By DENISE ELAM
Features Editor

(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) — Authors Alexander Weinstein and Whitney Terrell read stories of enlightenment and war to a crowd of students and faculty Wednesday, Jan. 25, in the Gallery of Art and Design. The reading was organized by the Pleiades Visiting Writers Series.

PHOTO BY DENISE ELAM / FEATURES EDITOR
Whitney Terrell reads a passage from his novel “The Good Lieutenant” to a crowd of students and faculty Wednesday, Jan. 25, in the Gallery of Art and Design.

Weinstein, who is the director of The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, read a story called “Moksha” from his book Children of the New World. “Moksha” is the story of Abe, a boy seeking Moksha, or liberation and enlightenment. In order to find Moksha, Abe travels to Nepal and spends almost all his money to be hooked up to a machine that promises to give him the enlightenment he desires.

Weinstein said his work is inspired by pain, joy, hope and parenthood.

“What inspires me tends to be some deep emotion that I’m having and then trying to figure out what the metaphor for that is,” Weinstein said.

Phong Nguyen, associate professor of English and co-editor of Pleiades, said Weinstein’s work has been named a New York Times notable book, favorably reviewed in The Atlantic and has become one of the most widely read and well-received story collections of the year.

“It’s exhilarating and it’s validating to see an author you’ve championed for so long to go on and become recognized on the national stage for his literary achievements, especially so when that success and recognition is well deserved,” Nguyen said. “Ultimately, like the best fiction, Alexander’s stories insinuate themselves into our memory and become permanent reference points. I believe they will continue to be read generations from now, even after all the prophecies in his stories have come to pass.”

PHOTO BY DENISE ELAM / FEATURES EDITOR
Terrell signs copies of his book to members of the evenings crowd.

Whitney Terrell read passages from his third novel “The Good Lieutenant.” The novel is about Emma Fowler, a “goody-goody” lieutenant who turns into a complicated, compromised character due to her time in combat. Terrell, who is an assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said the novel was incredibly difficult to write. He said it took eight years to finish.

“The problem was the chronology was the same as every other war novel,” Terrell said. “There wasn’t any real difference there…  So once I figured out how to reverse the chronology, you meet her (Emma) first as the complicated, interesting, compromised character and then the novel goes backward to explain how she ended up the way that she was.”

Nguyen said Terrell’s novel is among the best war novels, period. It has been named a Boston Globe and Washington Post Best Book of the Year, as well as reviewed in The Guardian and The New Yorker.

“Whitney knows what he writes,” Nguyen said. “He was an embedded journalist during the Iraq war and his attention to period detail, vernacular and the psychology of war demonstrates a deep understanding of the subject matter.”