steve street
Sunday, August 19, 2012 at 10:31AM
Our friend Steve Street, fiction writer, essayist, and activist, passed away on Friday after a long struggle with cancer. The Chronicle of Higher Education paid tribute to Steve here. The New Faculty Majority Blog did so here. And they link here to more of Steve. You can read some of his essays at the Chronicle. And here are some links to his other writing: His story "Skin," which appeared in the Missouri Review. "Balloon Theater" appeared in the Cimmaron Review. "Foreigners" also appeared in Cimmaron this summer, but you'll have to buy that issue. I have mine autographed by Steve. Here's "Do You Think?" in wordriver. In Posse Review published an excerpt from The Murther of Blick Mangoosh. Here's a book review and here a movie review. And here a few of us are back in Fayetteville at Mark Osing's apartment, long ago:
Pam, Steve, Bev, me, Cindy, and Mark in front.
On a trip to Rochester this summer, we were able to rendezvous with Steve in East Aurora. The next day he was leaving for a holiday in Mexico. He was feeling good, had just gotten tests done and was awaiting the results. Here's an excerpt from his last e-mail to me on July 11:
Vallarta was fine: my Spanish returned in surprising ways and was excellent, according to the shopkeepers, so I bought many trinkets along w/wading in the Pacific and on a boat trip to a remote cove, after just one weak piña colada I joined my first conga line. Vacation city, no mutilated bodies in sight.
Nice to see you both too. Meant to ask after Tristan and whether the grant means you'll be off next year. If so come on back in the winter: otherwise you haven't really seen Buffalo or Rochester either. Test results weren't great, but as the zany British comic said, I'm not quit dead yet.
cheers,
Steve
We're sure going to miss Steve. I still remember his story "The Orange Caroline" from Bill Harrison's fiction workshop, way back when.
steve street
Reader Comments (2)
I'm revisiting The Orange Caroline which also appeared in Jim's workshop David Sanders sent me the news of Steve's death from The Chronicle. Thanks for your tribute. When my fixed-term appointment expired the semester before Maya Angelou delivered her covenant on a January day, I was appointed as adjunct advocate for a time I switched to special education in the public schools when my muse, strident and unforgiving, demanded my signature on child support. I enjoyed sharing PITS assignments with Steve. He chose words with prudence, and I never had to look in his driveway on Saturday mornings for my first wife's car.
Here is how I learned the terrible news about Steve: Today, I had asked our staff at Cimarron Review to send me Steve's address, as I wanted to invite him to do a fiction reading here at Oklahoma State. We also publish Cimarron Review here and have been proud to publish some of his very fine fiction. We are decimated by this news. The world has lost a great talent.