Saint Jerry

Martha Oliver-Smith

 

 ISBN 978-1-941550-37-3     $0.99

Martha Oliver-Smith, author of Martha's Mandala (SD, 2015), a memoir that explores her own grandmother's relationship with C.G. Jung in the 1930s, here reflects on her encounter with J.D. Salinger in the late 60s. Ms. Oliver-Smith includes a portrait of her own profession, teaching, and in particular the attitude engendered by Catcher in the Rye. Both events are filtered through the lens of her interaction with the author of that classic American novel.

Martha Oliver-Smith was born in Peace Dale, Rhode Island in 1946 to a family of writers, artists and scholars. She spent most of her childhood moving between her grandmother’s home in Peace Dale and living with her mother in New York. She moved west with her young family in 1972 to Ashland, Oregon where she completed a BA in English from Southern Oregon University. In 1976, she moved to Reno, Nevada to earn an MA in English literature from the University of Nevada where she began her thirty-six year teaching career. After twenty-five years of teaching college and high school literature and writing courses in Oregon, Nevada and California, Oliver-Smith moved back east to Vermont in 2002 to teach and to research and write Martha’s Mandala. In 2006, she earned an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts where her thesis provided the basis for the memoir. She lives with her husband, two cats, one dog and six chickens in northern Vermont where she is working on a second memoir.