THE SHORT STORY
Nonfiction writer and occasional critic Steve Hendricks has written for DoubleTake, Sierra, The Nation, Orion, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, the Progressive Media Project, and Montana Public Radio. The Unquiet Grave is his first book. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.
THE LONGER STORY
Steve was born in Arkansas, raised in Texas, and educated at Yale. After college, he spent several years in Seattle and Montana, where he divided his time between writing about politics and doing politics. Neither paid worth a damn. He has twice run for local office, in Helena, Montana, and twice lost. (The first time was close; the second, he got clobbered.) Since then he has focused on writing.
He began researching Indian issues several years before starting on The Unquiet Grave because he was disturbed by the grim neglect that prevails in much of Indian Country. After reading Peter Matthiessen’s monumental In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983), Steve wondered what had been uncovered about the struggle between the FBI and the American Indian Movement in the years since. The short answer: not much. He decided to write The Unquiet Grave to fill part of the void.
Steve is married to Jennifer Hendricks, associate professor of law at the University of Tennessee. They moved from Montana to Knoxville in 2005 with their young son.
INFLUENCES
Below are a few of Steve’s favorite writers.
George Orwell. No one says it more cleanly or passionately. The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia may be the best political reportage ever written. For clarity of argument, it is impossible to do better than Orwell’s essays.
A. J. Liebling. When Steve discovered Liebling, he read his ouevre straight through, then read it again—and Steve is a dreadfully slow reader. Liebling’s forte is the digression, but he almost never wastes a word, and his wit is almost without peer. The Earl of Louisiana might be the best political profile ever written.
Henry David Thoreau. Of course. Steve confesses to being bored by most of Thoreau’s nature writing, but Walden and the Essays are the universal cure-all for the dulled soul.
Ted Conover. His Newjack is a brilliant, beguiling example of participatory journalism. Rolling Nowhere is a lesson to every young nonfiction writer about how much can be done on no money and a little gumption.
John McPhee. The dean of literary journalism. Start with Encounters with the Archdruid or The Control of Nature and see why.
© 2006 Steve Hendricks
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