“Boys Without Fathers” — a memoir by Jason Allen, assistant professor of creative writing at Wichita State — has been in the making for about a decade, exploring deeply personal themes and telling the story of an unconventional life.

In the memoir, which will be published in September, Allen explores themes of addiction and recovery, and draws parallels between himself and his brother, Jesse. 

“My brother fell into hard drug addiction right about the point where I got sober myself from alcohol,” Allen said. “So, I tried to pull my brother into recovery with me, and that’s a big part of the book — our connection as brothers with a toxic father when we were kids and then an absent father when we’re adults.”

With his job at WSU, he said it can be difficult to find time to work on outside projects, but he writes when he can. 

“It’s a relief as much as anything that it’s finished and that it’s going to be out in the world,” Allen said. “There are times that working on something that’s really extra personal — if you’re really tired and busy during the semester — that might not be the right time. So, during the breaks is where I get more work done.”

Allen has been teaching at WSU for four years. Previously, he has had two different teaching positions in Georgia and then one in Colorado. 

“I really love the students here, especially because I have such a working-class background, and a lot of the students here really appreciate everything that they have and really want to be in school,” Allen said. “I think other places, sometimes people are just killing time.”

In the past, Allen has published two poetry collections — one, “A Meditation on Fire,” being a full-length collection — and a novel, “The East End,” published in 2019. Allen said writing a memoir was a very different experience compared to his other works. 

“It’s so personal,” Allen said. “One thing I have to prepare myself for is that it’s not just the scenes that feature my brother’s addiction or my father’s alcoholism and things like that, that has to be secondary to my own. You try to show yourself from all different angles so it’s not just the best view.”

Creative writing graduate student Elizabeth George, who took a graduate fiction writing class with Allen last semester, described Allen as “personable” in the way he “tells anecdotes about the past, whether it’s teaching experiences and lived experiences.” George also said they try to read most of their professors’ publications before coming to WSU and that Allen is “really open to sharing if he’s had a new publication.” 

“‘East End,’ I remember being really excited about,” George said. “I really enjoyed some of the character dynamics and the relationships between one another … There’s plenty of warmth and humor and humanness in his characters and stories that I find appealing.”

George said that class with Allen was very “freeform” and student-led, using open-ended questions to allow students to talk about whatever was being workshopped. 

“He introduced some more contemporary work and contemporary styles that he appreciated and helped me appreciate too,” George said. “He does give a lot of affirmations to some of the things that we bring to workshop and … maybe helping extend it a little bit or see if somebody else wants to speak to something you notice, so you don’t feel like a weirdo for having a different reaction.”

Originally from the east end of Long Island, New York — the inspiration for the location of his first novel — Allen was raised mostly by a single mother who worked for a wealthy family in the Hamptons.

Because of his struggles in his early life with family and addictions — as he writes in his memoir — he did not start his college education until later in his life.  

“I was a nontraditional student, so I wasn’t really ready to be in college until my late 20s,” Allen said. “I moved to the West Coast, so I spent 10 years in Portland. I went to Portland State, and then I went to Pacific University out there for my MFA, and then I traveled all the way back to New York for my PhD.”

Allen also said that one of his favorite authors, Karen Russell, author of “The Antidote,” wrote the blurb — the short description that’s found on the back of a book — for his memoir. 

He met Russell last year while she was giving a reading at Watermark Books and Cafe in Wichita. He told her about his book, and she offered to write the blurb.

“I didn’t ask her for the blurb because usually with a memoir, you would have people who have published memoirs write the blurb for you,” Allen said. “She was just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, too, so when it’s your favorite author plus you really love them as a person, it’s just a really nice thing.”

Allen said now that he’s finished with his memoir, he’s planning on writing another novel. He has multiple manuscripts that are partially finished, and he’s deciding which one to follow through with. 

“There’s one that takes place in Portland that I began a long time ago,” Allen said. “It has a lot to do with some of the same themes that are in my memoir and even my other published novel and poetry collection.”

Allen said his memoir will be published on Sept. 1, and he hopes that he represented the struggles his family members were going through well. He mentioned that the most important thing is that his brother feels good about the memoir because “he was always a good guy, he just was suffering a lot through his addiction.”

“By showing my own flaws or my challenges that I’ve had to overcome, I think that’s what allows you as a memoir writer to show other people’s stories within that,” Allen said.