The Complete Works of Mattie McClane: Prose:
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, the philosopher, theologian, and Carmelite sister once said,
"Those who seek the truth, seek God whether it is clear to them or not." Her words tell the tale
of my over 30 years of writing. I revered "truth" at a young age because my mother told me as
an adage more than a biblical verse that "the truth will set you free." Truth and freedom were
precious ideas to me because I grew up free in a somewhat secluded area, near the banks of
the Rock River. I walked barefoot on warm tar roads in the summertime, close to nature, and
the colorful characters who found solace in whiskey and being apart from the mainstream life
of the city.
Yet, I thought "truth" was honesty. My early work is marked with honesty about what I saw,
what I felt, and about desire. Later, "truth" meant knowledge. My experience with higher
education was sometimes good, sometimes rocky, but a path I would follow until I earned
degrees. I went through a time when I read books of quotes, looking for other's wisdom and
searching for people who had the most to say about life. From there I put together a library of
some of the world's best thinkers. I dearly loved Fuller, Emerson, and Thoreau among others.
Reading became a habit and other writing resonated with me, and this also was an attempt to
discover truth. My early work has bits of religious thought. With the creation of Anna Galveo
comes the truth-seeker, a woman whose quest is to find out if the 1957 globe is true aboard a
15 th Century sailing ship. The gist of my debut 2003 novel Night Ship is the St. John of the Cross
premise that "Where there is no love, put love, and love will be drawn out." That seemed like
"truth."
My work became religious after a health setback, something that was finally diagnosed as "a
viral syndrome." Weary, rundown, and feverish, I prayed that if God would heal me, I'd devote
my writing to him. I got better and went on my way, forgetting prayers. Ever so slowly, and I
might say mysteriously, my new work became more and more religious. That's a recount of an
American novelist, poet, and journalist who found purpose in the pursuit of truth, witnessing
people, events, and compiling a record in two volumes, one of prose and the other of poetry.
--M.M. Davenport, Iowa. 2025
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