If an unexpected browser were to have walked into the CHS library one specific morning, they would have immediately caught sight of a tall, blonde, spectacled, and colorfully dressed woman casually leaning on a table in front of rows of chairs sipping a diet coke. While this woman may be seemingly ordinary, she is in fact a celebrity in her own right.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley recently gifted CHS with a visit to the library, where she gave a talk about her literary works, life, and experiences as a writer. Students from English classes reading one of her most prominent works of nonfiction—”Thirteen Ways to Read A Novel”—used their class time to listen to the famous author speak and ask her questions pertaining to their own experiences with her works. All students were welcome to attend the talk.

Smiley has written 12 novels, 3 works of non-fiction, and numerous short stories, essays, and articles. Her best-selling novel, “A Thousand Acres”, based on Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. Smiley was elected a member of the “American Academy of Arts and Letters” in 1991 and has received critical acclaim and popular success.

Emily Grady, a CHS English teacher who brought her students to the talk, is not just familiar with Smiley’s literature, but her personality as well.

“I saw Smiley last spring when she spoke at St. Louis Public Library and was impressed by her easy-going attitude about writing that belies the obvious care and craft she devotes to her work,” Grady said.

Truly, this “easy-going attitude” was displayed by Smiley at the talk. She opened the discussion with (rather than a list of all of her intellectual achievements) an introduction of her horses, whose photos she had displayed in frames. She professed her deep love for horses in relation to her works exploring this love such as Horse Heaven and Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck by giving this advice to young writers: “You have to have things you love and are interested in so you can just sit down and have something to say about a particular subject.”

Students and teachers asked questions pertaining to their own study of her works, revealing their close experiences with her texts.

“I knew that I wanted to use her collection of essays, “Thirteen Ways to Read a Novel” with students because of the accessibility of her writing paired with her research and thinking,” Grady said. “She impresses me as someone who has devoted her life to language but still is balanced and realistic.”

Smiley also revealed her close ties to St. Louis and Missouri. She fondly described childhood memories of taking pony rides in St. Louis and attending John Burroughs School. For one novel, “The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton”, Smiley even trekked across the mid-west to areas such as Hannibal, MO.

“I also discovered her family and mine are from the same little town in Missouri, Montgomery City,” Grady said. “‘Small world’ coincidences always amaze me.”

Smiley’s visit to CHS was humorous and enlightening, powerful and whimsical. Smiley’s easy-going manner and profound insight were as entertaining as her literary works. When one student asked how Smiley becomes inspired to start new project she wittingly responded- “I look at my bank account”.