Both Sides of the Track: A Profile of Steve Leanell

By: Meahgan Pear and Stevi Riel

The Early Years

It started with reading," he says when asked how he got to where he is, which is in a brightly lit, second-story office at a west Michigan college. Bare of personal touches, with the exception of the acoustic guitar waiting quietly in the corner, Steve Leanell is a visiting professor of the Writing department, new to the college.

As a 3rd grader, testing at a college freshmen reading level may have been unheard of except for the fact that Steve comes from a history of literary mindsets. His grandfather worked on the printing press and his father was an award winning reporter for the New York Times. Growing up in an Irish Catholic family and attending boarding school would prove to be influential themes in Steve’s future writings but it wasn’t until he started out as a communications undergrad, taking a creative writing elective that he realized he was truly a writer. And a teacher. A musician. A reader.

Getting Started

After earning his bachelors of English from University of Michigan, Steve found himself in Kalamazoo at Western Michigan University where he taught a variety of writing classes, both creative and professional while he worked on his master’s degree, which he finished in 1993. With a MFA in Creative Writing and content with teaching, Steve stayed on board at Western while he decided to pursue a doctorate in literature with a creative dissertation. In 1997 he obtained his Ph.D., but unbeknownst to him, it would be seven years before he began teaching again.

The Professional Track

Having spent a large amount of his absence from teaching working in the corporate world as a “glorified copywriter,” he is able to tell the tale of a writer from either side of the track. Steve accidentally found himself working alongside a handful of his friends at an up and coming company that developed websites for clients. Stanton, an innovative marketing firm was a new company and they needed a technical writer so Steve fell on board marking his time as a professional writer. However, being the only technical writer in the company, Steve was the go to guy.” They called me Doc, since I was the only guy with a Ph.D.,” he says to explain the camaraderie he had with his colleagues. Initially the job suited him, although it wasn’t the creative outlet he would soon realize was an essential part of his life.

Steve spent the majority of his day at a desk working on writing copy. In the morning he would go to group meetings to figure out what he should be writing, and then he would head to his desk to start working on websites or writing copy for brochures, banners, or anything else that needed to be done. Often, his days would stretch far beyond the expected nine to five.

This was tough, especially after spending a large amount of his life in an unconventional schedule; teaching different classes at different times each semester and of course spending time developing his own creative work. He describes his years in corporate America with a bluntness that helps us to understand the dissatisfaction he had during this time. “I mean, how excited can you get, describing the interior of a Buick? Essentially I was a part of the materialistic, corporate world, selling things that weren’t important to me.” This lack of creative freedom forced Steve to seek alternative outlets.

Breaking Out into the Creative World

Always a musician, he started to dedicate more time to understanding music, learning to fine tune his skills on the acoustic guitar, writing lyrics and playing gigs with his band. He says that looking back he can definitely see a change, musically, that took place. Steve began writing song lyrics which was a way for him to express his creativity through writing. He was longing to get back into the creative world.

Some of Steve's Work:
• Poetry
• Fiction
• Screenplays
• Freelance writing reviews for concerts, books, and films

*Published in dozens of different literary magazines and newspapers, his writing has appealed to a variety of the mass*

Where is Steve Now?

As for now, he’s happy with his decision to return to teaching, with his wife across campus in the sociology department and the city of Grand Rapids in his backyard. “I’m glad to be back” he says with an easy smile. Undoubtedly, his prospective writing students will agree.
Steve's Advice for Aspiring Writers!

• "Get your routine down...It's all about doing it!"
• "Don't be afraid to be bad."
• "Learn to value objective criticism."