Tag Archives: Golden Spur

Who was Dawn Powell?

powellbeach

1896 Born in family home at 53 West North Street in Mt. Gilead, Ohio, on November 28, the second of three daughters of Roy King Powell and Hattie Sherman Powell. (In later years Powell habitually gives her birth year as 1897. Father, b. August 24, 1869, and mother, b. March 24, 1872, are both from […]

1959 Diary

Cover 1959 Diary

The impoverished Powell and her husband continue nomadic life while Powell tries to concentrate on what would become “The Golden Spur,” her last completed novel.

1961 Diary

Cover 1961 Diary

Joseph Gousha in declining health. Powell herself hospitalized in May. Continued work on “The Golden Spur.” Powell’s diaries are filled with overheard conversations of this kind, most of which have never been published.

1962 Diary

Cover 1962 Diary

A year of many deaths—artist Franz Kline, patron Margaret de Silver, and husband Joseph Gousha. Somehow, Powell finished “The Golden Spur” and it was published in the fall. Edmund Wilson devotes more than 2,000 admiring words to the book in The New Yorker. Powell reflects on the long struggles with her husband and her son.

1963 Diary

Cover 1963 Diary

“The Golden Spur” is nominated for a National Book Award, but is not selected. Powell publishes “The Elopers,” one of her finest short stories, in the Saturday Evening Post. She also works on her last, unfinished novel, “Summer Rose.” One of many unpublished entries in Powell’s diaries. Roughly three quarters of her diaries exist only […]