{"id":86550,"date":"2026-01-15T18:35:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/?post_type=stories&p=86550"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:51:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:51:43","slug":"where-the-story-started","status":"publish","type":"stories","link":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/news\/where-the-story-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Where the Story Started"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jess Walter <\/span>reflects on how class, ambition, and a fifteen-dollar decision shaped his path to literary stardom.<\/span><\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Charles E. Reineke<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>he backyard of Jess Walter\u2019s house on Summit Boulevard<\/strong> isn\u2019t huge, but there\u2019s plenty of room to spread out. To the left is a patch of close-cropped lawn; on the right a concrete patio next to a tarp-covered swimming pool.<\/p>\n

Back near the alley sits a carriage house, constructed circa 1910. It\u2019s been beautifully restored, with double-wide doors and sturdy, river-rock walls. This is where Walter \u201987, arguably Eastern\u2019s most famous alumnus, creates the work that has made him a beloved, best-selling author. The \u201coffice,\u201d he likes to call it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fall\/Winter<\/p>\n

The writing happens in the loft above the place where the carriages used to go. It\u2019s a comfortable space, nothing fancy. There\u2019s a plain wooden desk and a black office chair. A computer and a monitor. A saggy cinnamon-colored couch for napping; an upholstered leather armchair for reading. <\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s also, lined up under a sloping part of the ceiling, an untidy stack of cardboard boxes. Most are of the bankers\u2019 box variety. Others are shoeboxes left over from the kicks that Walter, a basketball fanatic and keen student of the game, wears when shooting hoops. He\u2019s got on a pair of low tops now.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an unseasonably warm day in November. Looking fit and relaxed, Walter chats with a reporter and photographer as he approaches the line of boxes, a three-inch-thick sheaf of unbound paper in hand. <\/span><\/p>\n

Turns out the boxes are filled with notes and ideas for new projects, along with manuscripts for most of the many books he\u2019s published. The papers are the typescript for So Far Gone<\/i>, his latest novel, a work published to universal acclaim just a few months ago. \u201cLike closing a door,\u201d he says as pages drop down and the box-top goes on. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these are full of notes for projects I want to work on,\u201d he says, surveying the pile. \u201cThey all get thrown in there, and they eventually become drafts.\u201d It\u2019s not the sort of filing system one would expect of a writer who has published short stories, essays, criticism and eleven books. One who has been a finalist for the National Book Award and a Pulitzer, won an Edgar Award, and has written four bestsellers, including Beautiful Ruins<\/i>, which reached No. 1 on The New York Times<\/i> list. But, clearly, whatever Jess Walter is doing, it\u2019s working for him.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/b><\/span>t\u2019s been just under a decade<\/b> <\/b>since Eastern<\/i> magazine last visited with Walter. He\u2019s still in Spokane, the place where he was born, grew up and, against what might have seemed like long odds, traveled down the road to EWU. \u201cI\u2019ve just turned 60, and it\u2019s my 30th year of publishing,\u201d he says. \u201cYou start to look back, to think about which things are important.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Eastern, Walter says, is very much one of those things. The working-class son of a pipefitter, Walter was the first of his family to go to college. A smart kid who loved to read, both his mom and dad encouraged him to get a degree. It was his dad, however, that made him an Eagle. Walter likes to tell the story when he gives public lectures and readings. Never fails to get a laugh. <\/span><\/p>\n

