Author Luis Alberto Urrea presented the Cline Community Lecture in the Humanities on April 21. This spring marks 40 years for the Cline Lecture Series, which was established and endowed by Platt Cline, Flagstaff and NAU Historian and newspaper editor, bringing speakers of international stature to Flagstaff. Guggenheim Fellow, and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, Luis Alberto Urrea, delivered the thought-provoking lecture, “The Typewriter in My Kitchen: One Writer’s Fable,” a true tale of life, death, and the power of writing. At the end of the talk, he answered student and community questions from the audience and shared his thoughts and stories about identity, loss, and more. After the talk, Mr. Urrea signed books provided by Flagstaff bookstore Bright Side Bookshop.
On Monday, April 22, students participated in a writing workshop with Mr. Urrea and faculty joined a lunch with the author and invited guest Vice Chairman Robert Valencia from the Pascua Yaqui Community.
Urrea’s body of work, which includes 19 volumes of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, speaks compellingly to these questions. This spring marks the 20th anniversary of The Devil’s Highway, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Lannan Literary Award winner, now in its 30th printing. This non-fiction work about traversing Arizona borderlands reverberates powerfully into our present. Our university is an HSI with a commitment to Indigenous Peoples and to our rural and underserved communities, and Urrea’s work speaks deeply to our NAU and broader Flagstaff community. Urrea emphasizes that though he is known as a border writer, he is more interested in cultivating bridges.
