Jerry Stern
- writer, teacher, commentator -
dies at 57
Excerpted with permission from the Tallahassee Democrat
By Mark Hinson
Democrat Staff Writer
Jerome H. "Jerry" Stern, one of Florida State University's and
Tall-ahassee's key cultural figures, died March 19. He was 57.
Besides running the Writing Program at FSU and teaching fiction workshops,
Stern was a witty essayist, a wry radio commentator, a books columnist for
the Democrat, an award-winning educator and a complex intellectual who was
fascinated by pop culture.
"He is totally irreplaceable; He will leave a gap that will never be
filled," said fellow professor Hunt Hawkins.
Stern had been sick with lymphoma for several years.
Born Sept. 27, 1938, Stern grew up in an uptown Manhattan neighborhood.
He developed an early interest in architecture and Medieval art from spending
his days at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"He was one of the smartest people I've ever known," his wife
Maxine said. "He was always interested in everything."
Stern earned his degree in English from City College of the City University
of New York and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill. It was there that he and Maxine married.
In 1966 Stern moved to Tallahassee as an instructor at FSU. Even at a time
when pop music, post-modern art and film weren't taken seriously in academic
circles, Stern turned a critical eye to the mass culture - all the while
teaching scholarly classes about such literary figures as Henry James.
Stern was also known for his humorous, on-air "radios," as he
liked to call his mini-essays for National Public Radio.
In the mid-'80s, Stern and then-graduate student Allen Woodman came up with
the idea for the World's Best Short Short Story writing competition. The
rules were simple: write a story that is only one page long or shorter.
The winner got $100, publication in the Sun Dog: The Southeast Review and
a crate of Florida oranges.
The contest was an immediate hit and now attracts thousands of entries from
as far away as Australia, the Far East and Africa.
In 1990 Stern published "Making Shapely Fiction," a collection
of rules, advice, musings and insights about writing from his years of leading
fiction workshops. The book was typical Stern - funny, fast-moving, entertaining
yet informative and straight to the point.
"It's a book that fits my short attention span," Stern joked at
the time.
The book is now in its third printing.
Stern also was instrumental in starting the annual Spring Festival of Writers
at FSU. Since the early 1980s, the two-day conference has attracted such
notables as Ernest Gaines, Julius Lester, Denis Johnson and many others.
While Stern could hold forth on high-brow literary topics when asked, he
particularly enjoyed turning his keen intellect on allegedly low-brow topics.
His Popular Culture class at FSU examined the American experience from the
role of MTV in mass culture to disco to "Mr. Ed". The class typically
had a waiting list to get in.
Before he died, Stern started a scholarship fund for creative writing students.
The address of the fund is Jerry Stern Writing Fund, FSU English Department,
406 Williams Bldg, Tallahassee, Fla. 32306-1036