It goes like this. After being advised by a counselor at East Valley High School that his exceptional SAT scores made him a can\u2019t miss college prospect, Walter came home from school one day with applications from the University of Washington, Washington State and Eastern. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI said to my dad, who was going to help pay for school, \u2018alright, these are the places I want to apply.\u2019\u201d His dad pointed out that each of the applications cost $15. \u201cSo pick one!\u201d his dad said. \u201cWell, I guess the University of Washington,\u201d Walter said. \u201cThat one\u2019s too expensive,\u201d replied his dad. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWashington State?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNope.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow about Eastern?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGood choice!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The decision made, Walter was admitted to EWU and its Honors College. There he thrived while studying under academic luminaries such as the late English professor Don Wall, while at the same time reporting for The Easterner<\/i> student newspaper. It was at EWU that he also began the single-minded pursuit of what Walter describes as his \u201cimprobable dream,\u201d that of becoming a professional writer of fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was never easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jess
Jess Walter in his Spokane writing studio. Photo by Luke Kenneally.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At age 19, Walter and his girlfriend, Danette Driscoll, also an Eastern undergraduate, discovered they had conceived a child. They\u2019d only been dating for five months. Walter proposed, they got married and Danette \u201987, \u201903 gave birth to a daughter, Brooklyn (today age 40, an educator with a PhD in English). Both parents, now amicably divorced, stayed in school and graduated in four years. \u201cI was so proud of us,\u201d Walter says of his parenting experience. \u201cI came back from class one day with a sweatshirt that said, \u2018Eastern Dad.\u2019 I said to my wife, \u2018Look! They make sweatshirts for guys like me!\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She was only mildly amused. \u201cI\u2019m not sure you are the type of dad they had in mind,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Even at the time, Walter knew having a daughter was going to change things. He made the most of it. \u201cSuddenly, when you\u2019re 19, just turning 20, you\u2019ve got another human being relying on you. Your ambitions move to another level,\u201d Walter says. \u201cI had always been ambitious as a writer, but now I had to get serious about paying the bills.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

He worked at Gatto\u2019s Pizza. He wrote tickets for EWU parking and transportation services. He even had a security gig on campus. \u201cIt was a job I could do from midnight to 2 a.m.,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the while, Walter moved forward with his studies and his work at The<\/i> Easterner<\/i>. Success at both led to an internship at The Spokesman-Review<\/i>, a prized gig in those days. After graduation, Walter parlayed this foot-in-the-door start, followed by a long string of unpaid positions, into a staff job.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven getting in at The Spokesman<\/i> was a leap,\u201d he recalls, adding that The Spokesman<\/i> in those days almost exclusively hired young writers from the nation\u2019s top journalism programs. Walter never doubted, at least not outwardly, that he was as good as any of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou first want to prove yourself as a reporter,\u201d Walter recalls, pausing for a moment before continuing. \u201cAnd I was also reading all the time, thinking about that other, secret desire to be a novelist. This all sounds now like it came from a place of confidence. It probably came from the opposite place; a place of deep insecurity, a desire to prove yourself.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Walter admits he began his career with a chip on his shoulder, a need to show that an EWU grad could play with the big boys. He knew there was a class system out there; that meritocratic principles were often little more than window dressing. It kind of pissed him off. \u201cYou want to show up everyone who went to a \u2018better\u2019 college, you want to show everyone who\u2019s on the list <\/span>of best novels of the year that you belong. At some point that insecurity shifts to something a little healthier. I don\u2019t know that it ever lands totally in the land of confidence, but it\u2019s just offshore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/span><\/strong>t The Spokesman<\/i>,<\/strong> it took a while before his newsroom colleagues caught on that the kid from Eastern had staying power. But after grinding through the internships and unpaid gigs, he finally merited a graveyard shift on the cops-and-courts beat. Walter loved it, filed good stories, and soon moved up to daytime work. A couple of years later, his big break came.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the summer of 1992, word reached Spokane of an armed standoff across the state line in rural Boundary County, Idaho. Soon the entire nation was transfixed by what became a deadly siege at Ruby Ridge, as federal agents sought to enforce a firearms warrant against a resistant Randy Weaver and his well-armed family.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>hrough the type of dogged reporting that would be at home in one of his novels, Walter \u2014 even though he wasn\u2019t initially assigned to the team working the\u00a0 <\/span>story \u2014 managed to track down a relative of the Weavers that the FBI was about to bring to Ruby Ridge to speak with the family, mid-siege. That point of contact, which led other family sources to open up to him, turned out to be a major reporting breakthrough, one that helped bring to light facts that complicated \u2014 to put it mildly \u2014 the narrative offered by federal officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Jess Walters skipping stones along the Spokane River earlier this fall. Photo by Margaret Albaugh \u201923, for the Washington Post.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Walter\u2019s reporting on the siege and its aftermath eventually became the basis for his first book, Every Knee Shall Bow<\/i> (reissued as Ruby Ridge<\/i>). That non-fiction title, both a critical and commercial success, remains the definitive account of what many now recognize as a watershed moment in contemporary American history. It also showed, with its expertly drawn character sketches, perfect pacing and keen eye for detail, that Walter was a born storyteller. No accident that several critics pointed out that the book \u201creads like a novel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ralph Walter \u201991, Jess\u2019 younger brother, is today the sports editor for The Spokesman-Review.<\/i> He says no one in the family was particularly surprised by Jess\u2019 successes. Even as a little kid, it was obvious there was something special about him. <\/span><\/p>\n

