Myron Levoy
Myron Levoy visits with students
at Riverdale Neighborhood House as part of The National
Book Foundation's Settlement House program, 1996.
Here are some of the books that influenced my writing
life, and an event, not quite a book, that set me firmly
on a writing career. I hope this will fit into The Book
That Changed My Life section.
Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
The Poorhouse Fair, John Updike
The Counterfeiters, Andre Gide
At sixteen, I had already written some poems and short
stories, but that summer my somewhat adolescent desire
to be a writer was fixed forever by a confrontation.
I was working as a page at the main branch of the New
York Public Library, retrieving books from the endless
stacks for readers, and saw during a lunch break, an
exhibit of the original hand written poems of Edward
Arlington Robinson, and specifically, Miniver Cheevy.
We had just read the poem in school that spring. Seeing
the poem before me in "living" ink and paper,
in that neat, tiny had, was for me an epiphany. Such
power, an entire world, on that one small sheet! It
was absolute and final: yes, I would be a writer above
all else!
With best wishes,
Myron Levoy
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