NORWICH, Conn. –– Author and poet David W. McKain, whose memoir about growing up in Bradford, Pa., was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, died earlier this month after a long affliction of Alzheimer’s disease.
His death on Dec. 27 was announced by his family.
McKain, born in Punxsutawney, Pa., on Dec. 28, 1937, was raised in Bradford. His memoir, “Spellbound: Growing Up in God’s Country,” was published in 1988 and was the winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Non-fiction and was nominated for the National Book Award, the PEN award, as well as the Pulitzer Prize.
He was a poet, a nonfiction writer and a professor of English at the University of Connecticut, teaching at the Avery Point and Storrs campuses for 30 years, retiring in 1993 as professor emeritus. In the early 1990s he was a writer-in-residence at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
In Storrs at UConn, McKain was the head of the creative writing program and in 1983 he was honored with the outstanding teacher of the year award. In addition to “Spellbound,” his books include three collections of poems, “In Touch,” “The Common Life” and “Spirit Bodies.” He was the editor for “The Whole Earth: Essays in Appreciation, Anger, and Hope” (1972) and “Christianity: Some Non-Christian Appraisals” (1964).
The son of Charles and Ida Crawford McKain, as a student McKain arrived at Connecticut in 1965 on a basketball scholarship. He earned his bachelor and master’s degrees, as well as his doctorate, at UConn. Before teaching at the university, he worked in New York for Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, and for McGraw Hill, of which he was the first editor of the McGraw Hill Paperbacks Series.
He was also writer-in-residence at Phillips Academy in Andover and at Virginia Commonwealth University.
As a young man he worked as a park ranger in Big Sur and in San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore. As a writer, he was honored with numerous awards, and he received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Connecticut Commission for the Arts.
He lived for a time in Noank, Conn., moving to Preston in 1972, where he built his own house in the woods while on sabbatical, reading books on how to build one’s own house at night and getting up in the morning and working on it. He met poet Margaret Gibson in Saratoga Springs in June 1975, and they married in December of that year.
McKain was an avid walker and hiker — he was often seen hiking on Mount Raub in Bradford during his time as an adult there — a book collector and genealogist, a builder of stone walls, a yard-sale and antiques shop explorer, and also a passionate participant in the civil rights and peace movements.
As an advocate for the environment, he helped to found the Conservation Commission in Preston, Conn., and served on the board of Avalonia Land Conservancy.
During his 11 years with Alzheimer’s, McKain continued to be cheered and loved by his close family and friends, his family said.
McKain is survived by his wife of 42 years, Margaret Gibson; his children, Joshua McKain and his wife Amy; and grandchildren Henry and Lucy and Megan McKain and her husband Brad Jenkins and grandchildren Isabelle, Rachel and Anneka; as well as by his first wife, Sharon McKain.
Family will gather at McKain’s home in Preston for a private memorial service in February and again for a celebration of his life in June.
Arrangements are under the Church and Allen Funeral Home, www.churchandallen.com.