One early anecdote stands out, Ralph says. They were at their grandparents\u2019 house in the country. All the young cousins were there, and the kids were expected to entertain themselves. Jess thought it\u2019d be cool to do a magazine. \u201cHe called it Reader\u2019s Indigestion<\/i>,\u201d Ralph recalls. \u201cI think I was maybe 4 or 5 years old at the time. He would have been 8 or 9. Jess would have me draw a picture, and that would be one of pages. All the cousins would write something. We had that thing going for probably five or six years. It was just so obvious that Jess was something different. So creative.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Walter\u2019s childhood publishing effort might not have been so remarkable, Ralph adds, were it not for the milieu in which it was executed. Their Spokane Valley community, he suggests, was a long way from Bloomsbury. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne day our bikes got stolen,\u201d Ralph says. \u201cI remember being in the front yard with Jess. The kids who stole them rode by \u2014 on our bikes \u2014 just laughing.\u201d Of course, Ralph also recollects happier moments in the \u2019hood. Like when the local youth would gather at the Walters\u2019 house, put on oversized boxing gloves and, as Ralph put it, \u201cbeat on each other.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was, you know, tough,<\/span>\u201d<\/span> he says with a laugh. “You just had to survive.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Walter
Walter, his brother Ralph and Swoop at an EWU football game.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Turns out that surviving, or at least developing a thick skin, was key to Walter\u2019s perseverance in his quest to make it in fiction. Even after the success of the Ruby Ridge book, publishers were slow to pick up on his potential.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walter spent seven long years collecting \u201cno thank you\u201d letters before selling his first piece of short fiction. \u201cSeven years of writing stories, sending them out and getting rejected,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it was brutal. But it was also necessary. I wasn\u2019t good enough yet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting better, Walter believes now, owed much to his newsroom experience. Constant deadlines conditioned him to write \u2014 not just when the spirit moved him, but every day, day after day. That\u2019s an essential skill for a novelist, he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re waiting for inspiration, you\u2019re not going to write very much.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Journalism also gave him important insights into our shared human experience, lessons that continue to inform his work today. \u201cI remember early on, I was afraid to interview certain people, to go talk to them,\u201d Walter says. \u201cThere was a woman who had been shot to death in a robbery, and my editor wanted me to go talk to her boyfriend. He was living in a little trailer behind the convenience store where she worked. I didn\u2019t want to. He said, \u2018Just go. Go talk to him.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Walter remembers knocking on the trailer door. \u201cI explained what I was doing. I said, \u2018You don\u2019t have to talk.\u2019 And he said, \u2018No, no, I\u2019d like to talk.\u2019 So we just sat. He told me about his girlfriend. I took notes. His grief was so profound, and I sat there with my notebook watching him struggle. He\u2019d look around the trailer for help\u2014for some object that might help him describe who this person was, what she meant to him. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI distinctly remember thinking that the inability to express your deepest emotions is not the same thing as not having the deepest emotions. I thought to myself, \u2018This is my job as a reporter: to translate the untranslatable.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also been his job as a novelist, especially when it comes to characters who are often far less sympathetic. It\u2019s a skill that other professional writers have long marveled over. One of them, novelist Richard Russo, put it like this: \u201cHere are characters who seem to live of their own volition, who talk out of a terrible inner need to make themselves known and understood, who reveal not just themselves but the yearning heart of our great flawed democracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

