Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, Friday, April 7 — Leif Enger

The evening’s featured reading was back in the Estep Auditorium, which was quite full, many students as well as the writers & readers attending the festival. Jonathan Isaacs played classical guitar to settle us down. Before Lefi Enger read, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish presented awards to the winning authors of the Collegiate Writing Contest. Ron Wallace had served as the judge.

Leif Enger began by speaking about books as barricades to insomnia, that rather than tossing & turning he uses the time to read some book he has put aside, such as Moby Dick, his current barricade. He also talked about his fascination at age 11 with the books of Louis L’Amour, calling them “gateway drugs” to more serious literature.

He read selections from his 2 published novels, Peace Like a River (Grove Atlantic 2001) & the historical novel So Brave Young and Handsome (Grove Atlantic 2008), as well as from his new book The Projectionist. All were engaging stories that could easily serve as the barricades he talked about earlier.  I'm going to check them out from my local library.