Thomas Russell, a University English professor, published his first novel, Riding with the Magi in early October, but the first time he actually saw a physical copy was at the Southern Festival of Books on October 10.
The novel is not only a success for Russell, but also for the English department.
"The students in the M.F.A. program will greatly benefit from Dr. Russell's knowledge of how to write and publish an excellent novel," said Steve Tabachnick, the English Department chair, who attended Russell's festival and Burke's readings. "Dr. Russell's subtle style and sense of humor came out very clearly in his reading," said Tabachnick.
The novel, according to Russell, intertwines fictional and historical tales to examine mortality and the characters' search for identity.
"I like things off kilter a little bit-just to remind me that writing is an artificial construct," he said. "I lose interest in stories where there are no surprises," Russell said. The idea for using the "American wise men," Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone, came after he read a biography of Edison. After Edison was famous, reporters would harass him to find out what the inventor was working on. Edison once told reporters the he was building a machine to speak with the dead.
"The story was printed in papers worldwide," said Russell. "I thought, 'this is my kind of story.'"
Russell has published numerous short stories and poems in his career, but creating a novel was different for the writer.
"A novel is more of an adventure for the writer, I've found," he said, "...when you're doing it every day, and producing pages, there's a tremendous sense of freedom." At the same time that a novelist is freed in the work, there's a larger blueprint for the story.
"There's a different sort of focus and attention in writing a novel," he said. "You know that you have more than a fifteen minute confrontation, followed by a resolution, as you do in a short story."Russell wrote the 780 page book all on a typewriter years ago but couldn't find a publisher for the book. He found an agent in New York, but after five to six years of nearly selling the book, he pulled it off the market.
"Then I withdrew it, whacked off 300 pages and started sending it out to independent publishers," he said. Livingston Press picked up the novel. Independent publishers make material available that wouldn't be on the market without them.
"Corporate houses push good things to the margin," said Corey Mesler, owner of Burke's Bookstore, a carrier of Russell's new novel. "So, thank God for independent publishers."
Russell pushes for perseverance in the publishing market.
"If you keep it out there something good will happen if the book is any good at all," he said.
Thomas Russell has published both fiction and poetry in several magazines including The Georgia Review, Poetry, Virginia Quarterly, Minnesota Review, Poetry Northwest and Visions International. He received his doctorate from The University of Kansas has been awarded NEA and Carnegie Foundation fellowships and received two Pushcart nominations, a Pushcart Prize, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. His new book, Riding with the Magi, can be found on line Davis Kidd and at Burke's Bookstore.
