California Medieval
A Convent Memoir
9781639640560
176 pages
Schaffner Press Inc
Overview
LONG FORM: This memoir by Dianne Dugaw, the winner of the 2023 Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature, is a poetically drawn ode to the author's early years as a novitiate nun in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-1960s, the era when the Summer of Love first blossomed. A musically gifted child who grew up in a remote ranching community in Washington State, Dianne was ushered into the sisterhood upon graduating high-school, where she furthered her musical training and delved deep into the catechism and the daily rituals of convent life. In a series of beautiful vignettes that meld different genres and voices from poetry, to psalm, to descriptive observations of the hilly environment surrounding the nunnery, and its denizens, whether floral, animal or human,the reader is steeped in both the mysticism and the drudgery as well as the good natured humor and steadfast will required in such an existence, while also feeling the author's growing urge to venture beyond the cloistered walls to discover a wider world.
Author Bio
DIANNE DUGAW is a singer-musician, writer, and scholar who publishes in folklore, music, and literary studies with an emphasis on queer topics. Her childhood on a small Pacific Northwest ranch and her early years as a Catholic nun shape her storytelling and scholarship. Her books, which include Warrior Women & Popular Balladry (University of Chicago Press) and ‘Deep Play’—John Gay & the Invention of Modernity (University of Delaware Press), investigate cross-dressing women heroes, ballad origins of musical comedy, and gender and sexuality in history. She has also recorded two CDs, singing traditional British and American folksongs. Professor Emerita at the University of Oregon, Dugaw lives in the Willamette Valley with her wife and wee dog.
