Brooks P. Hanson, '87, editor of Padan Aram, a Harvard literary magazine, and Nick Davis '87, former president of the improvisational theater company On Thin lee, are creating a novel on tape. Their work, 'Boone," is an oral biography of a fictitious intellectual called Boone. Hanson and Davis have gotten together 40 Harvard actors to assume the 55 roles of Boone's life acquaintances. Hansen calls their work "the execution of a novel."

Briggs Copeland Assistant Professor Christopher J. Leland--who, in his capacity as a creative writing teacher, advises students who undertake such literary tasks--says that writing a novel in college was a very positive experience for him.

"The most important thing an aspiring student novelist can do is sustain a piece of fiction of that length, "Leland says.

Leland says that he knows approximately six students who are writing or who have written novels, adding that Harvard novelists employ a "very wide variety of styles, locales, characters and plots."

Yet, for Peter Gadol '86, president of the Advocate, young novelists are not so impressive. Gadol has written several short stories and has also toyed with the idea of writing a novel.

"I honestly do not think that being able to sit down and work on a novel at the age of 20 is a sign of talent. In fact, I prefer someone who writes shop price and develops his style to someone who has been typewriting the same work for two or three vears," Gadol savs.