Craig J. Hansen

Hansen was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and lived in Illinois from the age of 10 to 25. He earned a BA in Political Science (with a minor in English and Anthropology) in 1976, and an MA in English in 1980; both from the University of Illinois. In 1993 he completed a Ph.D in English at the University of Minnesota with a focus on Technical Communication. During the years between his MA and Ph.D., he worked in the computer industry in a variety of technical and managerial positions.

Hansen has published several academic articles and a few short stories, but The Skeleton Train is his first novel. Published in 2010 by Sky Blue Waters Press, The Skeleton Train tells the story of Jason Audley; what many have referred to as a modern-day Huckleberry Finn. Jason narrates a story that begins when he is fourteen in an industrial Illinois town. The story includes his closest friend, Davey, and a young woman they encounter while hopping freight trains called The Pheadra.[1]

Hansen's second novel, Winter Lake, published in 2012, is a sequel to The Skeleton Train and picks up Jason's life in northern Wisconsin seven years later. He continues to narrate the story as a drummer in a band with his trademark wit and wry sense of humor.[2]

Hansen's third novel, The Morning Door, published in 2014, is the third in the Jason Audley series, and continues Jason's story as an adult in Northwest Wisconsin.[3]

Hansen is also the co-author of Nonacademic Writing: Social Theory and Technology, published in 1995 by Lawrence Erlbaum.[4]

Hansen lives in Stillwater, Minnesota with his wife. In 2020, he retired as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.[2] Hansen is a musician who devotes equal time to writing and music. Hansen is totally blind, due to a degenerative eye disease.

Hansen creates his own music under Craig Hansen which is widely available on all streaming services. He composes music in a variety of styles, ranging from blues to rock to Americana. Along with writing the music and the lyrics, he provides all vocals and plays all of the instruments: lead, bass and rhythm guitar, steel guitar, drums, keyboards, mandolin, banjo and accordion.

He plays lead guitar (but is not an original member) for the More-Tishans, a local band in Stillwater, Minnesota that had the one-hit-wonder, (I've got) Nowhere to Run, in 1966.[5] He also plays guitar for the group Cattail Moon Band. He's played the guitar in many bands since the age of fourteen, and can also play the mandolin and accordion.[6]