May 29, 2002
Lesley closes book on library series
Former NMC writing instructor presents excerpts from novels
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Author Craig Lesley wound up Live! At the Library speakers' series for the summer.
The former Traverse City resident and writing instructor at Northwestern Michigan College spoke Thursday evening at the Traverse Area District Library. He captivated the audience of 40 with tales of his life and readings from his four novels and a new story he is writing.
"I liked his humor, you kind of love him for that real humanness," said Gena Hohman of Kingsley.
Hohman and four other friends came from Kingsley for the evening, with hearing Lesley speak serving as the centerpiece of their venture. Members of the Reader's Digress Book Club, they enjoyed Lesley's talk.
"He was wonderful," said Ellen LaTulip of Kingsley. "I liked hearing him read what he's writing now, I liked his voice inflections. Then he would break off and give some background about what he read."
Lesley has been acclaimed for his works and their authentic reflection of Native American life. His four novels are "The Sky Fisherman," "Winterkill," "Riversong" and "Storm Riders." His first two books both won Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Awards while "The Sky Fisherman" was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1996. Lesley has also edited anthologies of short stories.
Lesley was born in The Dalles, Oregon. His youth there is reflected in many of the settings, stories and characters of his novels. His books are sprinkled with the colorful names reflecting his youth: Mavis One Tooth, Bernadette Brush Head and Red Eye.
He grew up on an Indian reservation where his mother worked and his writings are interwoven with tales about his Native American friends and neighbors. Because of Lesley's history with the Native Americans of Eastern Oregon, they were open to his interviews and visits when he began writing.
"There was no problem getting people to talk to me, the first book I wrote was about people I went to school with," he noted, referring to The Sky Fisherman.
Lesley has a straightforward, direct style to his writing. He strongly believes in writing about people, places and things he is intimately familiar with so his work has a foundation of authenticity.
"I try to write with a kind of force and clarity so that other people can see what things are like," said Lesley, who has a doctorate from Whitman College, an M.A. in English from the University of Kansas and an M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "I also try to write about people who don't have a voice."
His work entitled "Storm Riders" is drawn from his years spent raising a boy who was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Lesley took the boy into his home as a foster child and later wrote about the struggles they faced due to the child's mental and emotional impairments. He read a passage from the book recounting a day spent with his father and this boy, wryly noting his uncomfortable position linking these two uncommunicative people.
"My father was a man who wouldn't communicate and I was raising a boy who couldn't communicate," he said. "This story is about me, being in the middle."
Lesley taught writing at Northwestern Michigan College in the early 1970s and remembers teaching Maritime Academy cadets for two summers on their training ship The Hudson. Although his stay was short, he acquired a lifetime of memories and made some deep friendships here.
"Traverse City was so close to my heart, the first ten years I was away I always came back to visit," he said. "It is like a second home and if I have another life to live I will live it here."