The Online Reflector

Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin will host a reading on campus on Thursday, March 10, in Good Hall Recital Hall as part of the Kellogg Writers Series.

As the director of the creative writing program and professor at Ohio State University, an author and current friend of University of Indianapolis Associate Professor of English Elizabeth Weber, Martin has found his niche in this world by entertaining people through writings about his life.

Growing up in southeastern Illinois as an only child, Martin became fond of his older peers and enjoyed listening to the numerous stories they had to share.

From those stories, Martin found himself coming up with his own characters and stories, which allowed his imagination to grow over the years.

Because he was an only child and needed some form of entertainment, Martin soon found he had a passion for reading.

“I imagine the fact that I’m a writer now has much to do with the combination of being exposed to the oral storytelling tradition at an early age and being an only child who liked to entertain himself by reading and making up stories,” Martin said. “I was enchanted with the music words could make.”

All through his educational life, Martin said that he wrote just about anything that pleased him. In 1982, he was accepted into the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at the University of Arkansas. It wasn’t until he pursued
his Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska that Weber came into contact with him.

“He was just thought of as an up-and-coming writer,” Weber said.

Much of Martin’s inspiration for his writings comes from the small towns and farms of the Midwest. He finds the lives of the “ordinary” people fascinating and anything but ordinary in nature.

“I’m also drawn to the textures of the working class life, a life that can veer sharply from joy to cruelty to boredom to transcendence,” Martin said. “I come to that page time and time again because I’ve read about something that’s happened, and I want to take a look at what makes people do what they do.”

According to Weber, many of Martin’s writings come from his own personal history which is why his novels and poetry are so relatable for his readers.

“He’s Midwestern; I’m Midwestern. So it must appeal to the Midwestern in me. His writing is about the tragedies that happen to us when we’re young that change our whole lives,” Weber said. “Martin writes in a way that makes the characters’ lives personal to the readers.”

Martin has written numerous books, including a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize called “The Bright Forever,” which simply tells the story of a little girl who never returns home after setting out to return some library books.

The heart-wrenching story touched Weber, who described the book as being prestigious.

According to Weber, Martin’s intended audience is the general public. She described his writing as beautiful and “ultimately relatable.” She sees Martin’s writing as something that concerns our culture and society as it is today.

Even though his books have a Midwest setting, they reach out to just about anyone and cover sensitive topics that our society would rather see as stories than day-to-day reality.

“I think he wants people to read his books. Just about anyone can appreciate his work,” Weber said.

Martin has written numerous books which include “From Our House,” “Turning Bones,” “Quakertown” and “The Least You Need To Know.”

According to his personal site with OSU, he also has been co-editor of the book “Passing The Word: Writers On Their Mentors.”

Along with his current piece of work, “Break the Skin,” Martin is working on a new essay collection that is set to be released sometime in 2012.

Martin will visit with Assistant Professor Kevin McKelvey’s Substantive Editing class Friday morning to speak with students about the writing and editing process. He has not decided what to read yet but says it will be something either from his new novel, “Break the Skin,” which will make its world debut on June 14, or from his 2006 Pulitzer Prize finalist novel, “The Bright Forever.”

Both Weber and Martin hope that those who attend his reading Thursday evening will take away with them the beauty and power of the spoken word as well as the written. Weber hopes her students can learn from Martin’s wonderful style of writing. Martin also hopes that the students will be able to see the creativity that lies within.

“I hope those who attend the Thursday evening reading will feel the intimacy and power of story in its oral form,” Martin said. “And I hope the students in the class I’ll be visiting will gain some insight into the nuts and bolts of creating and revising a manuscript.”