USU alumnus turned author speaks to students
Anyone can draw upon their own experiences and observations to write nonfiction said Brandon Schrand, award-winning author of “The Enders Hotel” and USU alumnus to a packed room at the David B. Haight Alumni House Wednesday afternoon.
Even students who don’t feel like they’ve gathered enough life experiences to write a work of nonfiction can draw upon their observations and present an event in a way that is unique to each writer, he said. Material for creativity comes constantly and it’s the role of an artist to see what everyone’s ignoring while they’re going to Wal-Mart, he said.
“You’re a part of the human experience. Make a lot of observations,” he said. “That’s the artist’s job, to look beyond the ordinary.”
Schrand’s was invited back to USU as part of the Department of English’s Lecture Series. He was the winner of the 2008 Barnes and Noble Discover New Writers award, as well as the 2007 River Teeth Prize. Graduating in 2003 with a degree in American Studies, he now runs the University of Idaho’s MFA program in creative writing. Academic and creative writing are more closely related than one might think, he said.
“I sort of have one foot in the academic world and one foot in creative writing,” he said. “They have a symbiotic relationship.”
Schrand wrote “The Enders Hotel” from his experiences growing up in the historic hotel by the same name located in downtown Soda Springs, Idaho, which his family ran for 17 years. They lived there off and on during those years, he said, because they had to move a lot for his step-father’s job as an electrician.
“In a lot of ways we weren’t a lot different than the boarders there,” he said.
Although originally beginning it as a work of fiction about a boy growing up in a historic hotel in a small Idaho town, he said he realized it would be more simple to just write nonfiction. That way, he said he it also worked as a vehicle to resolved that unhinged part of his identity and the only way to do that was to get it out on paper. Additionally, he said, there are a lot of things even a small town like Soda Springs has to offer creatively.
“There are so many untold stories in places like Idaho. We’re not sexy like New York in New York’s mind is sexy,” he said. “We need to tell those stories.”
Reading two chapters from “The Enders Hotel,” Schrand also read selections from his newest book “Works Cited.” Organized in alphabetical order rather than chronological, the book lists books Schrand found to be inspiring or particularly meaningful to him in his life, he said, but cautioned that the format of the book might be frustrating to some. The book wasn’t as truthful as “The Enders Hotel,” he said, but the degree of truth in the narrative varies depending on who is reading it.
“The guy I am in this essay is no longer the guy I am now. For my mother-in-law in the audience, this is fiction,” he said. “For the rest of you … well.”
Paige Smitten, a lecturer for the English department who introduced Schrand, called him a “success story.”
“He is a stone that has gathered no moss,” she said. “Rather, he is a giant snowball rolling down a hill.”
For aspiring writers, Schrand advised giving themselves homework assignments and simply reading a lot of different things and whatever interests them. If a scene moves or inspires them, he said, they should use it.
“Steal,” he said, “by all means, steal.”
But the most important thing young writers can learn, he said, is that rejection isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To fail as a writer is to be among friends, he said.
“Rejection is as much a part of the writing process as acceptance is,” he said.
–lisa.m.christensen@aggiemail.usu.edu