Arts & Entertainment
Pacifica Writer Spotlight: David Hirzel
David Hirzel of the Pacifica Poetry Forum is presenting at several events at the county fair. Here he talks to Patch about his work.
David Hirzel helped organize events for the Literary Arts Stage at the San Mateo County Fair, which runs through this Saturday. Patch recently interviewed him about his life and his work.
Patch: Where are you from originally and when did you come to Pacifica?
David Hirzel: Born Philadelphia, raised in West Virginia, came to Santa Cruz County 1976, slowly moving north and landed in Pacifica in June of 2005. Pacifica fits me best of all these other places.
When and how did you start writing?
Probably about as soon as I could write down my letters, maybe 2nd grade. I haven't stopped since, although I might work in one genre or another for years, then drop it suddenly for a number of years. One consistent project has been my trilogy about the Irish explorer Tom Crean, who went south during the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with Captain Scott twice, and again with Ernest Shackleton in the Endurance expedition in the early years of the twentieth century.
How do you describe yourself as a writer – a poet, a short-story-writer?
All of the above. I've had lots of poetry published, taken a few prizes, have a chapbook Sea Sonnets. Three one-act plays produced at the Fringe of Marin. Short stories in Sand Hill Review and Carry the Light. Green building articles in the Pacifica Tribune. My nonfiction book Sailor on Ice: Tom Crean with Scott in the Antarctic 1910-1913 (Part One Discovery and Part Three Hold Fast are works in progress).
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What writers or artists inspire you most?
Joh Keats, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Pierre Berton, a whole host of them.
Does Pacifica show up in your work explicitly or implicitly in any way?
I write from an office with a wide-open view of the ocean, high above the bluffs at the north end of Palmetto at a place I call Sky Ranch. This is why I decided to live here: if I'm going to spend a lot of time in an office, I want it to have this window. A whole lot of what I write has to do with ships and the sea, and I get to look at it every day. On a clear day (and Pacifica has an undeserved reputation of being unduly foggy), it seems like I can almost see Japan.
What will you be presenting at the Fair?
Today (Monday) I am hosting the American Indian Poets on the Fine Arts Galleria Stage from 5 pm to 6pm. Immediately after, I and my friend Mark DeHaas will be singing traditional sea music from the stage. On Tuesday I will be reading my one-act play Chance Encounter along with 2 other playwrights, hosted by Darlene Frank. Following that I will be giving a talk "The Spirit of Tom Crean" about the man who is the subject of my book.
If there’s one piece of your work you would like to share with Patch readers, which one would you point them to?
Sailor on Ice. It has been very well received by people who have been Antarctic explorers themselves in the modern day, who really know the hazards and the beauty of the Antarctic. It has been a labor of love for me, a project that takes on every larger implications for all my life, the longer I work on the ongoing volumes of the trilogy. Though it is hard to believe, everythng in the book is true. Tom Crean and the way he lived his life can be an example for all of us.
How can readers find your work?
Sea Sonnets, Sailor on Ice, Carry the Light, and Fault Zone are all available through Florey's books, or Amazon.
Check back with Patch for more Pacifica writers spotlights.
