<\/p>\n
Durangoan Ed Lehner has a lot on his plate.<\/p>\n
The retired professor is a luthier, poet, does work as an instrument repairman for the Be Frank Foundation and is a self-proclaimed \u201ckind of a hack\u201d musician.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also released his second novel, \u201cThe Awakening of Russell Henderson,\u201d which he\u2019ll discuss and sign copies of Saturday at White Rabbit Books & Curiosities.<\/p>\n
Lehner said he started writing short stories about five years ago. Before that, he was all about poetry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started writing poetry back in the \u201970s, probably when I was in college,\u201d Lehner said. \u201cI was a late bloomer; I graduated when I was 37 and got my BA. Then I went to graduate school at age 40 for graphic design. I ended up teaching at Iowa State University. I kept writing poetry, but I used a lot of poetry just in typographic designs. And I just kept on writing because it just kind of cleared my head.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehner said he never planned to write a book, much less two. But fate had something else in store for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never written prose until about five years ago, and I said, \u2018OK, I\u2019m just going to try this and see what happens,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI came down with pneumonia, and so I started writing this little poem and thought, \u2018No, this will be a short story.\u2019 The more I got into it, I just kept on going, and 100,000 words later \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Awakening of Russell Henderson\u201d is the story of newly divorced Chicago investment banker Russell Henderson. He decides to take off on a road trip West, and along the way, he begins to discover who he really is.<\/p>\n
Lehner said he and his wife did a lot of traveling in the West for 20 years. Many of the things in the book are places they have visited, and a lot of what happens are experiences Lehner has had. However, he said, the characters are total fiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a fun book to write because I just love writing about the places we\u2019ve been. As always, my characters took on their own life,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce I start developing these people, I just think, \u2018Oh my gosh, it\u2019s just this fantasy world.\u2019 You just develop your own fantasy world. I was an only child, I grew up on a farm out in eastern Iowa, so I grew up by myself with my own imagination. And I just made things up.\u201d<\/p>\n