Stewart O’Nan I

Though he’s now the author of 17 novels and served as editor for The Vietnam Reader of Fiction and Nonfiction on the War, Stewart O’Nan didn’t begin his career as a writer. He started out as a half-hearted engineer until advice from his wife led him writing books as varied as the best-selling novel, Snow Angels (now a film) to the non-fiction book co-written with Stephen King called Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season. While onstage at the Kansas City Public Library as UMKC’s 2017 Cockefair Chair Writer-in-Residence, O’Nan discusses how he gave up engineering for the writing life and reads from his novel, West of Sunset, in part one of this conversation. Part two of this conversation with Stewart O’Nan is also available in our audio archives.