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Snyder, Donald (1950 - )

Genre: General Fiction, Non-Fiction

Don Snyder, a resident of Scarborough, Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, was born in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, on August 11, 1950. He was one of twins and his mother died days later of complications from the pregnancy.

He was raised in Bangor, Maine, graduated from Colby College in 1972, and worked as editor of the Bar Harbor Times, as reporter for a Portland weekly, and as a freelance writer.

After achieving his dream of participating in the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, he taught briefly at Colby, the University of Maine at Orono and Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. In 1992, after failing to get tenure at Colgate, he and his family moved back to Maine where and he took jobs as a greenskeeper, construction laborer, house painter, and cottage caretaker for summer people.

His big break came in 1995 with the publication in Harper's magazine of an excerpt from his journal, which became the book, The Cliff Walk: A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found, published in 1997. In addition to writing memoirs and novels, Snyder also teaches screenwriting, fiction writing and nonfiction prose in the MFA program at Western Connecticut University.

Selected Bibliography

Memoirs

The Cliff Walk: A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found (1997), recounts the story of his life's unraveling after he lost his teaching job at Colgate
Of Time and Memory: A Mother's Story (1999), recounts his mother's life, his parents' courtship, and the mystery surrounding her death. The New York Times reviewed both Cliff Walk and Of Time and Memory
Walking with Jack: A Father's Journey to Become His Son's Caddie (2013)