Brainerd author John Hasler has been a teacher for 24 years first in small town high schools in the midsection of Minnesota and later on the college level at Bemidji and Brainerd. His writing is refracted through the prism of a classroom.Beverly Bingham was in this class. It was wondering two miles have a girl is pretty and quick and clear-eyed is Beverly could have emerged from the Bingham Farm in The Gulch. Hopeless Rocky Farm on the riverbank west of town where little grew but weeds and chickens because the topsoil had long ago been washed into the river. And because mr. Bingham had been sent to prison. And because Mrs. Bingham it was said was crazy. Mrs. Bingham was better known as the bone woman the ghostly figure that came to town in the evening and carried a gunny sack from door-to-door asking for bones chicken bones beef bones big bones, which it was said she ground into meal for chickens. This is Bingham raise chickens for sale. And if she sold you a fryer or a roasting hen for Sunday dinner, she would call at your house on Monday. It was said to retrieve the skeleton and feed it to the chickens. You would sell you next week. Nearly everyday Beverly Bingham stayed after class to talk to miles. Until today the talk again about school work particularly Gone with the Wind. Miles and recommended it to her having discovered the girls with wistful blue eyes. Like Beverly's always fell in love with Gone with the Wind. But today Beverly lingered after class to weep. During the three minutes between classes miles was expected to stand outside his classroom door on hold Duty and it was there in the crowded Corridor that Beverly broke down. The first miles wish she had waited until after school when he would have had more time to console her but in retrospect he was glad she hadn't. He was at his worst when confronted with other people's grief and Beverly sorrow it seemed to spill out far beyond the borders of consolation. her helplessness rendered him helpless No, it was better that she spoke to him when she did less restricting her tears and is mumbling to the three minutes between Bell's hours and anchored and reputation and detail, but it's this common stuff. That is the material of John hassler's craft his daily view of a single room filled with an unlikely assortment of people commits clear-eyed perception. He observes in the students. They bring the larger world to him like Beverly Bingham in his novel staggerford. Is that girl? Which I always had in class when I taught high school English. I had it every year no matter where I taught. How she was the girl from out in the country from this miserable family is broken family. Usually there were three or four younger brothers and sisters. As well as yourself. And maybe one parent. and This girl would come to class. for some reason I would prove to be. Listening post to her sounding board or something. and she would come to me with their troubles and should stay after school as long as she could before the bus left to tell me about how things are going at home and so often this girl even though she was smart. I never graduated rushing lives with the Beverly's in his class did not lead immediately to stories on paper however for Hassler and other essential element in the mix was distance the Stager for it is a novel about a high school English teacher. And I'm certain that it's not a novel I could have written when I was one. I didn't read it until 10 years after I left the high school classroom. so distance, I guess helps you form the the smooth sentence about that experience Those were good times. Those were good kids at Todd. I'd like my colleagues. There were a disappointment to Corey says there aren't any job but It was a lot of food for thought in the in that high school classroom. And even though now I take time off occasionally to do my writing. I I like to get back into the classroom. I like that personal contact that you're forced into in the classroom. I mean you just you're just dropped right in the middle of 30 personalities there. And that's so inspiring and it's also very draining. I can't write much when I'm teaching. It seems to me the classroom and fiction to man the same kind of creativity. I think it comes from the same Source. Anyway, I can't seem to do both very well at the same time to focus his Creative Energy in that direction until relatively recently. He was 37 years old at the time of 1970 my friend and I made a bet My friend being another would-be writer who decided it's high time. And it was September the school year was beginning here at Brainerd. And I believe it was his idea this plan. It was that we would write a short story. Every two weeks. Would pay the other one. 50 Cent's penalty And just to show you how ready I was. I wrote 14 short stories in 28 weeks which took me through to April. I believe my friend dropped out after three or four. But anyway, the money I made from him those 50 cent pieces were there. The last money I made on rating for a long time that was followed by you. two or three more years of conscientious writing and 85 rejection slips I'm surprised you could keep going keep submitting through that kind of Highly possible to continue writing in and putting things in drawers and hoping that someday after you did somebody will discover how wonderful you were after. I've got there although but but the notion of of just keeping on keeping on and And not quitting at that point. It is amazing to me. Why did you handle that? You get used to rejection. You can better at being rejected. I knew what my goal was my goal was doing. Publish short stories novels and I had just enough encouragement along the way from these editors to keep to make me think that it was possible. He has become fact staggerford broke the barrier and sold respectively. Well six to eight thousand copies. His publisher says that's a good number for a first novel. There is another Simon's night ready to come out in the fall of 1979 and 1/3 work is in its final stage of writing. Hessler will use his $10,000 Minnesota state Arts board Grand to begin digging into some materials that's been awaiting attention a long while it's better for me to come to grips with. Growing up in southern Minnesota and that'll obviously be an audible. and I suppose I've got to a couple hundred pages of random observations that I've written over the last five or six years. But I don't see you at how they all fit together. I don't see the shape. I'll need time to see the shape and that's I'll spend my time on that. I'm sure. That's real by time4writing. with this grant how much? It'll be a half a year or so. 10 years ago $10,000. I would have bought a whole year, but we know what inflation has done to me in writing time is more expensive now, especially since two of my kids are in college. As a place from which to continue his observations Brainerd offers few distractions a handful of women's group speeches. I talked about writing at The Rotary Club. The only men's group he's been invited to address and the seasons changing through the window of the room in his home where he does his writing. John Hessler is not a famous person around Brainerd. He says and he rather likes it that way. I think if I lived in New York City. Close to my publisher in my agent and other writers. I did I'd be so distracted. I wouldn't be able to write. But isn't that kind of thing lunch at the Algonquin that sort of feeling of being at the center of things one of the payoffs for a writer? I mean after all, it's such hard work. But it's such a satisfying work. I think. I'd rather be doing that work than the lunching at the Algonquin except for once a year. I went out to the Algonquin actually in September. My editor and my agent said on the phone my agent said one day. Have you lived all your life out there? And it sounded like The Boondocks chords. And I said, well, I've been to New York. I said I was I was in New York in 1947 and she laughed and thought that was ridiculous, but it was true. But I thought well 30 years of going by I guess I'll go back again. So this past September I went to New York and I met my agent and she took me to lunch at the Algonquin. And you're right. That was fun. But it was also fun to get back to my typewriter again when it was over. John Hasler a writer who got a late start but is not wasting any time now. I'm Claudia hamston in Duluth.