Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Layne Maheu lives in Seattle with his son and makes his living as a carpenter. After taking a degree in literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara, he traveled to Alaska to work on fishing boats. Later, during the winters in Seattle he learned carpentry. He was born in Burlington, Vermont, and grew up on both coasts, in Massachusetts and California. His intense interest in crows grew out of an experience he had on the coast of Oregon on his honeymoon. He was already a bird watcher, but came upon a man who had been watching the same aerie of falcons for 13 years. Fascinated and deeply impressed by the wealth of knowledge this man had accrued by concentrating on one species of bird, he decided to do the same, eventually settling on the crow family. Layne Maheu is the author of Song of the Crow, a take on the tale of Noah's Ark from a crow's perspective.
About This Biography
This biography was last updated on 05/30/2016. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with over 2500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date, inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
Awk Talk: Questions and Answers with Layne Maheu
How did you come up with the title Song of the Crow?
It’s hard to imagine a Crow’s voice as particularly musical, or all that pretty. But I suppose the crows themselves react favorably to their own calls. I chose the word ‘song’ for the irony, from our perspective, and also for how it would fit within the crow’s point of view. The narrator of the story is a crow.
Originally I had entitled the book Songs Long Gone. I imagine that crow’s might have provincial variations in their calls, and perhaps individual calls that they use to establish themselves. In the narrative, their homes, or aeries, are called ‘songscapes.’ And since there’s a flood that wipes everything out, well, the songs go with it.
Then, when the story was picked up by Unbridled Books, Fred Ramey, my editor there, thought that the title should show the unique perspective of the narrator, and so did I. So we kept ‘Song’ and added ‘Crow.’
What is your book about?
It’s an ancient, ancient story, and most likely one of the first stories you’ve ever heard, back in childhood. It’s the story of Noah’s Ark. But this time, it&...
Verlyn Klinkenborg comes from a family of Iowa farmers and is the author of Making Hay and The Last Fine Time. A member of the editorial board of the New York Times, he has written for The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Song of the Crow
Try:
Timothy
by Verlyn Klinkenborg
Alexis Masters, lifelong mystic, scholar and kriya yoga practitioner, holds a bachelor of arts in transpersonal psychology from Antioch University, where she also pursued graduate work in feminist theology and comparative ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Song of the Crow
Try:
The Giuliana Legacy
by Alexis Masters
We recommend 6 similar authors
The Tea Planter's Wife
by Dinah Jefferies
An utterly engrossing, compulsive page-turner set in 1920s Ceylon.
Raw, emotionally intelligent and unflinchingly honest--a triumph.
About the book
Blood at the Root
"A gripping, timely, and important examination of American racism."
- PW Starred Review
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
