The Army veteran from Yorktown hadn’t prepared an acceptance speech. As good as his latest book was, he knew the 2023 Virginia Literary Award for fiction surely would go to the Pulitzer Prize winner in the category.
Then he heard his name: “Bill Glose.”
“I was agog as I walked up to the lectern,” said Glose, who will be well-prepared when reading from “All the Ruined Men,” as part of Old Dominion’s 47th Annual Literary Festival from Oct. 6-11.
The festival, themed “ancient futures,” includes readings from 21 authors and artists, many reflective of how we find our footing by turning to the past for guidance.
“When I was a child reading books, my understanding of the future was shaped by the worlds I was encountering in prose,” said ODU English Professor John McManus, one of the co-directors of this year’s event. “These incarnations of the eternal present helped steer me toward the future.”
Some highlights:
- Rebekah Taussig’s featured read of her memoir, “Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body,” which challenges the stereotypes of life in a wheelchair with authenticity and wit that invites conversation about accessibility and connection.
- The fiction and poetry of Micah Nemerever, selected by request after the university surveyed graduate students in ODU’s Master of Fine Arts and Creative Writing program. Nemerever explores adolescent anger and queer rage in his debut novel “These Violent Delights.”
- Wine Dark Sea, two ODU professors billed as a multi-instrumental Americana folk duo, will perform a concert in the University Theatre.
Glose’s presentation will focus on how he used writing to deal with the aftermath of his deployment during the Gulf War. In “All the Ruined Men,” storylines revolve around soldiers who deploy to war zones and must make sense of their lives every time they return home.
Glose deployed only once but was inspired by an Army buddy who experienced seven deployments.
“I started writing some of the stories that evolved into a book,” he said. “A lot of people don’t realize when they look at the size of the military, only 10% of it are the actual combat soldiers, the trigger pullers. They’re the ones who get sent back time and time again.”
Glose said it’s not unusual for people to lump the problems of any large organization – soldiers, teachers, police – as one.
“That is not the case,” Glose said. “What I tried to do in the book is show each soldier is an individual with individual problems.”
From “All the Ruined Men”: “They core out their hearts and come home changed. Or else, like those before, they die and are briefly memorialized. Until others come to take their place.”
Former service members have responded positively to the book.
“That’s been validating,” said Glose, also a technical writer for Newport News Shipbuilding and an accomplished poet. “I’ve gotten a lot of letters and messages from veterans. I’ve also taught classes with veterans and spoken to different groups. They’ve come up to me and said what I was reading and sharing was their story as well.”
Glose will read at noon on Oct. 10, at University Theatre along with Jeff Schnader, author of the critically acclaimed historical novel “The Serpent Papers.”
The literary festival will hold some hybrid events, but most are only in person. Prior to the pandemic, attendance was often standing room only.
McManus is hopeful this year’s lineup will produce a similar energy, noting, “We’re going to party like it’s 2019.”
The ODU Literary Festival is free and open to the public. A full schedule of events is online.
