Tom Montgomery Fate
What’s your genre?
Creative nonfiction / memoir / essays
Are you published?
Traditional Publisher
What inspired you to become a writer?
My 7th grade English teacher, Miss Herman, asked us to write about “a walk in the woods” we had taken, and then read/record (interpret) it on a cassette recorder. Then we listened to the reading together, while looking at the print, and discussed it. It blew my 13 year old mind.
What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I read ten of Scott Russell Sanders books while in a writing residency, and learned that my seemingly boring, humdrum life was interesting enough to write about. It was not about WHAT I saw but HOW I saw.
Name three of your favorite books and their authors
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Dakota by Kathleen Norris
What’s one thing readers should know about you?
Beauty is defined by flaw not perfection. It is uniqueness and difference that defines beauty, not societal expectation.
What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
There are two things you need to be a writer: passion and patience. These two words share the same Latin root—pati—which means “to suffer.”
Author bio
Tom Montgomery Fate is a professor emeritus at College DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where he taught creative writing and literature courses for more than 30 years. He is the author of six books of creative nonfiction, including The Long Way Home: Detours and Discoveries, a travel memoir (Ice Cube Press, 2022), Cabin Fever, a nature memoir (Beacon Press), and Steady and Trembling, a spiritual memoir (Chalice Press). A regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, his essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Orion, The Iowa Review, Christian Century, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, and many others. Dozens of his essays have also aired on NPR, PRI and Chicago Public Radio. Visit Tom here.
On September 27, Tom will teach a class titled, Writing A Life Into Memoir at the Ames Public Library from 6:30 to 8 PM. Check our calendar for further details.
