Friday, April 02, 2004 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

First Love

Author David Morrell says writing is something that is just in his blood

Author David Morrell presents a writing workshop during "Reading Las Vegas" at the West Charleston Library.

For 16 years, best-selling thriller writer David Morrell taught American literature at the University of Iowa.

He gave up tenure and a full professorship there to write full time, starting in 1986.

But there was something about teaching that never left Morrell, despite all of his success as a writer.

"It's in my blood," said the author of "First Blood," the book that set the template for the modern action thriller, in a recent phone interview from his home in Santa Fe, N.M. "There's a part of me that always enjoyed teaching. Sometimes you can get people to see life in different ways."

And that's what brings Morrell to Las Vegas to conduct a writer's workshop during the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District's "Reading Las Vegas" program, which begins Saturday with a reading festival. Morrell's six-hour workshop starts at 10 a.m. and runs until 4 p.m. April 17 at the West Charleston Library, 6301 W. Charleston Blvd. Admission is free.

Morrell, who also wrote the best-sellers "The Brotherhood of the Rose," "The Fraternity of the Stone," "The League of Night and Fog," "The Fifth Profession" and his latest, "The Protector," will sign books after the workshop.

Morrell will conduct the "Elements of Fiction Writing" workshop based on his 2002 book, "Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing: A Novelist Looks at His Craft," covering research, description and dialogue, among other topics.

People can be taught to write -- the nuts and bolts of the craft are easily learned -- "but not what to write about," Morrell said. Morrell will help workshop attendees with that tough question by asking, " `Why do you want to write?' If you set out to make money writing, you might as well buy lottery tickets."

The reason to write comes from within. "By analyzing their obsession with writing, they can understand themselves and what writing is about," Morrell said.

For Morrell, his obsession began as a 17-year-old in 1960. He was a fan of the TV series "Route 66," about a pair of young men wandering the country. Morrell began noticing that many of the scripts of the show he identified with were written by Stirling Silliphant. He wrote a letter to Silliphant asking how he could become a writer, too, and received an encouraging letter back.

That led to a desire to be a writer, but it took several years before he found his way to the themes and genre he's famous for. "A university is a wonderful place," said Morrell, who received his master's degree and doctorate in American literature at Penn State. "People should know the history of the kind of books they write. But sometimes you can be deceived into believing that the only books that matter are by James Joyce or William Faulkner."

Morrell knows, because he got sidetracked into writing bad stories reminiscent of Faulkner and Herman Melville.

It was only while a grad student at Penn State in 1968 that Morrell found his direction. He was in a bookstore one day with his mentor, novelist Philip Klass (better known under his pseudonym, William Tenn), who pointed out the thriller section.

"You mean you're allowed to write this?" Morrell remembered saying. "That was the turning point. I'd been writing Godawful junk."

That year he began working on what became "First Blood," the thriller about a returning Vietnam veteran who brings the war home thanks to an antagonistic small-town police chief.

Like many of his early books, there's the theme of the young man looking for a father figure -- Morrell's father died in World War II when he was an infant -- but after the death of his son Matthew in 1987 from complications of bone cancer, Morrell's writing changed.

He began looking at the flip side, the father looking for a son, "an older man helping a younger person come along," as Morrell puts it.

Or perhaps an experienced, successful writer helping others.

Saturday's "Reading Las Vegas" reading festival lasts from noon to 4 p.m. at the Rainbow Library, 3150 N. Buffalo Drive. It features a writers panel discussion, "Debunking the Myths about Romance Writing," with moderator Celestine Green, Janet Kendall ("Romance Writers of America: What is It?") and Shirley Kennedy ("Romance Publishing Sales Statistics").

"Reading Las Vegas" events also include:

• Reading and book signing by Edgar Award-winning crime novelist Jan Burke ("Flight," "Bones"), 2 p.m. Sunday, Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road.

• Reading and book signing by offbeat crime novelist Bill Fitzhugh ("Radio Activity," "Pest Control"), 2 p.m. April 18, Clark County Library.

• Reading and book signing by nonfiction writer Simon Winchester ("Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883," "The Professor and the Madman"), 7 p.m. April 23, Clark County Library.

• Writing workshops with crime novelist Joyce Spizer, "How to Get Published," 11 a.m.-2 p.m. April 24; "How to Promote Your Book," 11 a.m.-2 p.m. April 25, both at West Charleston Library.

• Reading and book signing by thriller writer Ridley Pearson ("The Body of David Hayes," "The Art of Deception"), 7 p.m. April 26, Clark County Library.

• Reading and book signing by George Jacobs, valet to Frank Sinatra and co-author of "Mr. S, My Life with Frank Sinatra" with William Stadiem, 7 p.m. April 29, Clark County Library.

Participants in the "Reading Las Vegas" program must be at least 18 and have a library card. Signups will be taken at any library branch. By filling out an entry coupon, participants are eligible to win prizes.