Michelle Meyer alternated between rapt attention and furious note-scribbling as the middle-aged man wearing the rhinoceros tie read about buffaloes.
Michelle and her classmates, all creative writing students from Lake Forest High School, were silent, listening intently as the man read of the open space of the prairie and the majesty of the buffalo herd.
The man they were listening to was not a literature teacher reading from a textbook. This man was reciting from his own book. And Michael Blake`s book was not just another novel, it was the hugely successful ”Dances With Wolves.”
”He`s obviously someone who cares very deeply about what he writes about, which is good, of course,” Meyer, 17, said. ”You can tell that he is very committed.”
Her friend, 17-year-old Julie Summers, agreed.
”I`d like to go out and read it after this,” she said.
For the 50 or so aspiring writers, Thursday morning`s talk and reading by Blake, held in the basement of the Evanston Public Library, provided a chance to see what can happen after you first pick up a pen and start scribbling.
The stop at Evanston Library was one of many for Blake. He delivered the same talk to 100 students at Evanston Township High School Thursday afternoon, before driving to Milwaukee for a Friday morning chat.
Evanston High sophomore Rachel Weiss, 15, said Blake`s speech and works may inspire her to pursue a career she already had been considering.
”He`s a person who didn`t really think about becoming a writer, and then decided to after reading works by other writers he admired,” she said.
Pointing to some of his own causes, Blake, 46, urged the students to write and become involved in society. It`s a message Blake said he has long wanted to bring to the world.
”I think our country needs to change, radically,” he said. ”I think you all are very aware of how America needs to change. Our wild, beautiful country that we have, as you all know, is in peril. I have great hope for America, but if we want to be leaders in the world, we have to start with our own house.”
After leaving home at 17, Blake said, he traveled the country for years, working in a plastics factory, on a city weed-cutting crew, as a Christmas tree salesman and a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant.
He also spent three years in the U.S. Air Force, an experience that serves as the basis of his new novel, ”Airman Mortensen.”
”I spent 25 years on the outside looking in,” he said. ”I always said that if I had some success I would try to give something back, like my belief in citizenship and reading and writing.”
Now, thanks to his triumph with ”Dances With Wolves,” Blake has the time and money to do just that.
Blake`s Evanston stop was part of a monthlong tour of libraries across the country. Besides pushing for support of libraries, he has been promoting his new book and pushing for the protection of wild horses in the West, animals which he called ”a living symbol of what we need to preserve.”
As part of his interest in young writers, he also is promoting a teen writing contest. Blake`s publisher, Seven Wolves, is asking 14- to 18-year-olds to write up to 1,500 words about some kind of love, with the winners to be published in a book next summer.
”I`m really concerned about young people who have stopped reading,” he said. ”And who have stopped having a relationship with writing.”
That message was not lost Thursday.
”I`ve never read his books, but I`ve seen `Dances With Wolves` about 12 times,” Meyer said. ”Now I`d like to read the book. You know, the book came before the movie.
”It`s always different when you read someone`s book and then you see the writer, how he looks and gestures and reads,” she said. ”He was great. It was great to see him up close.”
