Philip Kimball was born in the first half of the previous century in the front bedroom of a shotgun bungalow two blocks east of downtown Piedmont, Oklahoma, about two miles from the hole in the ground where his paternal grandfather was born (a dugout soddie on the land claimed in the 1889 rush). It was July 21, 1941, on the cusp between Cancer and Leo, the transition from dust bowl, the great depression, to world war and into the atomic age. It was 104º.
When the war ended, his family, mother, father, older brother, Alan, younger brother, Steven, lived in Hilltop Manor (poverty knob they called it) in Wichita, Kansas. They grew, free-range, in this WWII housing project and on the red-shale creeks in Oklahoma. They moved when he was starting the 8th grade to Derby, Kansas, one of the first places to be developed after the war, the population went from around 500 the spring before they arrived to 5000 that fall. After graduating from Derby High School and the University of Kansas he led a vagrant life, moving 21 times in the next 20 years. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Heidelberg, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, a graduate student at Stanford. He taught at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, at the University of Bonn, Germany, at Heinold Junior High School in Cincinnati, Ohio.
It was at the University of Bonn, after discussing a newly-published American novel with one of his classes, sitting in his room overlooking the Rhein, that he threw the text down in disgust and uttered: I can do better than that! A long pause. Then the realization: it’s not what you can do, it’s what you do do. The next morning he bought himself an Adler portable typewriter and a ream of paper and commenced writing. To top it all off, his mother would no longer be embarrassed when asked what Philip was up to. Writer sounded much better than itinerant ne’er-do-well.
He supported himself at various jobs, including a year in a fiberglass factory between Ann Arbor and Plymouth, Michigan, a year as a Burns security guard at the University of Michigan, a year at a soybean crushing mill in Wichita, Kansas, two years substitute teaching in the Boston Public Schools (it was in Boston that he met Jennifer Brown and they started their family), three years as an attendant at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, a year and a half as a school bus driver for Mayflower Contract Services in Lawrence, Kansas, and ten years as part-time picture framer at Artframes gallery and frame shop. He eventually quit his day job to become Headmaster of Wiseacre Academy, the home school for Lauren, his younger daughter, who refused to attend Free State High, just newly opened in far west Lawrence. She said it smelled and looked like a prison.
Publications:
fiction
“Soft Shootin,” Green Mountain Review. Johnson, VT. Fall 1977.
“Isadora Whitehands Learns Who She Isn’t,” New Mexico Humanities Review. Soccoro, NM. Fall 1981.
Harvesting Ballads. E.P. Dutton. New York. 1984.
“How Faestus came to Wichita,” and an interview, Cottonwood. Lawrence, KS. Fall 1985.
“Prairiegrass-Hair gets a man,” Green Mountain Review. Johnson, VT. Fall 1991.
Harvesting Ballads. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK. 1994.
Liar’s Moon. Henry Holt. New York, 1999.
Liar’s Moon. Plume. New York, 2000.
theory
“What is Fiction?” Little Balkans Review. Pittsburg, KS. Winter 1988-89.
poetry
“Gedicht,” Süddeutsche Zeitung. Munich. July 12, 1961.
“Poem,” Great Speckled Bird. Atlanta. March 14, 1969.
“Poem,” Great Speckled Bird. Atlanta. April 18, 1969.
Four poems: “breaking the plains,” “fragments from forlorn days,” “The island of the sirens,” and “Boloney,” Phoenix Papers. Penthe Publishing Co. Lawrence. 1993.
Sonnets from The Garbage Sonnets, The I-70 Review. Lawrence, KS. 2002.
Sonnets from The Garbage Sonnets and Bartlett’s Sonnets, The Coal City Review. Lawrence, KS. 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998.
translations
“Amerika uber Alles,” by Christian Geissler. Ramparts. San Francisco. April 1966.
Excerpts from Goethe’s Faust, appearing in The Complete Illustrations from Delacroix’s Faust and Manet’s The Raven. Dover Publications. New York, 1981.
Honors and Awards:
Phi Beta Kappa, 1963. Fulbright Scholarship, 1963-64. Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, 1964-65. Stanford University Fellowship, 1965-66.
Harvesting Ballads was nominated for a National Book Award in 1984 (was in contention for 3rd place).
Finalist in the Roberts Writing Award for Short Fiction in 1989.
Winner of the Grand Poetry Slam of Lawrence in 1991.
Winner of the Poetry division of the Kansas Voices Contest in 1992.
Readings:
Johnson State College. Johnson, VT. 1977, 1981, 1984.
Green Mountain Writers Workshop. Johnson, VT. 1977, 1978.
Vermont Upward Bound. Stowe, VT. 1978.
Northeastern University. Boston, MA. 1979.
Bennington Writers Conference. Bennington, VT. 1980.
Provincetown Public Radio. Provincetown, MA. 1984.
Brewster’s Ladies Library. Brewster, MA. 1984.
Nauset Unitarian Fellowship. Eastham, MA. 1984.
Coffeyville High School. Coffeyville, KS. 1984.
Watermark Bookstore. Wichita, KS. 1984.
University of Virginia. Charlottesville, VA. 1984.
Hollins College. Roanoke, VA. 1984.
University of South Carolina. Columbia SC. 1984.
Virginia Military Institute. Lexington, VA. 1984.
University of Kansas. Lawrence, KS. 1985.
Kansas Writers Association. Pittsburg, KS. 1985.
Citrus College. Pomona, CA. 1985.
Pomona College. Pomona CA. 1985.
California State Polytechnic College. Pomona, CA. 1985
Mt. San Antonio College. Walnut, CA. 1985.
Salina Arts and Humanities Commission. Salina, KS. 1986.
Emporia State University. Emporia, KS. 1987.
River City Reunion. Lawrence, KS. 1987.
Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship. Lawrence, KS. 1987, 1990, 1999.
Artframes. Lawrence, KS. 1990.
Kanza Days. Winfield, KS. 1992.
Terra Nova Bookstore. Lawrence, KS. 1994.
Lawrence Harvest of the Arts. Lawrence, KS. 1994-99.
The Writers Place. Kansas City, MO. 1994, 1995.
The Feed and Read at Cafe Toscana. Kansas City, MO. 1995.
The Wichita Museum of Art. Wichita, KS. 1995.
The Mercantile. Lawrence, KS. 1998.
The Raven Bookstore. Lawrence, KS. 1999.
Prairie Lights Bookstore. Ames, IA. 1999.
And many others. 2000-2008.