Reading List
Tom Coyne
Golf Writer and Memoirist
Tom Coyne went to graduate school intending to write literary fiction and ended up writing about golf, which he has since made a case for as a serious subject. He walked the entire coast of Ireland with his clubs for A Course Called Ireland, played every links course in Scotland for its sequel, and has written about attempting to qualify for the PGA Tour. He teaches creative writing at Saint Joseph’s University, and reads mostly outside his own genre.
Sailing Alone Around the Room
New and Selected Poems
by Billy Collins · 2001 · Poetry
“to recall what great sentences sound like, and to recall that one right word trumps a thousand ambitious ones.” — via Article
To the Linksland
A Golfing Adventure
by Michael Bamberger · 1992 · Memoir
“helped me embrace golf as a subject worthy of literary treatment.” — via Article
My Antonia
by Willa Cather · 1918 · Fiction
“I was a high schooler who found a book I wanted everybody to read, and I told everyone who would listen that I had the book for them.” — via Article
On Writing
A Memoir of the Craft
by Stephen King · 2000 · Memoir
“But the book turned out to be life-changing stuff.” — via Article
This Boy’s Life
A Memoir
by Tobias Wolff · 1989 · Memoir
“Memoir gets a bad rap as indulgent and self-absorbed stuff, but this book was a lesson in memoir as entertainment and storytelling.” — via Article
Where I’m Calling From
Selected Stories
by Raymond Carver · 1988 · Fiction
“I am certainly not the only MFA grad who has Raymond Carver to thank (or blame) for pursuing short-story writing as a vocation. When this collection landed in my hands, I was not only taken by the stories but also inspired to try my hand at this thing he made look so easy.” — via Article