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Authors

Summer 2011

Buddy Levy: Historical investigator

In a fabulously snide review of the first episode of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on the History Channel, a reviewer for The New York Times refers to investigator Buddy Levy, “who could be a bus driver but who is in fact an English professor at Washington State University and a freelance writer of magazine articles about adventure sports.”

Levy himself thinks that’s pretty funny.

“I’m cool with that,” he says. “I’m a bus driver who can write a narrative history of the Amazon.”

That narrative history, which our charming reviewer neglected to mention, is Levy’s latest book, River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana’s Legendary Voyage of … » More …

Spring 2004

Poor farm kid makes good

Sherman Alexie likes to remind people that attending Washington State University presented him with a real challenge. As a Spokane Indian, a liberal, and a writer, he did not fit the prevalent mold of students attending WSU in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Regardless, on October 10, 2003, WSU president V. Lane Rawlins presented Alexie with the University’s highest alumni honor, the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Since leaving WSU in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies, Alexie has published nine books of fiction and poetry and has written and directed two award-winning movies. Widely popular, his short stories appear in the nation’s … » More …

Fall 2006

Laurie Carlson: Doing the things she likes

On the 90-minute commute from Cheney to Pullman to attend graduate school, Laurie Carlson’s eyes often strayed from the road to the cows grazing the rolling hills of the Palouse.

Carlson, who was completing her Ph.D. in history at Washington State University, found herself wondering what the animals were eating, how they were fed, and what their days were like.

To answer her questions, she decided to raise them.

Her interest in the animals also inspired her to write Cattle: An Informal Social History, looking at the symbiotic roles of cattle and humans.

It’s often like that. She recently published a children’s book about … » More …

Fall 2002

Alex Kuo wins American Book Award

Alex Kuo’s Lipstick and Other Stories has won him the honor of the American Book Award. Kuo is Washington State University’s first writer-in-residence and chair of the Comparative American Cultures Program (CAC) and an English department faculty member. “The Peking Cowboy,” a story from the collection, appeared in the Spring 2002 Washington State Magazine.

Kuo teaches Asian American and Native American literatures in the CAC, cultures of the American West in American Studies, and creative writing in English. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship and grants from the United Nations and the Idaho Commission for the Arts for background … » More …