Chicago Tribune

He was hired to teach at his alma mater. And then someone read his book

CHICAGO - T.J. Martinson's grandparents met when they were students at Olivet Nazarene University. His parents did, too, and so it was natural that Martinson followed family tradition, becoming a third-generation ONU student. Even after he graduated in 2013, Martinson kept in touch with the university through his father, who is chair of its communication department. As Martinson neared the end of his Ph.D. program at Indiana University-Bloomington, he applied for a post as an assistant professor in the ONU English department.

This spring, about two months after publishing his debut novel,

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