"Mari Sandoz: On Writing and Life"

By Ron Hull

Mari Sandoz, our great chronicler of High Plains history, was fascinated by “will-to-power individuals” and her books are populated by these people. You’ll meet them in “Crazy Horse: Strange Man of the Oglala’s,” “The Cattlemen,” “The Buffalo Hunters” and others found in her books.

I met her in 1957 while working with the Nebraska State Historical Society on a television series for Nebraska Educational Telecommunications (NET) titled, “Yesterday in Nebraska,” but it was two years later that Sandoz and I worked together on seven half-hour programs, “Mari Sandoz Discusses Creative Writing.” We worked together for nearly three months, and it was in these planning sessions that she she revealed her philosophy about writing and much about herself.

Her mantra for this television series was, “Anyone with the power of literacy can learn how to write well enough to publish.” She believed that and used herself as an example. Educated through the eighth grade, and after taking a few courses at the University of Nebraska, she literally willed herself to be a writer. She was always the first to tell students that each one of us has a great story to tell, and she did what she could to urge people to get started.

This is what I hope to do, with Mari’s assistance, when I present “Mari Sandoz: On Writing and Life,” the Sandoz Society Pilster Lecture presented at Chadron State College in October. The lecture series bring speakers of renown to the Chadron State College campus to speak on issues regarding the High Plains.

Here, Mari Sandoz and I will both be the speakers. Mari will be speaking through newly digitized footage from the NET vaults. To demonstrate her life and her writing, I have taken key segments from the “Creative Writing” series and, projected on a big screen, she will speak for herself as she discusses beginning the work, the importance of creating a thematic statement, of conflict being an essential element in what you write and in creating characterizations among other points.

Over the years Mari and I worked on a number of other television programs for NET, and we were friends until her death in 1966. When I would be in New York City she always welcomed me for a visit to her apartment in the west village. After lunch or dinner at a small restaurant nearby, students, recognizing her, would come to our table and ask if she could look over their work.

It was not unusual for me to help carry manuscripts, poetry, essays and other original efforts back to her apartment. She never turned a student down and was always hopeful she would be the catalyst for someone to achieve distinction as a writer.

She had time for students and for her own writing, and that was her life. One afternoon, while walking past Love Library on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, we were talking about how she had no family of her own but had helped raise her brothers and sisters on the Old Jules homestead near the Niobrara River in northwest Nebraska, and then she paused and turning to the library, she said, “My books are my children.” And she has 22 of them in libraries throughout the world.

“Mari Sandoz: On Writing and Life” will be presented during the Sandoz Society Pilster Great Plains Lecture series on the Chadron State College campus on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. in Memorial Hall. The Pilster Great Plains Lecture series, presented by the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, is supported by the Esther and Raleigh Pilster endowment. The Mari Sandoz Heritage Society’s 2011 annual conference, entitled “The Joy of Learning,” will be held on Friday, Oct. 14 at the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center on Chadron State campus. More information on the Pilster Great Plains Lecture and the Sandoz Annual Conference can be found at www.marisandoz.org.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

Delicious  •   Digg  •   StumbleUpon  •   Facebook  •   Yahoo