About Joan

   
Joan Uda was born in Iowa and grew up in Iowa City and

Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  She spent two college years at

Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, and then transferred to

North Central College in Illinois to complete her BA.

   After two years of teaching in Illinois, she enrolled in the

MFA writing program at the University of Iowa Writers'

Workshop, where she met Lowell Uda.  They married and after each

receiving an MFA, they moved to Honolulu where they had teaching

positions. After moving to Missoula, Montana, Joan attended the UM

School of Law, from which she received a Juris Doctor. After a brief

stay in Maryland, they returned to Helena, Montana, where Joan

practiced law. 

   Joan received her Master's of Divinity from Iliff School of Theology,

was ordained in the United Methodist Church and pastored churches

in Colorado until her retirement in 2002. Joan began writing her

weekly column At the Water's Edge, which appears in the Helena

Independent Record and the Great Falls Tribune.

About Lowell

  
Lowell Uda is a retired United Methodist

minister. He received a Bachelor of Arts

degree in English from the University of Utah

in 1962, a Master of Fine Arts degree in

Creative Writing from the University of

Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1967, and a Master of Divinity degree from

The Iliff School of Theology in 1993.

   He has taught literature and writing at the University of Hawaii and

the University of Montana, and as an ordained elder in the United

Methodist Church, convened creative writing and spirtiual formation

groups open to church members and the general public at each of the

churches he served.  He self-published a collection of retold Oceanic

myths and legends, Under the Hala Tree (1980).

   A number of his stories and poems have been published in literary

and other magazines, including The North American Review, Hawaii

Review, Moon Rabbit Review, and The Other Side; and, while he was

a pastor a a church in a rural community of 1500 in western Colorado,

a number of his inspirational pieces appeared in the religious column

of the Olathe Gazette.  With his wife Joan, an inspirational columnist

for the Helena Independent Record and the Great Falls Tribune, he is

cofounder of Rice Universe Publishing. 

Cat Stretch

Slung low over gentle paws,

the hungry belly is so vulnerable.

I see my face, my sleepy eyes in the water.

My whiskers bend the clear surface, my rough

tongue lifts the pure droplets. The sun

glows in the depths.

On the bending surface, there are other faces.

The most silly is the giraffe's. The silver

tongued devil browsing the treetops

enjoys every bone in its neck. The neck

arched over the water is so vulnerable.

The most frightening is the starving child's.

A swollen belly is overhung by a sunken face.

The dark eyes are so vulnerable, the small face

so old. I see the mother's breasts dry as paper

in the deep pool.

The ravenous belly is so vulnerable. So soft

and open, it swings beneath me. I am full

of trust and power. My breath expires

as I arch my back, till my lungs are empty,

empty.

                         --Lowell Uda