Orange City Magazine - Spring Summer

EDUCATION
“A BLESSED SNARL”
Patrick Wiseman moved his wife
and son back to Newfoundland
to start a new Pentecostal
church, but when his wife, Anne,
leaves him for a man she meets
on Facebook, and his son, Hab,
moves in with his girlfriend, Natalie
— a burgeoning alcoholic with
a fiery past — Patrick takes a suicidal
leap of faith that brings him
face-to-face with his estranged
father, Des, a Catholic mystic
who might be covering up an
old crime. While Patrick wrestles
to come to terms with his failed
marriage, Hab struggles to hang
on to his tenuous relationship
with Natalie. But when a woman
is almost burned alive in a nearby
house fire and a neighborhood
drunk is beaten within an inch of
life, Hab begins to wonder if Natalie
and her housemate, Gerry,
know more than they let on.
Northwestern College senior Carrie Bouwman of Rock Valley presents a possible motive as
to why someone would murder a Northwestern professor during the crime writing class on
Jan. 24 in Orange City.
Pay a visit to Samuel Martin’s latest
class and you’ll walk onto a crime
scene.
A human body outline is taped to the
floor while a small group of students discuss
books, movies and other popular culture at
Northwestern College in Orange City.
Martin, an assistant professor of English,
is in his first semester of teaching the Tuesday
and Thursday offering, deemed Crime
Writing, which is held in Kepp Hall.
Eight students are enrolled in the twocredit,
one-hour class that will be offered
every other spring, alternating with a fantasy
writing course.
The class stemmed from a demand for
more special topic English offerings.
“As a writing professor, I’d been asked to
teach a session for that each year, and I was
trying to think, ‘What are at least two different
kinds?’” said Martin, who brainstormed
various branches of fiction students might
be interested that would be feasible with
Northwestern’s schedule.
He first created a fantasy-style workshop,
where students study and write in the style
of “Lord of the Rings” author J R.R. Tolkien
through modern times.
The Crime Writing course was born from
Martin’s personal interest in the genre.
He’s already had two works in the subject
matter published — “The Ramshackle Tabernacle,”
a collection of short stories, in 2010,
and “A Blessed Snarl,” a novel, in 2012.
12 OC | SPRING/SUMMER 2017