Robert McAlmon

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Robert McAlmon

Robert Menzies McAlmon (March 9, 1896 - February 2, 1956) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
author

Author

An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created....
, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry....
and publisher.

mon was born in Clifton, Kansas

Clifton, Kansas

Clifton is a city in Washington County, Kansas and Clay County, Kansas counties in the U.S. state of Kansas. The population was 557 at the 2000 United States Census....
.

McAlmon was admitted to the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public university research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, Minnesota, United States....
, but only spent one semester there before enlisting in the United States Air Corps in 1918. At the conclusion of World War I

World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
, he returned to university, this time at the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private university, nonsectarian, research university located in the University Park, Los Angeles, California neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, California, United States....
. He attended classes intermittently until 1920, when he moved to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
and then New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
.

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Encyclopedia

Robert Menzies McAlmon (March 9, 1896 - February 2, 1956) was an American

United States

Author

An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created....
, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry....
and publisher.

Life and works

McAlmon was born in Clifton, Kansas

Clifton, Kansas

University of Minnesota

World War I

University of Southern California

Chicago

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. Once in New York, he collaborated with William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an list of American poets closely associated with Modernist poetry and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine....
to establish a magazine called Contact. The next year, he moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
after marrying the English writer Annie Winifred Ellerman, better known as Bryher

Bryher

Bryher was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman. She was born in September 1894 in Margate....
.

McAlmon became a prolific writer after the move, with many of his stories and poems based on his experiences as a youth in South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota people and Sioux Sioux Native Americans in the United States tribes....
. After publishing a book of short stories called A Hasty Bunch in 1922, he founded his own publishing company, Contact Editions. In addition to publishing his own works under this publisher, he also published works of his wife, Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was an American writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and Modernist literature....
, Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, France, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation"....
, and other notables of the day. One of his most important and best-received works is Village: As It Happened Through a Fifteen Year Period (1924) which presents a bleak portrait of an American town. The book shows his love for Eugene Vidal (Eugene Collins in the book), Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an United States novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, short story writer and politician. Early in his career he wrote the ground-breaking The City and the Pillar , which outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality....
's father, with whom he grew up in Madison

Madison, South Dakota

Madison is a city in Lake County, South Dakota, South Dakota, United States. The population was 6,540 at the 2000 United States Census. It is the county seat of Lake County, South Dakota and is home to Dakota State University....
, South Dakota, which is documented in Gore Vidal's mid-90s memoir, Palimpsest.

Other works include the short story collection A Companion Volume (1923), the autobiographical novel Post-Adolescence (1923), Distinguished Air (Grim Fairy Tales) (1925), the poetry collections The Portrait of a Generation (1926) and Not Alone Lost (1937), the 1,200 line epic poem North America, Continent of Conjecture (1929), and his memoir Being Geniuses Together: An Autobiography (1938).

McAlmon returned to the United States in 1940, dying at Desert Hot Springs, California

Desert Hot Springs, California

Desert Hot Springs, also known as DHS, is a city in Coachella Valley, Riverside County, California, California, United States. The population was 16,582 at the 2000 United States Census....
almost unknown in his native country sixteen years later. In the 1990s, Edward Lorusso brought out three volumes of McAlmon's fiction (many were first American publications) in Village
Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, larger than a hamlet , but smaller than a town or city. Though generally located in rural areas, the term urban village may be applied to certain urban area neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon....
(1990), Post-Adolescence (1991), and Miss Knight and Others (1992)--all through University of New Mexico

University of New Mexico

The University of New Mexico is a public university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, New Mexico, USA. It was founded in 1889. It offers multiple bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and professional degree programs in all areas of the arts, sciences, and engineering....
Press.

Adrift Among Geniuses: Robert McAlmon, Writer and Publisher of the Twenties (1975) by Sanford J. Smoller is the only biography of the author.

Bibliography

Explorations — 1921
A Hasty Bunch — 1922
A Companion Volume — 1923
Post-Adolescence — 1923
Village — 1924
Distinguished Air — 1925
The Portrait of a Generation — 1925
North America, Continent of Conjecture — 1929
The Infinite Huntress and Other Stories — 1932
Not Alone Lost — 1937
Being Geniuses Together — 1938
McAlmon and the Lost Generation — 1962 (edited by Robert E. Knoll)
There Was a Rustle of Silk Stockings — 1963
Being Geniuses Together — 1968 (revised with supplementary chapters by Kay Boyle
Kay Boyle

Kay Boyle, born February 19, 1902 in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States ? died December 27, 1992 in Mill Valley, California, was an award-winning writer, educator, and political activist....
)
Miss Knight and Others — 1992