Friday, August 31, 2007
“Heft on Wheels” author to open RopeWalk Reading Series
 A “profoundly humiliating experience” prompted Mike Magnuson, a writer and cycling enthusiast, to turn his life around.In 2002, Magnuson wrote a story for Gentleman’s Quarterly Magazine about how “fun” it was for him, a 250 pound chain-smoking heavy drinker, to try to keep up with fellow cyclists on a group ride. To illustrate the story, the magazine flew Magnuson to a studio in New York and shot a photo of him posed nude on a bicycle. “It was a really horrible thing,” he said. “I never even went to the beach without my shirt on, and there I was with 800,000 people seeing me. That was pretty scary.” Fewer than six weeks after the article was published, he began an extreme program to get in shape. He quit smoking, whittled 80 pounds, and is now a competitive Cyclocross racer. He relates the story of his transformation in his 2004 book, Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180. His publisher insisted on using the GQ photo for the hardcover edition. Though the photo moved him to get in shape, he said to this day he won’t look at that cover. Magnuson will open the fall 2007 RopeWalk Reading Series at 7 p.m. Thursday, September 13, in Kleymeyer Hall in the Liberal Arts Center. An associate professor of English at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, he also is the author of two novels, The Right Man for the Job and The Fire Gospels, and an earlier memoir, Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. At SIUC, he is the faculty advisor for Grassroots, the undergraduate literary organization, and the SIU Cycling Club. He has written for Esquire, Writer's Digest, Men's Health, Backpacker, Fiction Writer, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Bicycling, where he is a contributing editor. Recent articles appear in the May 2007 issue of Bicycling and the August 2007 Backpacker. He received his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Florida. Since Heft on Wheels, he said he’s been unable to finish two novels. “I’m not as excited about writing as I used to be. Maybe that will come around. One of the things I lost interest in was hanging around writers and being involved in that whole scene that’s connected with writers. I have no friends who are writers, and I don’t hang out with anybody who talks about it.” His healthy lifestyle has not necessarily made him a happier person. “Just because you’re significantly lighter and a better athlete doesn’t mean everything is hunky-dory. Some day maybe I’ll write another book about that. My guess is it wouldn’t inspire people the way the first one did.” For RopeWalk, he said he’d probably read some “new weird, funny-slash-depressing fiction,” describing his nonfiction as “too wholesome.” “The students appreciate something a little racier, shall we say,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine giving a reading at something like RopeWalk and talking about the joys of bike riding.” |
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