Campus Connection

UWL's Murphy Library, the La Crosse Public Library and the Weber Center for the Performing Arts have joined forces to bring up-and-coming author and Air Force Veteran Matthew J. Hefti back to his hometown of La Crosse. Hefti will hold a writer’s workshop and author’s talk in advance of Veterans Day and as part of National Novel Writing Month Monday, Nov. 7. Hefti will be reading from his debut novel, “A Hard and Heavy Thing,” which he began writing while serving four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. The novel follows the journeys of two lifelong friends as they head off to war in the Middle East and return home where they struggle with PTSD and re-entry into civilian life. At 19, soon after the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, Hefti enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and left La Crosse to serve alongside the Wisconsin National Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan as an explosive disposal technician. When talking about his work dismantling Improvised Explosive Devices, Hefti’s sense of honor and commitment to social justice shine through. “For me, it was never about fighting one force over another,” Hefti says. “It was about making sure that IEDs —the deadliest weapons in the war — were hurting fewer people than they otherwise would have." While enlisted in the Air Force, he earned a bachelor's in English and a master's of fine arts in creative writing. He began writing “A Hard and Heavy Thing” while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan as an exercise to keep himself focused on what his own future could hold and to also help make sense of his situation in the war zone. The novel is equally inspired by his military experience, both in the war zone and as a veteran returning home, and by his experiences growing up in La Crosse, where his Christian-faith and experiences playing in punk bands at the Warehouse taught him the values of community, compassion and self-expression. Hefti now lives in Madison with his wife and three children. When not out promoting his book and working on new writing projects, he is studying to be a defense attorney at the UW Law School, where he is actively involved with the Innocence Project and other social justice causes. When talking about his busy life and his new-found role as an acclaimed author, Hefti is characteristically humble. "I don’t necessarily take the author label — writer, maybe. Author sounds kind of pretentious, like that’s my day job. Writing is just something I’ve always liked to do: I like to get stuff out. Legal defense work has plenty of writing, but it doesn’t exercise the creative juices in the same way.” Hefti will be exploring those “creative juices” in the Veterans Studio Theater at the Weber Center for the Performing Arts. From 4-5 p.m., Hefti and his publisher, Ben LeRoy, will participate in a Writers Meet and Greet. They will talk with local and aspiring authors about the writing process and getting published.  At 7 p.m. Hefti will read from his novel and discuss how his experiences serving in Iraq and Afghanistan shaped his life and led him to creative writing. Both events are free and open to the public. Seating is limited, so reservations are recommended and can be made by calling the Weber Center at 608.784.9292 or by visiting the Weber Center website at http://www.webercenterfortheperformingarts.org/.