Art Lester is an award-winning author. His recent
book, Seeing with Your Ears: Spirituality for Those
Who Can’t Believe (iUniverse, 2003), won
First Prize in the Writer’s Digest 12th Annual
Self-Published Book Competition. The book, never submitted
to commercial publishers or agents, topped a bumper
list of candidates in the Inspirational/spiritual category.
Lester has had a rich history from which to draw for
both fiction and non-fiction writing. He was born in
the USA, entered the University of North Carolina (Chapel
Hill) on a prestigious scholarship, but dropped out
many times in the social ferment of the 1960’s.
He was active in civil rights and anti-war activities,
becoming a writer and selling his first stories to literary
magazines. His first journalism job on a small weekly
in North Carolina helped him land a job as a reporter
on The Florida Times-Union, where he wrote
features and had a few front-page by-lines, which gave
him an enduring taste for news.
He returned to Chapel Hill and opened a Mexican restaurant
that hosted, among others, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and
Allen Ginsberg. That was where he met the literary hero
of his youth, Jack Kerouac. He traded ideas with fellow
members of the local artist subculture such as Russell
Banks, now a best-selling author, who provided him with
his first “really helpful rejection slip.”
He sold his by-then successful business, and moved to
Sussex, England, where he studied Rural Development
at Emerson College. Throughout the eighties he and his
ex-wife, Barbara, worked in Botswana, the Dominican
Republic and northern Kenya, becoming fluent speakers
of Spanish and Swahili. In between assignments the couple
lived in a small village in the Alpujarras, Spain. He
still has a home there, as well as a log cabin he built
in the 1980’s.
In 1989 he entered training for the Unitarian ministry
in the UK. He led churches for eleven years, finishing
with a big congregation in Notting Hill Gate, London.
He also undertook counseling training and became a popular
facilitator of personal growth workshops. Along the
way he sold both news and short stories, including such
diverse markets as Mike Shane Mystery Magazine
and the BBC. He has published many articles and short
stories, including a regular column in The Inquirer,
the oldest independent religious newspaper in Britain,
entitled Downside Up, dedicated to issues of
the Third World.
Since 2001, Lester has divided his time between Spain,
England and the U.S. with his wife, Gilly Fraser, a
screenwriter, and former playwright in residence
at the Royal Court Theatre, London. He writes a regular
column in an English-language Spanish newspaper, called
“Culture Shock”, and works as a free-lance
journalist. He maintains a base in the Southeast of
the U.S., where his family lives, and plans to work
with American Unitarian Universalist congregations.
He is a skilled and sought-after speaker, with engagements
so far this year in Spain, England, Ireland and France.
Other
publications
Seeing with Your Ears: Spirituality
for Those Who Can’t Believe is for those
people who sense that there is a spiritual reality, but who
can’t accept the limitations of mainstream religious
traditions. In a series of entertaining and gritty essays,
the author leads the reader toward a “hunch” that
may change their lives. Read
more about the book here
Nobody’s
Ass is a short novel about two unlikely allies
who join forces to escape the oppression of their Latin American
home. In a story of an incredible journey, they come to know
what freedom really is, and where it might be found. Read
more about the book here
Almost Home: Lost and Found in a
Spanish Mountain Village is Art Lester’s
most recent book. Set in the remote village of the Spanish
Sierra Nevada where Lester has made a home for more than twenty
years, it is the true story of two people finding a rural
paradise and learning some surprising truths about themselves.
The book is currently under representation by a literary agent,
awaiting publication. Read
more about the book here
