Nominated for
2008 Oklahoma
Book Award . . .
Back40 Publishing presents
Walking On An Old Road,
Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel’s
South Valley Arts collection
of prose and poetry
published from 1993--2000 . . .
Back40 Publishing presents
Walking On An Old Road,
Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel’s
South Valley Arts collection
of prose and poetry
published from 1993--2000 . . .
-- In honor of the life and literary legacy of the newest University of California in Merced received a large amount of the poet’s
personal papers and are the first of their kind bequeathed to this newest UC campus for archiving; keeping true to Wilma’s request to keep her work present and alive in California’s Great Central Valley. Her family lived with relatives in the nearby town of Livingston when they first arrived in California as Dust Bowl refugees from Oklahoma in 1936.
Wilma wrote voluminously of her culture. Her sharecropper family was forced from Oklahoma by massive dust storms and the Great Depression; one among thousands making their desperate exodus to California in search of survival. As a teenager she brought with her “the fire and burden of poetry,” which remained her constant and often critical companion through those following decades.
Second editions were published in September 2009 for two Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel titles, The Ketchup Bottle and Tatted Lace (and Other Handmade Poems) and are available through Back40.
Research continues for compilation of a definitive Collected\Selected Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel edition that will be a comprehensive collection of Wilma’s poetry and a companion volume of her prose.
An Illustrated Bibliography of Titles by Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel is the most recent addition to these pages and is a fairly comprehensive resource for those interested in learning more about this unique American poet and her lifework . . .
With exceptions, most hail from the Central San Joaquin Valley and western Sierra Nevada foothills of California. Native California poet and others are featured here as material is gathered and edited . . .
Comments? To reach Back40 Publishing, please contact: james@back40publishing.com (back to top)