Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/211107
Ea r n e s t a b o u t E r n e st Best-selling author McLain engages Friends with stories by Mark Fairbrother All authors start somewhere. Paula McLain, '91 M.A. '93, just happened to start in Park Library. "I discovered my love of writing at CMU," says McLain, author of "The Paris Wife" – The New York Times best-selling novel presenting a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's relationship with his first wife, Hadley Richardson. Long before her rise to literary stardom, McLain was a fresh-faced Chippewa who stumbled into a creative writing course and authored "bad poetry." Her poetry didn't improve until a fateful conversation in Park Library with her first writing instructor. McLain revealed her ambition to become a professional poet and confessed that she never pored over a poetry book. "My professor looked at me wide-eyed and said, 'You don't read poetry?'" McLain says. The professor's bewilderment kick-started her drive to do more than produce poetry. She dedicated herself to consciously consuming it. She gained writing and critiquing experience during her undergraduate career by frequenting a "fledgling" poetry salon, which she helped form. The group of students met at The Bird in Mount Pleasant to evaluate and support each other's work. Friends of the Libraries line up to meet Paula McLain during her visit to campus earlier this year. Once her bachelor's degree was completed, McLain jumped feetfirst into her master's. She enjoyed her long days as a graduate assistant instructing English composition courses and her late nights feasting on the inspiring supply of poetry resting on Park Library's bookshelves. "I realized I could make a living at my craft," adds McLain. A farewell to anonymity After earning two English degrees from CMU, McLain committed herself to writing professionally; however, her first few published pieces — two poetry collections, a memoir and a novel — were commercially dim. Unable to decide where to take her career next, McLain got her hands on a copy of Hemingway's memoir "A Moveable Feast." She found herself falling in love with the Jazz-age, Paris romance of larger-than-life Hemingway and his no-nonsense Midwestern wife. She was eager to dig deeper. Her intrigue morphed into her second novel, "The Paris Wife," which flew off bookstore shelves as it spent more than 30 weeks atop the best-seller list. The great success surrounding McLain's latest effort led her back to Mount Pleasant earlier this summer. As the featured speaker at the annual Friends of the Libraries luncheon, she discussed the profound love and loss between Hemingway and Richardson and the mutual, undying respect that continued until their deaths. Following the presentation and lunch, McLain inscribed copies of her book while sitting at a library table, steps away from the Michigan Hemingway Society archives in Clarke Historical Library. She graciously smiled as she grasped the outstretched hands of attendees that filled her view. She no longer sits in the library as a novice writer. McLain has made a living at her craft by adding vivid color to the legacy of a man to whom her life now is inextricably linked. 7