W<\/b><\/span>alter, who stands all of 5-feet, 10-inches tall<\/b>, sometimes gets asked what he would have done if he couldn\u2019t be a novelist. \u201cProfessional basketball player,\u201d he answers. Maybe not the NBA, he adds, though he admits he long dreamed of becoming a point guard for the Seattle SuperSonics. On this day he\u2019s wearing a SuperSonics t-shirt.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI imagined myself more as like a small college basketball player. And then maybe I\u2019d become a coach,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m like the second assistant at a liberal arts college somewhere. And my favorite thing about it is that, at this small college, various writers come through, and I get to go sit in the back and imagine being a writer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In real life, of course, he doesn\u2019t need to imagine. He\u2019s a full-time professional, writing with both determination and discipline pretty much every day. \u201cI jokingly tell the story that my dry periods tend to lead to a solid chiding in my journal, where I write, \u2018You need to get back to work and stop whining,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both the discipline and determination paid off spectacularly with Beautiful Ruins<\/i>, his 2012 novel that became a surprise No. 1 bestseller, spending months on The New York Times<\/i> list. The book had been 10 years in the making. Even then, Walter wasn\u2019t sure it was ready.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always trying to make the work better. He\u2019s never satisfied with just good enough. Jess is one of those writers who just keeps getting better. Every book is better than the last one. That\u2019s rare. I mean, a lot of writers, they have a great book or two and then they kind of plateau.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Warren Frazier, Walter\u2019s agent at John Hawkins & Associates \u2014 the oldest literary agency in the country \u2014 has represented him since 2000. Among Frazier\u2019s other clients are Joyce Carol Oates, Adam Johnson, and Robert Olen Butler, all internationally acclaimed novelists. <\/span><\/p>\n

Frazier remembers the long wait for Beautiful Ruins<\/i>, reading drafts that he thought were amazing, but that Jess thought weren\u2019t quite there yet. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s part of what makes him such a good writer,\u201d he\u00a0 <\/span>says on a phone call from his office in New York. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always trying to make the work better. He\u2019s never satisfied with just good enough. Jess is one of those writers who just keeps getting better. Every book is better than the last one. That\u2019s rare. I mean, a lot of writers, they have a great book or two and then they kind of plateau.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Walter
Walter at Bon Bon bar in Spokane in May. Photo by Margaret Albaugh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet Walter, Frazier continues, keeps pushing, challenging himself, trying new things. \u201cI think that is what\u2019s made his career so successful. Readers can tell that he\u2019s not just phoning it in; not just repeating himself. He\u2019s always trying to do something new, something interesting, something that will surprise both him and the reader.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of Beautiful Ruins,<\/i> his sixth novel, changed things for Walter. People recognized him on the street. He got calls from Europe wanting him for events. Hollywood asked him to write scripts. It was cool, Walter admits, and he took what he calls \u201ca slightly longer victory lap.\u201d But soon enough he was back at work on Summit Boulevard, hunkered down for hours each day in the \u201coffice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not to suggest Walter is a literary recluse. After finishing a novel, in fact, he\u2019s usually had more than enough \u201cme\u201d time, and welcomes the touring that invariably accompanies new releases. For these events, Walter, a self-professed \u201cextroverted introvert,\u201d says he\u2019s perfected the art of mixing eight minutes of jokes, 15 minutes of reading and 20 minutes of chatting. \u201cI was always kind of a class clown, so to be in front of the class and have people have to listen isn\u2019t the hardest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

What surprises him most about his audiences are their quality, depth and genuine interest in his work: \u201cThey\u2019re excited to meet you, and you share this common thing, this book. It\u2019s great fun. Really is one of my favorite parts.\u201d There tends to be lots of curiosity about his process, he adds. Lots of questions about craft, about how he manages to keep moving forward with his work. His advice to aspiring writers is both practical and, unexpectedly, spiritual.<\/p>\n

