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Author Matthiessen talks at Craterian Wednesday Author Peter Matthiessen, one of perhaps a handful of writers known equally well for fiction and nonfiction, speaks Wednesday in Medford. His talk, another in the New Chautauqua Lecture Series, begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater. Admission is $15, $10 for students. Matthiessen is the author of "The Snow Leopard," "Killing Mister Watson" and "Bone by Bone." He is a New York City native whose lifelong interest in nature and the environment was sparked by the birds and snakes on a place his family owned in Connecticut. His brother became a marine biologist, and he studied biology and ornithology in addition to English at Yale. He started The Paris Review in 1951 and got George Plimpton to run it in the days when such young writers as William Styron, Terry Southern, James Baldwin and Irwin Shaw were hanging out in Paris, which was then cheap. Returning to the States, he wrote for The New Yorker, became a fisherman and ran a charter boat out of Montauk Island, deep-sea fishing. He traveled around South America writing for The New Yorker and Audubon Magazine. His first commercial success was the novel, "At Play in the Fields of the Lord." Despite the success of such nonfiction books as "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," which argues for a new trial for American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison more than 20 years for the murder of two FBI agents, Matthiessen says he's always considered fiction his "real work." "Far Tortuga," begun as a New Yorker piece, is his favorite among his books. He became a student of Zen Buddhism and remains a Zen priest. In "Men's Lives," he deals with commercial fishermen on the East Coast. He says that although he's more skeptical about social action than he used to be, he still thinks it's important to make some effort for the betterment of humankind. Tickets are available at the Craterian. For information, call 779-3000. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA