Photo by: Megan Westervelt
DU professor Laird Hunt spends his time split between life in Denver as a professional author and in Boulder as a family man.
By the looks of things, on a sunny fall day in Denver, he’s enjoying the journey. As he walks into Kaladi Brothers Coffee on East Evans Avenue the barista on-staff calls him by name as the owner cracks a joke. A man in a booth, who later turned out to be one of Laird’s graduate students engages him in conversation.
Hunt’s on a roll. The play adaption of his novel Indiana, Indiana, published in 2003 just finished its month-long run at the Buntport Theater Company. Hunt had a meeting with the company players at the beginning of the summer to discuss the adaption of the novel. Hunt told the company he did not want to disrupt the creative process by being involved.
Both the novel and the play focus on family and the memories family members evoke and share. The story line is based on Hunt’s own experience.
“Opening night was the first night I saw the play, I didn’t go to any rehearsals and my sister flew out to Denver to be there with me. There were moments I was choked up, and moments I had chills. I was thrilled.” Hunt said.
Hunt’s fourth novel, Ray of the Star, was published last month by Coffee House Publishers.
“Many of my teachers in graduate school had been published [by Coffee House] so it just made sense at the time.” Hunt said, “My first book (The Impossibly, 2001) was accepted after I sent it. I don’t want to say it all happened instantaneously and easily. It was just the right book at the right time.”
Hunt realized his affinity for travel at an early age. His father, a United Nations international banker, left the United States at 26 and has lived in other countries since.
Hunt was born in Singapore, moved to London, and lived on a rural farm in Indiana with his grandmother.
He decided he wanted to be a writer while holding writing workshops and teaching English as a second language in Japan.
He saw Nelson Mandela and shook an emotional Danny Glovers hand after he won the Messenger of Peace Award while he served as a United Nations press officer in New York.
He studied French literature in France and Naropa University in Boulder. Now he passes his love of language to students in the creative writing program at DU.
He says DU is an exciting place to work at because of the diversity of the faculty, their dedication to tradition and their openness to what Hunt calls “unusual fiction and poetry.”
“I kind of love it, I keep being amazed at how many of the students actually, if they maintain their talent, have the potential to become writers. That isn’t really the case in other places,” he said.
Hunt and his wife, Eleni Sikelianos, the director of the DU Creative Writing program, love hiking so when they began teaching at DU they decided to stay in Boulder. They are dedicated to hands-on parenting, and have arranged their work schedules around the care of their four-year-old daughter.
“I’m learning how to budget my time. Ray of the Star started when I was a new father imaginging disaster. I began thinking if the worst happens, the loss of a child, what are the ramafications?” he said.
Parenting is not all serious for a writer however, Hunt and his wife also enjoy sharing their love of fiction with their daughter.
“We just moved to largely text-based works. Currently, we are reading Pippy Longstocking, it is an intriguing process. We are very into game-play also. She just goes and goes and goes,” he said.
Hunt recently had a book reading in Los Angeles and will be holding a book-release party Oct. 24 at the Dikeo Collection, which is located in The Colorado Building on 16th Street Mall.
