Language English Role Novelist Name Craig Hansen | Period 1976, 1980, 1993 Nationality American Education Bachelor of Arts, PhD | |
Subject Political Science, Anthropology, English; focus on Technical Communication Books The Skeleton Train, The Morning Door, Winter Lake | ||
Craig J. Hansen (born March 12, 1954) is an American novelist and professor from Wisconsin, now living in Stillwater, Minnesota.
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Early life
Hansen was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and lived in Illinois from the age of 10 to 25. He earned a BA in Political Science (with a minor in English and Anthropology) in 1976, and an MA in English in 1980; both from the University of Illinois. In 1993 he completed a Ph.D in English at the University of Minnesota with a focus on Technical Communication. During the years between his MA and Ph.D, he worked in the computer industry in a variety of technical and managerial positions.
Career
Hansen has published several academic articles and a few short stories, but The Skeleton Train is his first novel. Published in 2010 by Sky Blue Waters Press, The Skeleton Train tells the story of Jason Audley; what many have referred to as a modern day Huckleberry Finn. Jason narrates a story that begins when he is fourteen in an industrial Illinois town. The story includes his closest friend, Davey, and a young woman they encounter while hopping freight trains called The Pheadra.
Hansen's second novel, Winter Lake, published in 2012, is a sequel to The Skeleton Train and picks up Jason's life in northern Wisconsin seven years later. He continues to narrate the story as a drummer in a band with his trademark wit and wry sense of humor.
Hansen's third novel, The Morning Door, published in 2014, is the third in the Jason Audley series, and continues Jason's story as an adult in Northwest Wisconsin.
Hansen is also the co-author of Nonacademic Writing: Social Theory and Technology, published in 1995 by Lawrence Erlbaum.
Personal life
Hansen lives in Stillwater, Minnesota with his wife, Karen. He's the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Hansen is a musician who devotes equal time to writing and music, and plays lead guitar (but is not an original member) for the More-Tishans, a local band in Stillwater, Minnesota that had the one-hit-wonder, (I've got) Nowhere to Run, in 1966. He also plays guitar for the group Cattail Moon Band. He's played the guitar in many bands since the age of fourteen, and can also play the mandolin and accordion.