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A Novel Approach to Life

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A collection of frank and hellaciously funny speeches by a Texas legend
  • 31 August 2012
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As an administrator and teacher at San Antonio's Trinity University for five decades, Coleen Grissom saw the rise of feminism, the sexual revolution, and the tragic deaths of students, friends, and family. This varied collection assembles the best of her speeches probing these and other timely issues, from drug use and freedom of speech to AIDS and racism. More than the sum of its parts, this book, filigreed with pithy literary insights, offers an astute chronicle of its times that gives readers good reasons to embrace literature and life.
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Price: $18.99
Pages: 256
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Imprint: Trinity University Press
Publication Date: 31 August 2012
ISBN: 9781595341181
Format: eBook
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“Coleen Grissom is a superb example of Dear Reader—the intelligent, passionate, fully engaged, gets-all-the-jokes audience. And she’s not exactly shy about sharing her enthusiasms, so she’s also a brave advocate. If there’s ever a last-stand fort of reading and writing to be defended, Coleen Grissom will be right up there on the battlements. Readers like her raise the bar for writers.”— Margaret Atwood

“Coleen Grissom is an indelible original, a straight-talkin’ virtuoso of radiant and glittering mind, as well as one of the funniest people alive. Anyone who gets to hear her speak will never forget it; the rest of the world will seem slightly duller by comparison. Or, you will feel recharged to discover more about the rest of the world—its literature and films and wisdom, its small towns, its animals—more about everything interesting in general. Reading Grissom’s passionate and brilliant speeches may be nearly as good as hearing them. At least we will have them in hand to return to whenever we need some high-voltage uplift.”— Naomi Shihab Nye
Coleen Grissom is a professor of English at Trinity University and the author of The World According to Coleen and A Novel Approach to Life. A faculty member at Trinity for more than fifty years, she has received “honorary alumna” status and a scholarship in her honor. As dean of students and later vice president for student affairs, she has mentored, counseled, and influenced the lives of thousands of students. Though still teaching full time at Trinity and leading discussions of contemporary fiction in two literary excursions for “more mature” students, she resides in the Texas Hill Country, where her toy poodles, a rescued schnauzer stray, and her indoor cats enslave her.