St. Louis Missouri

Alumnus writes memoir about Mexico

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From the UMSL Newsroom By Rose Postma Today University of Missouri–St. Louis alumnus Rick Skwiot is an award-winning author of several books, but in 1965 he was just a freshman beginning his education at UMSL. His unversity experience challenged and changed him. “Many students were first generation university students like me – ethnic, eager to break [...]

Unsolicited Reader Comments on Christmas at Long Lake

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  “I have enjoyed Christmas at Long Lake hugely…It is beautiful and cleanly written, and I admire it not only for its use of language but as well fro the ways in which, within the framework of the narration of events of a couple of days, it works outward to create a larger thematic universe [...]

Critical Praise for Christmas at Long Lake: A Childhood Memory

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  “Rick Skwiot works his own magic…As usual, Skwiot’s writing is sure…And his tale has a gritty, blue-collar cachet…This is good reading.”—Kansas City Star “Skwiot’s vivid descriptions of the physical and emotional landscape of this environment are poignant, entertaining, and instructional…There is magic in this depiction of a setting and a way of life that [...]

Killing Mother

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By Rick Skwiot (First published in PortFolio Weekly as “The Crossing.”) The call I’d been waiting for came in the middle of the night, waking me from a dead sleep. “This is Nurse Something-or-Other from the Good Samaritan Home…Your mother’s passed away…Would you like to come down and see her?” I’d been wanting her to [...]

Christmas at Long Lake Q&A

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From a Sauce Magazine email interview. Q. What sparked your desire to write this memoir? Was it something you’d been contemplating for quite a while? A. I think one of the first short stories I ever tried to write, years ago, attempted to capture the ongoing sense of loss I feel for that place and [...]