A working-class writer
I was feeling a bit out of sorts on Sunday, which was Mother's Day. I'm not a mother - well, a stepmother, but that's a step removed from the mothers who are showered with flowers and cards on Their Day. We were eating lunch when I checked my messages and learned that Blood Clay , had won the General Fiction prize in the Eric Hoffer Awards. I felt like Mother's Day had arrived for me - my child had been recognized! The Eric Hoffer Award has been around for a few years, and includes a competition for short prose as well as for books published by small or "indie" publishers. I'm happy to place the Hoffer seal on my page because the self-taught longshoreman/philosopher speaks to my heritage. Born to an English/German working class family like my own, he grew up in the Depression and struggled to learn. “When my father (a cabinetmaker) died, I realized that I would have to fend for myself," he wrote. "I knew several things: One, that I