\u201cRead everything. Write every day,\u201d he says. \u201cDon\u2019t wait for permission or validation. And be patient with yourself. Becoming a good writer takes time. The seven years it took me to publish my first story was humbling. But it was also necessary. You have to put in the work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But, he continues, try not to think of the work as work. \u201cTreat your writing time the way some people treat their religious practice. Make it sacred. Read that way too \u2014 find yourself transported and transcended in the way people are by their faith. One of my great writing times used to be on Sundays. I would trudge out and write on Sunday mornings and then again at night after the kids went to bed (Walter and his wife, Anne, have two children, Ava, now 28, and Alec, 25). Approach writing, I always say, with the same kind of reverence and faith that some people bring to a Sunday service.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, this being Jess Walter, he punctuates this high-minded counsel with a joke. \u201cWhen I give this advice, people usually just stare at me, like,\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018All I wanted was your agent\u2019s name.\u2019 So I give them Warren\u2019s name, and we part ways.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/b><\/span>hrough it all<\/b>, Walter has remained deeply connected to his eminently affordable alma mater. His passion for Eastern football and basketball, for example, seems boundless. He\u2019s also contributed to EWU publications (including this one), engaged with student writers, and in 2016 gave a celebrated commencement address to Eastern graduates.<\/span><\/p>\n

A newly endowed Jess Walter scholarship and writer<\/span>\u2019s fund, meanwhile, will likely help other first-generation college students who want to pursue writing. He\u2019d love it, Walter says, if it eased the financial stress on some student who followed as unlikely a path as his own. <\/span><\/p>\n

He is also ramping up his engagement with Eastern in other ways. In February, the university will be honoring Walter with a week-long series of celebrations highlighting his life and work: a public \u201cEvening With Jess Walter\u201d at the Catalyst building; a student symposium on the Cheney campus; an EWU-organized exhibition at the Spokane Public Library on the historical antecedents of Walter\u2019s critically acclaimed 2020 novel, The Cold Millions<\/i>; and a special shout-out during halftime of an upcoming Eastern men\u2019s basketball game.<\/p>\n

These valedictory moments might suggest Walter is resting on his laurels. Nope. Even now, in his sixth decade, Walter shows no sign of slowing down. He\u2019s still thinking about the boxed-up ideas ranged against the carriage house wall. A basketball novel about ambition is in the mix, he says. Maybe a book about Robert Oppenheimer\u2019s self-imposed, post-Manhattan-Project exile in the Caribbean. <\/span><\/p>\n

What else might emerge? \u201cThe next book could be about a circus clown because, who knows what I\u2019ll actually finish?\u201d Does he ever think about taking a break? \u201cWeirdly, if you\u2019re a rock star, no one would have a problem with you pissing off to the south of France to live in a village,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I think if you\u2019re lucky enough to get to do this thing for a living, why would you stop?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These valedictory moments might suggest Walter is resting on his laurels. Nope.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of Walter\u2019s favorite scenes in So Far Gone<\/i> portrays a hapless Christian Identity group member who, in the midst of an armed confrontation, is mostly concerned about the well-being of his truck\u2019s new tires. \u201cI just can’t imagine a better way to spend a day than writing a scene like that,\u201d Walter says. \u201cIt\u2019s the same reason we read \u2014 to be thrilled by some discovery. So much of writing is just play. When I\u2019m thinking like that \u2014 when I\u2019m trying to find great sentences\u2014 things tend to go well. I always talk about how I take great inspiration from my musician friends, you know? They never say \u2018I\u2019m going to work\u2019; they say they\u2019re \u2018playing.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jess Walter is still playing. The boxes are still full, and he\u2019s still walking across the lawn to the office every day. The chip on the shoulder is still there, too, that formidable drive to be heard that turned a working-class kid from Spokane into one of America\u2019s finest novelists.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing I fear the most,\u201d he says, \u201cis that I won’t have stories to tell, things to imagine.\u201d Not likely.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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