Author Steve Hamilton asks for a promise from tough LSSU gradsPosted: May 2nd, 2009A compete wrap-up of Saturday's commencement exercises can be found by clicking here.
A story on the Distinguished Teaching Award is here.
A photo selection of Saturday's commencement can be found by clicking here.
IN CASE OF WRITER'S BLOCK -- LSSU President presents author and commencement speaker Steve Hamilton with a university banner after Hamilton addressed graduates and families at commencement on May 2. Lowman suggested Hamilton hang the banner on a wall in his office where it might someday remind him to mention LSSU in a future novel. Hamilton is author of the Alex McKnight series of mystery novels that take place in the Eastern Upper Peninsula. (LSSU/John Shibley)
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. – Mystery novelist Steve Hamilton asked graduates at Lake Superior State University’s commencement ceremony on Saturday to make a promise to themselves as they leave their campus studies and head for careers or graduate school.
Hamilton, along with LSSU class of 2009 student respondent Mark Herbert of Sault Ste. Marie, addressed the nearly 600 graduates who received more than 640 degrees during the annual graduation ceremony in Taffy Abel Arena. In addition, LSSU biology professor Tom Allan PhD received the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
“As I look down on these faces, it feels as if I was just sitting there myself,” Hamilton said, referring to his graduation from University of Michigan in 1983. “The time just races by. You hear that so many times, but it’s true. You wake up and it’s gone and you wonder what happened to it.”
Steve Hamilton speaks at LSSU
Hamilton said at his graduation he made a promise to himself to become a published author, something that he accomplished in 1997, when he started work on his first crime novel in the Alex McKnight series that takes place in Paradise and the Eastern Upper Peninsula.
“If I can do one thing today it is to ask you right now to think about what that one promise to yourself might be…What is the one thing you know in your gut that you want? It may not be practical, it may be crazy, but you know you want to do it because it is the one thing that that will make you feel later like you’re really living and not regretting that all this time has passed by.
“The real world is pretty tough out there, so a promise like that is not easy to keep, but if it was easy it wouldn’t be worth it. No one else can make you keep it and it may take a little while or longer than you think it should, but it’s never too late as long as you don’t forget it.”
Hamilton compared LSSU students to his novels’ main character, McKnight, an ex-cop who he described as being a very tough character.
“Think of it, there are graduation ceremonies going on everywhere…in lots of warm places like Hawaii, but do you think any of those guys could last one week up here? It’s not just the cold weather. You guys are so strong, stronger than you know and stronger than any character I could dream up. This state, this whole country needs some strong people right now. You’re going to have to be strong to keep that promise, but it will be worth it, I promise you that.”
While a student at UM, Hamilton won the prestigious Hopwood Award for fiction, the same award Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller won as a student there. Since then, his novels have won numerous awards and media acclaim, beginning with the first in the McKnight series, “A Cold Day in Paradise,” which won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin’s Press Award for Best First Mystery by an Unpublished Writer. Once published, it went on to win the MWA Edgar and the PWA Shamus Awards for Best First Novel and was short-listed for the Anthony and Barry Awards. Hamilton has won many other awards, including the Michigan Author Award in 2006 for his outstanding body of work. His latest mystery, “Night Work,” is set in upstate New York.
Before heading for home in New York, Hamilton said he would be hanging around the UP a bit longer to do research on the next book in his McKnight series.
Hamilton and his wife of 18 years, Julia, have two children, Nicholas, 14, and Antonia, 9. –LSSU--
 Digg -
 Reddit -
 del.icio.us -
 Google -
 Facebook -
-  StumbleUpon
|
