Kevin Oderman

Cannot Stay

Kevin Oderman

This is a book for cultural travelers first of all. It includes many cultural allusions, particularly to modern poetry, allusions that are self-evident in context. This is not in any way a guidebook–no suggestions about where to stay or eat or anything like that. The focus is on the experience of travel; the places provide the occasions to explore that. The author writes vivid descriptions of the places he visits, giving the reader a chance to «experience» destinations with him. While most literary travel writing is quite formulaic–for example, it may recount a single heroic journey or go somewhere and talk about sinking in until the visitor is almost like a native–Cannot Stay is different. It is about the kinds of journeys most people take.The individual essays form a collage about travel. The author twice taught abroad as a Fulbright Scholar, first in Thessaloniki, Greece, and subsequently in Lahore, Pakistan. The author received a Bakeless Prize in nonfiction for a book of literary essays.The author teaches nonfiction, including essay, to graduate students in the Wilkes University Low Residency Creative Writing MA/MFA Program.

White Vespa

Kevin Oderman

An American expatriate hopes to quell his grief for a long lost son in the stillness of his photographs of the Dodecanese Islands. But soon friendship and then love for a woman wounded in her own family-born grief propels him toward life again, where stillness is set into motion and identity might be recovered, against odds, in a foreign place. "Oderman has a knack for keeping things moving and bringing the vibrant colors of the island to life."&#8212Publishers Weekly