Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Jeff Rasley is the author of seven books and has published numerous articles in academic and mainstream periodicals, including Newsweek, Chicago Magazine, ABA Journal, Family Law Review, American Athenaeum, Pacific Magazine, Indy’s Child, The Journal of Communal Societies, The Chrysalis Reader, Faith & Fitness Magazine, Friends Journal, and Real Travel Adventures International Magazine. He is an award-winning photographer and his pictures taken in the Himalayas and Caribbean and Pacific islands have been published in several journals.
Rasley has engaged in social activism and philanthropic efforts from an early age. In high school he co-founded the Goshen Walk for Hunger. In law school he was an advocate of residential renters’ rights as a lobbyist and president of the Indianapolis Tenants Association. He is the founder and president of the Basa Village Foundation USA and currently serves as an officer or director for five nonprofit corporations.
Jeff is an avid outdoorsman and recreational athlete. He leads trekking-mountaineering expeditions in Nepal and has solo-kayaked around several Pacific island groups. He also loves to read and considers completing Marcel Proust’s 3600 page Remembrance of Things Past as great an adventure as climbing Himalayan peaks and solo-kayaking Pacific islands.
Rasley is a partner in the e-book publishing enterprise Midsummer Books through which he also provides writer coaching and editing services. He is U.S. liaison for the Nepal-based Himalayan expedition company, Adventure GeoTreks Ltd. He has taught classes for IUPUI Continuing Ed. Program, Indiana Writers Center, and Marian University. He currently teaches philosophy of philanthropy at Butler University.
Jeff is a graduate of the University of Chicago, A.B. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, All-Academic All-State Football Team and letter winner in swimming and football; Indiana University School of Law, J.D. cum laude, Moot Court and Indiana Law Review; Christian Theological Seminary, M.Div. magna cum laude, co-valedictorian and Faculty Award Scholar. He has been admitted to the Indiana, U.S. District Court, and U.S. Supreme Court Bars.
For chairing the Indiana-Tennessee Civic Memorial Commission Rasley and the Commission received Proclamations of Salutation from the Governors of Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania and he was made an honorary Lieutenant Colonel Aide-de-Camp of the Alabama State Militia, a Kentucky Colonel and honorary Citizen of Tennessee. He was given a Key to the City of Indianapolis for serving as an intern to Mayor Hudnut and preparing a report on the safety conditions of all Indy Parks. Rasley has received the Man of the Year award from the Arthur Jordan YMCA and the Alumni Service Award from the University of Chicago Alumni Board of Governors.
Rasley has given serious and humorous interviews to many broadcast programs and provided programs for service clubs, community organizations, and churches.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Pilgrimage: Sturgis to Wounded Knee and Back Home Again is a memoir available as an ebook and audiobook at http://www.amazon.com/Pilgrimage-Sturgis-Wounded-Memoir-ebook/dp/B00B0Q71A0/
In his 7th book Jeff Rasley continues his search to find, explore, and explain authentic community. Pilgrimage: Sturgis to Wounded Knee and Back Home is a very personal Memoir in which the author traces his roots to the bloody massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee. He deconstructs a local myth of his childhood in Goshen, Indiana about an Indian attack on the town, which never occurred. And then compares his experience in working with the Rai people in the Nepal Himalayas to the genocidal treatment of the American Plains Indians by his ancestors. It’s all about finding meaning in the deep connectedness of human community.
Pilgrimage takes the reader on a journey that starts with a motorcycle trip and then detours back through the history of the Indian Wars and the forced removal of Native Americans from Indiana. It leads the reader to the high Himalayas of India and Nepal, and back home to Indiana. The journey ends where we all begin.
The author planned to whoop it up with biker friends at the Bacchanalia of Sturgis Bike Week in South Dakota. Instead, an spontaneous pilgrimage to Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation leads to confrontation with a troubling family history. One ancestor fought in the Indian Wars and died from a wound sustained at the massacre of Sioux at Wounded Knee. Another helped the last of the Pottawatomie avoid starvation during a harsh winter in Indiana.
The journey arcs across the Pacific to the Himalayas. In a remote mountain village Jeff Rasley found a community much like the traditional Sioux of the Black Hills. Rasley explains how the Rai of Nepal, however, recognized the danger to their communities and successfully fought off British invaders. Jeff’s work with Basa village is not about atonement for the near genocide of Native Americans. It is about reconciliation between white Westerners and indigenous people through recognition of our common humanity and respect for cultural differences.
“It’s wackier, sexier, and even more thoughtful than Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
Other books by Jeff Rasley –
If you enjoy real adventure stories combined with an uplifting message about the strongest
and kindest people in the world, check out Bringing Progress to Paradise
and its sequel, Light in the Mountains.
To understand where 3 Cups of Tea went wrong, read India – Nepal Himalayas in the Moment.
Want to get out of the snow and mountains and onto sandy beaches and swaying palms, check out the lyrical Islands in my Dreams, a Memoir.
If you enjoy sports action, history, humor, and romance or the
sex/drugs/rock ‘n roll cultural revolution of the 60s, check out MONSTERS OF THE MIDWAY the Death, Resurrection, and Redemption of Chicago Football.
For a change of pace curl up with False Prophet, a Legal Thriller, romantic mystery and inspirational tale based on a legal case Rasley handled in his Indianapolis law practice.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
My writing habits are quite mundane. I write first in long hand on a yellow legal pad. Once I am in control of the story I begin to input in Word. I try to create at least one new page each day after reviewing, revising, and editing what I wrote the day before.
Sticking to my disciplined approach is what has helped me to be fairly prolific.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
My wife, Alicia Rasley
What are you working on now?
“Godless”
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Direct emails to personal contacts developed over many years and speaking to groups.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write on!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Don’t expect success; just do what feels right and enjoy your life.
What are you reading now?
Middlemarch by George Elliot
What’s next for you as a writer?
Finish “Godless”
Author Websites and Profiles
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