IU English professor honored with 2009 Mark Twain award

Scott Sanders, professor of English, has enjoyed the writings of Mark Twain since he was a child. Twain was the first author Sanders was enthusiastic about and the only author from his childhood whose books he still reads.

Imagine his surprise when he received a phone call alerting him that he had won an award named in Mark Twain’s honor - without even applying for it.

Sanders said the award came completely out of the blue.

“I have a great affection for Mark Twain,” Sanders said, “and feel a personal debt to his example.”

Sanders will receive the 2009 Mark Twain Award on May 8, 2009 in East Lansing, Mich. The award is for a distinguished author who resides in the Midwest and contributes to the benefit of Midwestern literature. The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature selected Sanders for the award.

Professor George Hutchinson, chair of the Department of English, said the award recognizes Sanders as being in good company. Some previous winners include Toni Morrison, Ray Bradbury and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Sanders did most of his growing up in Ohio, and has said he felt like a Midwesterner from the beginning. After receiving his Ph.D in English from Cambridge University in 1971, Sanders moved to Bloomington. He accepted a job at IU partly because it was in the Midwest and partly because of the regard of the school. He said he is deeply interested in the connection between people and places and the way one’s actions affect the place one lives.

He is also interested in the health of the natural world and is concerned with imagining a way in which one can live more environmentally sound.

Sanders started as a fiction writer but then began writing personal essays 20 years ago because he wanted to write about his concerns.

“I think of myself as an essayist first of all,” Sanders said.

Sanders’ newest book, “A Conservationist Manifesto,” is due out next year. Sanders said it is a book of essays that envisions a shift in our country from a culture of consumption to a culture of conservation and stewardship. It’s a shift that will inevitably have to happen in our society, he said.

“We will have to start living a more sustainable life, because if we don’t, the earth will start to deteriorate,” he said.

Hutchinson said by reading Sander’s work, one can get an idea about what it means to live in the Midwest, especially in Indiana. One can also get a deeper sense of place and the history of the region in which they live.

“One of the things (Twain) revealed to me is that one can write about seemingly out-of-the-way places in the heartland,” Sanders said, “and one can use everyday speech and could create literature that would be significant beyond your region.”