After going through a divorce in 2000, Lou Ureneck, the chairman of the Boston University journalism department, was trying to find a way to make sense of what he calls a “painful transition.”
Ureneck turned to writing a memoir that chronicles a trip he took with his 18-year-old son, Adam, to Alaska as they tried to mend their relationship after the divorce. The book, Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey through the Heart of Alaska, was named the first Book of the Month for November/December by the National Geographic Traveler.
“I had gone through a very difficult phase in my life, and it was a very painful transition,” the College of Communication professor said. “I was looking for some way to make sense of what I’d gone through, and writing about it seemed a good way.”
Ureneck said he had been looking for a long-term writing project around the same time of his divorce, and he wanted to explore his personal experience as a writer.
Though Ureneck said he delayed his writing career for 20 years to be an editor, one of the reasons he came to BU was to find room in his life to accomplish this dream.
“I had a ball as an editor, but this is closer to what I wanted to do and be from the beginning,” Ureneck said. “The biggest charge I ever got in my life was the first byline I had in a newspaper story. Nothing has ever matched it.”
Ureneck, who was deputy managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer before joining COM in fall 2003, said he tied reporting into his storytelling as he verified information with geological and bird experts.
Michael Flamini, Ureneck’s editor at St. Martin’s Press, said he was drawn to the father-son aspect of the book, published Sept. 19, in addition to its literary quality.
“What makes [the memoir] really beautiful is this combination of the two small worlds – the one in the boat [with the father and son] and the one outside the boat,” Flamini said. “The use of metaphors and descriptions is just sort of perfect, and they all come together.”
Pulitzer Prize winner Justin Kaplan and Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden served as Ureneck’s mentors while he wrote the manuscript, he said.
Ureneck, who will promote his memoir at Barnes ‘ Noble at Boston University tonight, said his son’s happiness with the way the book turned out was validation for writing the memoir.
“I got a note from Adam about three weeks ago,” he said. “It was a beautiful note, and that note was reason enough to write the book.”
Ureneck said in addition to reading other works, aspiring authors must write as much as possible to truly develop their craft.
“To be a writer, you write,” Ureneck said. “You get up in the morning, you sit down and write. And you sit there whether or not you have anything to say, because if you don’t have anything to say, maybe you will tomorrow.”
