Bill McDonald – författare

Walking on a Moonbeam is Bill McDonalds first book. It is a collection of poems written during his career as an engineer/scientist working in the US space and national defense programs. The poems were written based on personal life experiences and are organized into nine topics: youth, adventure, love, seasons, change, hope, places and things, farewells, and prayer. Consequently, it also tells much of his own personal story, beginning with his youth, continuing with his adventures in the United States moon program, and covering many of the events, activities, and circumstances of his life.

First book of essays devoted to Coetzee's controversial novel, combining critical and pedagogical approaches.Ever since it was first published in 1999, Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace has provoked controversy. Set in post-apartheid South Africa, it follows Prof. David Lurie as he encounters disgrace through his sexual exploitation of a student and then through the shocking gang-rape of his only daughter. The novel's uncompromising portrayal of the "new" South Africa outraged many, who found the book regressive, even racist. It also challengedreaders worldwide to confront its hard questions. This first book of essays devoted to the novel ambitiously brings together criticism and pedagogy. The ten critical essays and eight essays on teaching Disgrace grapple with the ethical issues the novel so provocatively raises: rape, gender, race, animal rights. Disgrace is widely taught in colleges and universities and read in book clubs; the debates it has given rise to will take on fresh life with the release of the upcoming film starring John Malkovich. Unusually, the eighteen contributors to the collection are all faculty members or graduates of the same institution, the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies atthe University of Redlands, and have worked together closely in crafting their essays over the past two years. The volume will be exceptionally useful to teachers of literature, philosophy, and South African culture, to book clubleaders, and to all readers of Coetzee.Contributors: Nancy Best, James Boobar, Bradley Butterfield, Jane Creighton, Matthew Gray, Pat Harrigan, Gary Hawkins, Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, Daniel Kiefer, Bill McDonald, Michael G. McDunnah, Kim Middleton, Kevin O'Neill, Raymond Obstfeld, Kathy Ogren, Kenneth Reinhard, Sandra D. Shattuck, Patricia Casey Sutcliffe, Julie Townsend.Bill McDonald is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Redlands, Redlands, California.