This week Spokane Poet Nance Van Winckel brings us a week in memory of James McAuley. Jim was a beloved poet and teacher at EWU who passed away this fall. He, along with John Keeble, was the founder of Eastern Washington University’s Creative Writing Program.
James J. McAuley passed away on October 26, 2021. This followed a long battle with his illness. He was a passionate, fiery, prolific, and highly formal poet who hailed from Ireland, and he worked many years at EWU founding and teaching in the Creative Writing Program, passing his matchless passion to that effort. Ultimately, he started up the then-EWU Press and continued working until his retirement and return to his home in Dublin, Ireland. He is survived by his sons, and by his wife, Deirdre.
Funeral services were held Tuesday, November 2, by the Newman University Press, Saint Stephen's Green in Dublin.
Dan Webster wrote a profile of James McAuley for the Spokesman-Review on his retirement from EWU in 1998.
On December 28 and 29, KPBX will present two half-hour interviews which Phyllis Silver did with James McAuley in 1983. That will be at 6:30 PM on The Bookshelf.
