Background
Carlson grew up in Buffalo, New York, where he attended the Nichols School.
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(On a beautiful spring day in 2002, Lee Carlson's life was...)
On a beautiful spring day in 2002, Lee Carlson's life was transformed forever when he was hit by a careless, speeding driver. Father, husband, writer, son—all that was about to change. Several days later he woke up in a hospital with a new identity: Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor. Unfortunately he knew all about Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI. Just months before, his mother had fallen down a flight of basement stairs, crushing her brain and leaving her unable to walk, speak or feed herself. Passage to Nirvana tells the story of one person's descent into the hell of losing everything: family, home, health, even the ability to think—and the slow climb back to a normal life. Told in a unique creative style brought on by the author's brain injury, combining short poems and essays in an interwoven, exuberant narrative, Passage to Nirvana recounts one person’s struggle and ultimate joy at building a new life. The story takes the reader through Intensive Care Units, doctors’ offices and a profusion of therapy centers, eventually winding its way to sunlit oceans, quiet Zen meditation halls, white beaches, azure skies and a sailboat named Nirvana. Passage to Nirvana is a memoir, a treasury of Zen teachings and a sailor’s yarn all rolled into one. Passage to Nirvana is an illustrative tale about finding a path to happiness after a traumatic life event, a book that will teach you about the Poetry of Living.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982688474/?tag=2022091-20
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Carlson grew up in Buffalo, New York, where he attended the Nichols School.
He attended Skidmore College, where he was a student of Clark Blaise, the writing teacher and short-story writer who was Bernard Malamud"s main pupil, and also roommates and good friends with Raymond Carver at the Iowa Writers" Workshop at the University of Iowa.
Prior to publishing Passage to Nirvana he was a magazine and newspaper journalist specializing in writing about outdoor adventure sports such as skiing and scuba diving. He was senior travel editor for Skiing magazine, and has worked for media outlets such as Outside magazine, Newsday, National Broadcasting Company Sports, Entertainment and Sports Programming Network and many others According to his memoir, he had an upper middle class upbringing, and was an athletic child, participating in sports that included skiing, sailing, lacrosse, and others, which led to his career as an outdoor travel/sportswriter.
Blaise was the director of the International Writing Program there.
Carlson was a painting major and heavily involved in theater at Skidmore, but credits Blaise with his becoming a professional writer After college, Carlson worked briefly as a private yacht captain, and then moved to New York to pursue his writing career.
He held a number of writer/editor positions at small trade magazines, including editor-in-chief of a low-temperature physics magazine. Eventually he secured a job covering two of his main interests, skiing and travel, when he became senior travel editor at Skiing magazine.
In 2002, several months after working for National Broadcasting Company at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Carlson was hit by a car and suffered a traumatic brain injury, leading to a year of full-time rehab and several years of recovery.
After the accident, Carlson, being a lifelong sailor, decided to once again pursue one of his loves and work as a private yacht captain. He then, with his fiancée Meg, purchased and rebuilt a 25-year-old, 60-foot sailboat they renamed "Nirvana". The accident, aftermath and boat form the metaphorical journey to recovery detailed in his book
Carlson lives in Greenport, New York, aboard "Nirvana".
Carlson holds a 100-ton United States Coast Guard captain"s license
National Public Radio Interview: Buffalo born author finds nirvana healing from a TBI
Buffalo Style Interview.
(On a beautiful spring day in 2002, Lee Carlson's life was...)
