December 16, 2022
University of Montana Western Professor of English, Dr. Shane Borrowman, recently had his essay “Cemetery Vodka and the Language of Flowers” published in Weber: The Contemporary West journal.
Dr. Borrowman attended Eastern Washington University where he earned a B.A.E. and M.A. in American Literature as well as an M.A. in Rhetoric and Composition. He went on to receive a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition, and the Teaching of English from the University of Arizona. Currently, he teaches all of the creative writing and editing/publishing classes in the English Department’s Professional Writing minor.
Dr. Borrowman’s essay, “Cemetery Vodka and the Language of Flowers”, was featured in the Fall 2022 volume of the Weber, an international, peer-reviewed journal by Weber State University spotlighting personal narrative, commentary, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that speaks to the environment and culture of the American West and beyond.
In this emotional essay, Dr. Borrowman attempts to make sense of two suicides within his family, his great-grandfather in the early 1950s and one of his great-grandfathers’ sons in the mid 1990s. The publication represents the culmination of years of research into the author’s family history, alcoholism, and suicide.
The essay is among several that Dr. Borrowman has published about his family, including “Chips” in Conclave: A Journal of Character, “Peter Benchley is Dead” in Fourth Genre, and “Icky Papa Died” in Brevity.
To learn more and read the essay (starting on page 134), visit the Weber: The Contemporary West journal website.
