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Lessons (Not) Learned from the Holocaust | In the Bloodlands: History and Memory of the Holocaust in the U.S.S.R.

November 24, 4:00 PM |

Staying Home? Here’s What to Watch

UW Alumni Book Club

December | Online

“Literature, Language, Culture” Dialogue Series

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Check out UWAA’s Stronger Together web page for more digital engagement opportunities.

“Our lease was up for renewal, so it was time to evaluate whether we were successfully fulfilling our mission to provide our students with the materials they needed to succeed,” said Chief Executive Officer Louise Little. “We concluded we could do a more effective job by combining our south campus products and services with those we offer at our flagship store. While the decision was extremely difficult, it was the right thing to do.”

Students in the health sciences and marine biology fields will now be able to procure a wider array of products in addition to their textbooks, medical reference books, stethoscopes, supplies, and technology at the University Way Northeast location.

“We are exploring the possibility of operating a vending machine to satisfy urgent needs such as blue books, Scantron testing forms, and other study items,” said Little. The store currently operates three campus vending machines.

University Book Store opened the south campus store in 1974 during a time when the building was the center of the south campus community. Over the past few years, changes to building usage – in particular, when the cafeteria was closed and moved to another location – have transformed the function of the south campus building.

For more information, please contact Louise Little at lwlittle@uw.edu or Lara Konick at lkonick@uw.edu.

Q: The characters in your book are mostly students. Like many real UW students, they’re trying to find their way, make friends. Where do they all come from?

I’ve been watching students for decades, listening and watching. And I was committed to creating a realistic racial spread of students – to have a cast of characters exactly like you’d really find here. I grew up in south Seattle, with plenty of racial diversity, and the UW population totally reflects that – so in my novel, the characters are Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Norwegian, Italian, African and Mexican. I only wish there had been more Arab students on campus back then.

Q: Tell us a bit about your main character Maria Mendoza and her friendship with the young woman who goes missing.

How did I create her? I once played a game of pool with a stranger. That’s where she came from. Then I dressed her in a good friend’s leather jacket and gave her the friend’s last name. On paper she became Maria Mendoza. I’m a huge believer in friendship. I love friendship stories, stories of connectedness that aren’t just fired by hormones.

Q: “Student Union” takes place right there in the building where you work, and it’s not the first book you’ve set locally. How many others are set at the UW and in the U District?

I write for UW and Seattle people, and hopefully do it in a way that is universal enough that anyone else can enjoy it. But the local reader always gets a few benefits from a local writer, most of all the feeling that I’m talking right to you. Almost all my novels touch base here sooner or later. “University Ghost Story” and “Love in the American Empire” both take place on campus. “Seattle Ghost Story” centers on Ravenna Park. My new novel coming out this fall is about my 25-year friendship with a UW student who later took his own life. It’s called “The Golden Handcuffs” and centers on Montlake.

Q: Do you have a favorite mystery or two by other authors that you’d recommend?

The mysteries that triggered “Student Union” are a series written by an 88-year-old Sicilian mystery writer, Andrea Camilleri. All 18 of them are for sale at the HUB. His Inspector Montalbano series has become one of the most popular television series in Europe. I had a chance to review a new Camilleri. I promptly read eight of them in a row, and totally inspired I dragged out my old manuscript of “Student Union” charged up to do it right.

Q: The mystery already existed?

“Student Union” began as a five-part serial written in 1993 intended to run in The Daily. It never ran. Instead, it was dumped into my file cabinet graveyard where I deposit all the novels I lose faith in. After reading Camilleri I pulled it out, wrote it four more times, and turned it into the mystery it is now. The first draft was contemporary, the last draft was historical, twenty years later.

Q: Twenty years – what were the biggest changes in the HUB since then?

Easy. Cell phones hit campus. This takes place back when you had to go to the phone to use it. The centerpiece moment of the mystery begins in one of the HUB phone booths.

Q: Which of your new novels are most popular?

Before “Student Union” came along, “Mars Versus Maple School” was the biggest. It’s a memoir of growing up in 1957 as a bookworm on Beacon Hill and writing my first H. G. Wells-inspired story in the fifth grade. Next on the popularity list I would put “Dude,” my novel about how a cat-person becomes a dog-person, torn from personal experience. And also “Changes,” a series of linked stories set in our own very real local bar of the same name in Wallingford.

Q: What’s your process? How do you churn them out?

I write from 2 to 6 a.m. every day, longer on weekends. I write my novels over and over until they’re done, usually at least three times, filling in the blanks, putting meat on the bones, polishing the beginning and ending until they’re perfectly balanced. My new novel, coming out this fall, came out in a very intense five months, but usually, from scratch to finish, writing a book takes about eight months, just short of a human baby.

Q: Among other things you host University Book Store’s and recommend “Nick’s Picks,” posted each month on the bookstore’s “” blog.

I’ve even started doing a weekly podcast called “Breakfast at the Bookstore” where I talk with book guru Brad Craft. I passionately believe in the need for an ongoing public conversation about books. That’s what clubs are for. Reading is a solitary joy, and sharing enriches the experience.