English professor James Finley
From the “Hidden Lives of Clark College Employees” files, we bring you this detail about English professor James Finley: He once co-wrote a novel with Ken Kesey as part of the legendary Northwest author’s graduate-level course in creative writing. Blogger Theodore Carter recently interviewed Finley about his experiences as a student in that class and about the novel he and his classmates produced and eventually published in collaboration with Kesey, Caverns.
Finley, who is perhaps better-known around campus for his work with the Columbia Writers Series, provides a thoughtful distillation of what he learned about writing from the experience. He reveals that Kesey–famous for the antiauthoritarian novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and his psychedelic shenanigans with the Merry Pranksters–possessed a strong work ethic and a dedication to craft, qualities Finley clearly has taken to heart himself.
