Ron Franscell - 1957
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Campbell County High School, Gillette, Wyoming
I. Biography
Ron Franscell grew up in Casper, Wyoming, and graduated college from the University of Wyoming in Laramie. He now lives with his family in Gillette, Wyoming.
II. Professional Life
From the start Ron Franscell was interested in writing. When he was a young boy, he and a friend established their junior high's newspaper. For the past twenty years he has been a professional newspaperman. At the moment, Franscell is writing book reviews for the Washington Post,
Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta
Journal- Constitution, Christian Science, Monitor, Denver Post, Portland Oregonian, St.Louis Post-Dispatch, Milwaukee Journal and some others. He is currently taking a break from his job as a newspaper editor for
The Gillette News Record while he is out of state researching and working on his next book.
III. Writing Influences
The influences in Franscell's writing career have been books and teachers. "A writer must be a reader, too, and I enjoy reading very much. Along the way, I had several teachers who saw something in me and encouraged me to develop my writing. I am quite certain that I would never have considered a career in writing without teaching mentors who shepherded me along."
IV. Interview Transcript
Dear Jaime:
Here are the answers to your questions, and maybe a little more to spice up your paper. If you need anything else, just contact me.
Good luck!
Ron Franscell
JM: What is your date of birth?
RF: January 29, 1957
JM: What have you done professionally over the years?
RF: I have been a newspaperman, professionally, for more than 20 years. But a friend of mine and I established our junior high school's newspaper in 1969, when I was only 12 years old; every year since then, my byline has appeared in some kind of publication. Right now, I am on a "sabbatical" from my job as editor of The News-Record, so I can focus on writing full-time. But to blend journalism and literature, I now write regular book reviews for the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Christian Science Monitor, Denver Post, Portland Oregonian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Milwaukee Journal and others. In fact, I recently sold a book review to newspapers in Moscow and Vladivostok, Russia!
JM: Have you had any influences in your writing career?
RF: Books and teachers. A writer must be a reader, too, and I enjoy reading very much. I began reading fairly young. I recall reading Call of the Wild by Jack London when I was about 8 years old, and being fascinated by the experience. Since then, of course, I have read much more widely. I am a great fan of contemporary literary authors, such as Pat Conroy, William Styron and John Irving, as well as classic writers such as Hemingway, Dickens and Fitzgerald. In fact, I just finished reviewing a new book by
John Updike that forced me to read Shakespeare's Hamlet, just to be able to write the review capably. If books were the engine that powered my writing, teachers provided the fuel. Along the way, I had several
teachers who saw something in me and encouraged me to develop my writing. I am quite certain that I would never have considered a career in writing without teaching mentors who shepherded me along.
JM: Can I use a picture of you to put on the Internet?
RF: Yes. There is one at
http://www.laughingowl.com/angelfire.htm (just click on my hyperlinked name there and it will come up)JM: What inspired you to write your books?
RF: Writing a book had long been my Holy Grail as a writer. I had spent most of my life writing shorter stories for newspapers, but to me, a "real writer" wrote books. That's not a standard I held my colleagues to, just me. I know and respect many great writers who never wrote a book. Before I began writing Angel Fire, I had spent my leisure-reading time with Joseph Campbell and his theories about the "hero's journey" in literature. He saw common threads among mythologies of the world, from Greek to Native American, and he tried to decipher why we would tell essentially the same stories over and over for thousands of years. He came up with a general model. After reading Campbell's works, I decided that if he was right, then I wanted to know these elements so my own work would have a deep, timeless feel. So I outlined Angel Fire with Campbell's quest model in mind. In the end, I found it was a nice map, but it was very general. The rubber met the road when I was deciding what each chapter must accomplish. Knowing the steps of Campbell's "journey," I wasn't able to stray very far. But my most useful note making was done in outline form before each chapter, when I set out my goals and thoughts for that segment. My second book, The Deadline, was different. I was more at ease with long fiction. I had a general synopsis of the story, and I again used the chapter-by-chapter outline to move forward. (This is an invaluable tool if you tend to think of a book as a daunting whole. Break it down into digestible pieces and it suddenly seems do-able.) The book I'm now working on is even more relaxed. I have a very general, very brief outline, and my chapter notes are almost in shorthand. I have grown more comfortable with the process. As for the circular nature of the story, there are many reasons it appears here. First, a circle crops up as a sacred, emotional symbol in many mythologies, so it's natural to use it. But more importantly, the "journey" model involves a quest AND a homecoming. The circle is completed and, the writer hopes, the character has returned with some magic "elixir" ...which might be nothing more than a new self-awareness. Once again, in Cassidy's case, his grail is gained unwittingly: He realizes that a man cannot spend a good life trying to avoid pain. It's the price we pay for memory.
There's another curious thing for me: The quality of symbol. Throughout the writing of Angel Fire, I talked to myself about symbolism, metaphor and abstraction. The circular nature of the story might come
from that. I love the complexity of layered work, where a story exists in the concrete as well as the abstract. The water tower is a concrete structure familiar to anyone who ever lived in a small town, and it is also a metaphor for the exact center or starting point in life. One could say, "Yeah, like the womb, with its water giving life!" I can honestly say I didn't think of it that way, but symbols are both slippery and unconscious sometimes, so I roll with it. I merely wanted the tower to represent the center of Cassidy's childhood world, the object that marked his beginning, and a place to which he had to return from his "quest."
JM: What are your hobbies besides writing?
RF: I like to travel, fish, collect old books, watch baseball (I played in college) and watch my kids play sports.
JM: Which was your favorite book to write Angel Fire or The Deadline?
RF: Golly, that's like asking me to pick between my two kids. I can't. They are very different books and, as such, they each had unique rewards and difficulties. Plus, I am finding that the book I'm writing now adds even more wrinkles to my writing experience. But here's a little something: If you came to me and said you were only going to buy ONE of my books and asked which one I would like to represent my work in your mind ... I'd suggest Angel Fire.
V. Literary Works
*Angel Fire
*The Deadline
*He is currently working on a third book.
This essay was submitted by a student of Nathel Coca, a teacher at Campbell County High School in Gillette, Wyoming.