Photo by Sara Holthouse
Pictured is Edward McClenathan, a 93-year-old Fredonia man who has lived his life around the arts and just recently self-published three books.
What do a cartoon book, science fiction novel and read-aloud book all have in common? They are three books recently self-published on Amazon by Fredonia man Edward McClenathan.
At 93 years old, McClenathan’s experience in both writing and drawing goes back to his school years, attending the campus school at Fredonia for kindergarten through eighth grade and getting his two master’s degrees at SUNY Fredonia and University of Buffalo. McClenathan started out with more of an interest in drawing and as the artist of his class, using art throughout his life.
McClenathan also took part in multiple contests while in high school that were for stories that were 25 words or less, winning things like appliances, different trips and a posturepedic mattress.
“About that time I saw Bertrand Russell’s address in England, and I had written some — and this was when I was basically just out of high school — philosophy and poetry and stuff, mostly philosophy, and I sent a package of them to Bertrand Russell,” McClenathan said. “Well, lo and behold he sent me back a very nice note, and that was a fantastic thing.”
The note from Russell is among the first favorable responses to McClenathan’s work, and McClenathan said Russell played a part throughout his whole life, becoming a member of the Bertrand Russell Society in Fredonia after telling the president and philosophy professor at Fredonia, Marvin Kohl, about his correspondence with Russell.
After Russell passed away, McClenathan’s letters were found among his items that were sent to McMasters University in Hamilton, Canada.
Other work for McClenathan included being an educator in the Fredonia school system and writing a musical comedy that was produced in 1979 in Jamestown by a community theater group.
McClenathan said his sons Todd and Michael also wrote the music for his musical. During a run of the musical he was also involved in a Dramatist Guild seminar with Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Miller, Jules Feiffer, and other notable writers.
One of his three recently published books was inspired by his time as an elementary librarian.
“That was another fantastic thing that happened, because I never planned on becoming an elementary librarian,” McClenathan said. “When the school put in their new area, they turned the old high school library into an elementary library. I went looking for an English teaching job, because I had my degree in speech and English.”
The superintendent of the school at the time said he did not have any English teacher openings but told McClenathan about the elementary librarian position, which McClenathan then took, saying it turned out to be the perfect job for him, allowing him to use both his art skills and background in literature. He added that his students always loved the stories he would read to them, reading authors like Mark Twain and not picture books that they could read on their own. He would also draw pictures on the chalkboard for them, and McClenathan said his students still remember him and the stories he would read to them to this day.
One of the three recently self-published books, “Holidays and Hoopla” was written for his students back during his time as the librarian, but McClenathan said he never told his students he wrote it. The book is set as a read-aloud book, and beginning at the end of summer if one chapter is read a week it corresponds to the school year calendar, so that when a holiday comes up readers will reach a holiday in the book.
“One kid even came up to me and said, ‘where can I get that book?’” McClenathan said. “Of course, it wasn’t published at that time.”
The second book recently published by McClenathan is a cartoon book for adult pet lovers called “Cat vs Dog”, and the third is “Verity Scanner”, which is a science fiction book. McClenathan said the “Verity Scanner” is about the main character who invented a device that is about the size of a television remote where the person can point it at someone and see if they are telling the truth.
“I thought that would be interesting, what effect that would have on society,” McClenathan said. “But then they go on, and they’re worried about if there is a catastrophe with the planet. So, they send two couples off into space, looking for a habitable planet to travel to.”
McClenathan’s current work is on a learning alphabet, doing a presentation at the International Business Analytics Conference last May in Fredonia. The idea for his alphabet follows the experiment of the Initial Teaching Alphabet, which was an experiment being done when McClenathan’s kids were in school. The idea behind the alphabet is that each symbol represents a sound, but McClenathan said spelling became a problem and the experiment in Fredonia was abandoned after a few years. McClenathan’s alphabet he designed is a phonetic alphabet called “ATO”, and he said for his wife’s dissertation at University of Buffalo she did an experiment using both the Traditional Alphabet, the ITA and McClenathan’s ATO. McClenathan’s and the ITA alphabet both scored better in her dissertation, and McClenathan added that with his alphabet the spelling is also there as well as the sounds that the letters make.
McClenathan has also recently participated in and won a book from the Chautauqua Institution’s Book Club contest, where participants had to take a line from a speech delivered in the Amphitheater and add their own line to it to form a couplet. McClenathan’s line came from comedian Lewis Black, who said “No one should live this long,” which McClenathan followed with “Devoid of love, laughter and song.”
McClenathan is also an honorary member of the Charles Dickens society. Other artistic pursuits of his include composing a piano concerto, painting, but mostly focusing on cartooning in the early years.
“I’ve always loved the arts,” McClenathan said. “Music, literature … I must say I’ve had a very full life that is basically all around the arts.”
“Holidays and Hoopla”, “Cat vs Dog” and “Verity Scanner” are all available now on Amazon.