Chapman English Professor Richard Bausch was awarded the first-ever Laguna Beach Literary Leader award by the Third Street Writers at the inaugural Laguna Beach Literary Festival in January.

Bausch was selected for his writing, teaching, mentorship, and influence on the SoCal literary scene, including the distinguished Chapman Workshop that he holds every fall, a free class open by application only to the surrounding community.

About the award, Bausch said, “I’m very pleased about it, and pleasantly surprised. Hard to express how much this kindness means to me –in fact, I’m a little disbelieving about it, as if there must surely be some mistake.”

The two-day Literary Festival included receptions, workshops, and panels, and kicked off with an intimate reception featuring a reading by Bausch, followed by a conversation with writer and podcaster Marrie Stone, who addressed the topic, “Why Storytelling Matters.”

Author Richard Bausch. Photo by: Jeff Rovner

When asked about the subject several days before the event, Bausch said, “I have felt, most of my writing life, that my purpose as a writer was, as much as I could, to ‘widen the province of love.’ I don’t even know where the line comes from (I must’ve heard it somewhere), but it strikes me as something we can all aim at, and, for me, since writing is something for which I have a certain gift, it seems the best thing for me to do is to use that gift. And I do believe it is with literature that we can come closest to some sort of salvation, or anyway to the heartening reality that we are not alone.”

When asked if he had any advice for inspiring writers, he said, “Read. Read, read. The more you read, the wider your verbal playing field becomes, the more resources you have from which to draw, and the more experience you gain in the world’s effects and in the resources existing in this beautiful thing we possess: the language.”

According to Bausch, to become a successful lifetime writer, all you really need is something with which to write, and a very big library.

“Hemingway and some others mistakenly felt (to their tragic detriment) that they had to pursue subject matter and chase after experience in the world of action and go to exotic places [to be the writers they were]; but the real truth is that what they already had–the library, the books, the work of writers whose work got them interested in the first place–that was what they really needed. Good novelists and story writers write with their experience, not so much about it.” And for good writers, much of the experience is waiting in the library.”

Currently, the novelist is working on a new novel called Chopin’s Ghost, a Fable, and is about midway through with it. “I hope to be finished sometime before the end of the summer. Can’t really comment on it yet. More than half of it is still unwritten.”

How exciting. We can’t wait to hear more about it in the coming months!

(Photo header: (left to right): Author and podcaster Marrie Stone and Author Richard Bausch. Photo by: Jeff Rovner)