Circa 2000, a first-year in a Frosh Quad double cast his roomate’s dog, Caesar, as a character in his first short story at the College. In the story, Caesar offers sage marriage advice in a surprisingly humanesque voice. “On brand!” Ethan Rutherford ’02, who concocted the story for his introductory creative writing class, wrote in an email to the Record.

Twenty-some years later, Rutherford’s dalliances in the medium have transformed into an accomplished writing career. Today, he is the author of three published novels and an associate professor of English at Trinity College. His most recent book, North Sun, or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther, is a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award. 

Upon hearing the news, Rutherford was thrilled. “I’m still walking around in a state of near total surprise and happiness,” he wrote in an email to the Record. Surprises were a part of Rutherford’s writing process, too. “As I was writing North Sun, I was only aware of the fact that I’d given myself over to the story, and its structure and strange risks, and I cared less for the meaning created than the emotion,” he said.

According to Rutherford, he has been laying the groundwork for his novels since his time at the College. “I don’t think that original story was very good,” Rutherford said. “But it allowed me to kind of open a door and just say … this [is the] sort of stuff I’m interested in working on.”

When Rutherford arrived at the College, becoming a writer was not part of his plan. “Academically, I came in thinking I was going to be a drama major,” he said. “And [then I] found out that I had no talent for theatre.”

After letting his original plans fade, Rutherford was quick to alight on another passion: creative writing. “I took a class with [Professor of English, Emeritus] Jim Shepard my freshman year,” he said. “And that was the class that made me love literature and take literature seriously.” 

Rutherford took Shepard’s course so seriously that he began to consider devoting his life to literature from that very first year. “For the first time in my life, the question was: Do you think this is something that you could do and that you’d like to pursue?” he said.

The answer was an enthusiastic yes. Rutherford started writing in earnest and sending his work to publications at the College. “I submitted my stuff all over the place on campus,” he said. 

This process prepared Rutherford for the world of professional writing while still providing a comforting, supportive community. “The process of drafting something and taking it seriously and then taking a look at it again, and sending it out, getting rejections, and setting it out all happened at Williams,” he said. “What I loved about Williams is that it was such an encouraging place, and it really felt like a real home. [That encouragement] gave me confidence to just go out in the world and say, ‘Yeah, despite what the rest of the world might say, literature is important.’”

After graduating from the College, the indefatigable Rutherford continued to submit his writing. Eventually, his work paid off, and a publication purchased one of his pieces. “The first short story I ever sold, I’ve [never] felt that good in my entire life, and I was, like, 24,” he said. “I got $300, and I went and got a tattoo immediately.”

Rutherford eventually found his way to a master’s of fine arts program at the University of Minnesota. While in Minnesota Twin Cities, Rutherford began working on his first book, The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories, which was published by HarperCollins in 2013. 

Then it was time to move on to something new. “For me, as soon as the book is published, it just leaves my head,” he said. “It feels like it’s sort of done, like it’s by a different person.” 

By looking over his previous work, Rutherford gets a glimpse of previous versions of himself, he explained. “I can look at my first book … and I remember, ‘Oh my gosh, I finished this story when my son was just born,’” he said. “And then the next book was like, ‘Oh, I was deep in parenting,’ and I can tell because my syntax is not correct.”

Rutherford’s latest book centers on one of his recent preoccupations: the late 19th century whaling industry that decimated marine mammal populations in the North Sea. “I think that I can trace the origins of this book to being really disgusted by the way … the world was ignoring environmental policy,” he said. “[The book] came [to be] about extracting and making more money and the way that money justifies cruelty.”

The novel follows the Esther, a whaling ship that sets out from New Bedford, Mass., in 1878 on a voyage through the Chukchi Sea to find a lost ship and its captain. 

It might be easy to compare the story to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick with their shared themes of obsession and, of course, a healthy dose of whaling. Despite the easy comparison, however, the two works have some key differences, Rutherford said. “If Moby Dick was a world of abundance with huge chapters, long sentences, and all that stuff, North Sun is a book of scarcity,” he said.

Indeed, the book is composed entirely of vignettes. “I was trying to replicate the sound of waves,” Rutherford said. 

This style of paratactic composition helped bring the narrative to life and taught Rutherford something new about literary representation, he explained. “I’ve realized that it’s more than simply the story that’s being told — it’s the way that it’s told, and the way that the stories sound,” he said. “I was trying to find a way to make [my book] sound as sonic as possible, because I think that music can move me in a way that no other medium can.”                          

Though he’s been a professor for over a decade now, Rutherford still remembers how important his years at the College were when choosing where to teach. “I was offered some other jobs, and they were at larger, giant universities,” he recalled. “I was like, I just want to be back in a classroom… There was a little bit of [feeling like] coming home.”

Ultimately, Rutherford points to the College as his starting point in literature. “Some of the great good luck in my life has been to have been involved with the Williams English department, specifically with Jim Shepard, Stephen Fix, and John Limon,” he said. “What they modeled for me was a seriousness with which you can approach literature, that you can make books your life, and that it is a worthy thing to do.”