Don Kurtz

Background

Mr. Kurtz was born in Urbana, Illinois, United States, on August 1, 1951. He son of Lester T. (an agronomy professor) and Frances (a homemaker; maiden name, Sinnamon) Kurtz.

Education

Don Kurtz finished University of Illinois with Bachelor of Science in 1972. In 1979 he graduated from New Mexico State University, receiving Master of Arts.

Career

Since 1981 Mr. Kurtz served as an assistant professor of Spanish at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. He collaborated on his first book, Trails of the Guadalupes, with William D. Goran in 1978.

Achievements

• Don Kurtz is a prominent author of a number of books.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Churchgoers

    (Churchgoers traces the fate of ecstatic religious experie...)

  • South of the Big Four - Kindle edition by Don Kurtz. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

    (South of the Big Four is a gracefully told, arresting loo...)

  • Alphonse Mucha: An American Collection (Vignettes)

    (Mucha's Byzantine beauties graced walls throughout Paris ...)

  • Trails of the Guadalupes: A Hiker's Guide to the Trails of Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Views

Quotations: Kurtz told CA: "My motivation for writing comes from the same basic impulse that might lead someone to be a fire fighter — when he sees them on their huge trucks, racing down the street with sirens blaring, a child might say, ‘I want to do that, too.’ When I found myself, as a young person, carried away by hooks into a different world, when I found myself utoved and transformed, I said to myself, ‘I want to ho that, too.’ I wanted to work my own magic on unsuspecting readers, and, in the process, on myself.

One writer who has particularly influenced me is Larry McMurtry. I came to his work unguided, at the Public library, and was instantly captivated. The reader slides so easily into his narrative that it’s easy to forget that one is reading, and not actually living in that imaginary world. To this day I favor narrates in which the author essentially disappears and the language is a graceful vehicle for deeper immersion in the story at hand, rather than an end in itself.

I was also drawn to Mr. McMurtry’s evocative, elegiac voice, which I have often found suitable for my own subject matter as well."

Membership

• American Association of University Professors , United States

• PEN New Mexico , United States

• Writers Guild , United States

Interests

• playing basketball, meditation, reading, travel

Connections

Don Kurtz married Elizabeth Gutierrez (an attorney and professor) on January 26, 1985.

Father:

Lester T. Kurtz

Mother:

Frances (Sinnamon) Kurtz

Wife:

Elizabeth Gutierrez