 1996: 328 & 336.

 

 

 

Selected Criticism and Cultural Commentary

 

            “Shaping Modernism: Sculptor Rita McBride.” DSM Magazine Feb.-April 2005:

24-30.

          "Hands Full of Art."  DSM Magazine August-October, 2004: 24-29.

"Objects of Power: The Stanley Collection of African Art." Iowa Alumni

Magazine 55:3 (June 2002): 16-18.

"A Beautiful Affliction: The Art of Erica Grimm-Vance." Image: A Journal of the        

Arts and Religion 31 (Summer, 2001): 26-35.

"Secret Imperialism: The Reader's Response to the Narrator in 'The Man Who  

Would Be King'." English Literature in Transition: 1880-1920 31:2        

(1988): 162-173.

"The Black African and the 'White Man's God' in Things Fall Apart: Cultural   

Repression or Liberation?" Commonwealth 11:1 (1988): 70-76.

 

 

 

Selected Poems

 

“Spring Inventory / Ursuline Mother House / Paola, Kansas.”  Christian Century

5 April 2005: 22.

          "Irish Slip Jig." Wapsipinicon Almanac  7 (2004): 58.

"Most Days God is an Hypothesis." The Other Side March 2000: 17.

"Reasons to Stay on the Porch During Storms." The Other Side Sept. 1999: 46-47.      

Associated Church Press Award of Merit.  Also part of a set of poems that

reached semi-finalist level in “Discovery”/The Nation Contest, 1999.

"Late Memorial." The Christian Century 26 April 1995: 458.

"Night Janitor." Sojourners Jan. 1995: 25.

"The Things He Carried." Christianity and Literature Autumn 1994: 120.

 

 

 

Magazine Editing

 

InterLit (International Literature). Cook Communications Int'l, Illinois—1987-93. 

Six years experience as editor of quarterly trade journal for   

publishers in developing countries: planning themes, acquiring articles, guiding

authors on revision, copy-editing, checking printers proofs, building circulation,

writing a column, etc.

          Cottonwood Review.  University of Kansas—1986-87. 

Poetry reader and proofreader.