{"id":32497,"date":"2011-04-08T08:11:02","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T12:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=32497"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:36:32","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:36:32","slug":"one-writer-supports-another-and-an-endowment-is-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/04\/one-writer-supports-another-and-an-endowment-is-born\/","title":{"rendered":"One Writer Supports Another and an Endowment is Born"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Samuel<\/a>
Mark Twain. Photo from Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Could Mark Twain, master storyteller of Connecticut and of the world, have imagined the new tale unfolding today at UConn?<\/p>\n

Lynn Z. Bloom, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English, and Martin Bloom, professor emeritus of social work, are adding a new chapter to the work-in-progress. Their planned gift will establish the Bloom Endowment for the Mark Twain Distinguished Author-in-Residence.<\/p>\n

Mark Twain\u2019s literary legacy to the world is unquestioned, and his place in Connecticut secured by his home in Hartford, now the Mark Twain House and Museum. The endowment for the Mark Twain Distinguished Author-in-Residence, housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will ensure UConn\u2019s commitment to that heritage, through bringing creative writers and scholars of American literature not only to the Storrs campus but to the state of Connecticut.<\/p>\n

That Mark Twain lives today is attested by the publication of his autobiography in 2010, a bestseller commemorating the 100th anniversary of his death. That Twain will live for tomorrow\u2019s students, scholars, and the general public will be reinforced by the Bloom Endowment.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Lynn<\/a>
Lynn Bloom, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English and Aetna Chair of Writing. File photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An iconoclastic, boundary-breaking writer in the Twain mold, Bloom was hired as the inaugural Aetna Chair of Writing<\/a> at UConn in 1988, the first chair in the nation to be endowed for writing and the first endowed chair on UConn\u2019s flagship campus \u2013 of further groundbreaking significance because it went to a woman.<\/p>\n

Although her Ph.D. advisor at the University of Michigan told her to get a teaching certificate so she would have “something to fall back on,” Bloom had a more expansive vision of her professional future. She didn\u2019t want to fall back. “I wanted to move forward,” she says. “It\u2019s wonderful to have a job, made possible by the Aetna Foundation\u2019s endowment to UConn, that is always forward-looking, with numerous opportunities for invention and innovation.”<\/p>\n

Just as Twain is associated with Hartford and Connecticut, Bloom\u2019s name is associated with writers and writing teachers throughout the state as a consequence of this appointment. The Aetna Chair\u2019s mandate, under Bloom\u2019s direction, is to focus on the teaching of writing at the Storrs and regional campuses through a host of events and initiatives. These include teacher fellowships to the Connecticut Writing Project<\/a> Summer Institute \u2013 over 450 to date; co-sponsorship of annual conferences at UConn on teaching writing and two national composition research conferences; and a creative writer-in-residence every semester.<\/p>\n

\"CampaignThe chair also supports publication of Essay CONNections<\/em> \u2013 volumes of award-winning freshman essays \u2013 and UConn\u2019s award-winning student literary magazine, The Long River Review;<\/em> teaching awards; the annual Aetna Celebration of Creative Nonfiction; and prizes for freshman and graduate critical essays, creative nonfiction, and interdisciplinary writing through the UConn Writing Center<\/a> and the activities of UConn\u2019s Litchfield County Writers Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bloom decided at the age of six to be a writer and teacher, inspired by Dr. Seuss\u2019s And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.<\/em> “I was suffused with happiness upon reading this book,” she says. “I thought, \u2018If I can become a writer and make others as happy as I am at this moment it will be wonderful.\u2019” Her vision never wavered, though Twain\u2019s influence would come later. After writing a doctoral dissertation analyzing literary biography, she spent seven years learning how to write one herself, Doctor Spock: Biography of a Conservative Radical, the life story of pediatrician Benjamin Spock.<\/em><\/p>\n

Known nationally for her writing research (some 25 books and 125 articles on creative nonfiction), Bloom has dramatically increased UConn\u2019s national prominence in the field. “The Aetna Chair is important,” she says. “When I came here, there was no campus-wide scholarly effort devoted to writing. And with the Aetna Chair, the whole University climate regarding writing has changed. Someone with expertise in writing can open the eyes of readers and writers. You can see the lightbulbs going off.”<\/p>\n

The Blooms hope to continue this momentum with the creation of the Bloom Endowment for the Mark Twain Distinguished Author-in-Residence. “I have liked being able to play good fairy with the money from the Aetna endowment,” Lynn Bloom says. “And now I have the opportunity to become a philanthropist myself.”<\/p>\n

To give to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, please contact the Foundation’s development department<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A planned gift will ensure Twain lives on for tomorrow’s students and scholars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-32497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 17:55:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32497"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36427,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32497\/revisions\/36427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32497"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=32497"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}