Jim Lehrer, host of the PBS program NewsHour, will give the keynote address Sunday during the first-ever River City Reading Festival at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H. Lehrer will speak about his 18th novel, Eureka, which is set in a fictional Kansas town.

Jim Lehrer, left, interviews former co-host Robert MacNeil in 2005 for the 30th anniversary of the PBS program now known as the NewsHour. Lehrer, a native of Wichita, will speak in Lawrence Sunday for the first-ever River City Reading Festival.

Presumably, Jim Lehrer could go pretty much anywhere to write his novels.

He punches out a few pages each morning at his Washington, D.C., office, where he is executive editor for the long-running program “NewsHour.”

But when he wants to really put a dent in an upcoming novel, he flies to Kansas to stay in Wichita’s Old Town district and eat at steakhouses.

“A lot of people say, ‘Where do you go to get away from things?’ Lehrer says. “I say, ‘I go to Wichita, Kansas. You got a problem with that?'”

That’s where Lehrer wrote a good portion of his 17th and most recent book, “Eureka.”

He’ll be in Lawrence Sunday to talk about that novel and his other writings as part of the first-ever River City Reading Festival. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H., with Lehrer speaking at 11 a.m.

Lehrer, who was born in Wichita and spent much of his childhood in Kansas, is probably best known as executive editor of “NewsHour,” a show that has been on PBS for 32 years (through several name changes). He also has won two Emmys and the National Humanities Medal, and he has moderated 10 nationally televised presidential and vice-presidential debates.

But running parallel to his hard-news career is a successful publishing career. His books include both fiction and nonfiction.

The latest book is set in the fictional town of Eureka, Kan. (though there is a real Eureka in southcentral Kansas).

It tells the story of Otis Halstead, a successful CEO who is unhappy with some of the relationships in his life – both at work and at home. He decides to start purchasing items he wanted as a child but couldn’t afford, starting with a collectible toy fire truck that costs $12,350.

Eventually, as his 60th birthday nears, he takes off with some of his new toys for a trip on a motor scooter.

Despite being 73 years old, Lehrer says he never went through a similar life crisis – at least not to that degree.

“Not exactly this, no,” he says. “Everybody goes through ups and downs, and when you’re in a down, you think, ‘Oh, my God, will I ever get out of this?’ And you get out of it and you realize, ‘I found it,’ and that’s ‘eureka.'”

Writing careers

Lehrer calls his multi-faceted career as a news anchor and novelist “one of the glories of my fortunate situation.”

He decided to become a writer at age 16 after giving up hope on a professional baseball career. He admired some writers for the newspaper in the town where he lived, Beaumont, Texas, and one of his English teachers encouraged him to explore writing.

“I told my mother I was going to be a writer, and I went back to the high school and found the faculty adviser for the newspaper and said, ‘Here I am,'” Lehrer recalls. “And I’ve been there ever since.”

He wrote for The Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times-Herald before switching to the public television side of journalism.

“My generation of newspaper people, 90 percent of them did it for adventure, because they wanted to be Ernest Hemingway or Ernie Pyle,” Lehrer says. “It was all about writing. It wasn’t about getting people indicted or exposing people. It was all about who could write the best. … Writing is a natural act for me, whether it’s for the ‘NewsHour’ or for one of my novels.”

‘Best job’

Lehrer says he has to read many nonfiction books for his job as host of “NewsHour.” But in his leisure time he enjoys reading spy and mystery novels, as well as listening to books on tape with his wife.

Some recent entries on his reading list have included “Rise and Shine” by Anna Quindlen, “Exit Ghost” by Philip Roth and “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson.

“People are always going to read,” Lehrer says. “Just look at the success of the ‘Harry Potter’ books. I mean, this is millions of kids who bought this huge book and are talking about it and can’t wait until the next one.”

And he’s not worried about the future of newspapers, either – as long as they refocus on the basic mission of reporting news.

As far as his own career is concerned, Lehrer has no plans to step down from the position he calls “the best job in journalism.”

“This is little boy/little girl work, journalism,” Lehrer says. “It’s fire engine stuff. You hear the siren, and you wonder where the hell that fire truck is going. And if you don’t care about it, you have to get out of this business. It doesn’t have anything to do with age. It has to do with something that’s in you – curiosity, or whatever phony word you want to put in there.

“The fact of the matter is, I’m sitting here right now, and I still hear the sirens, and I still want to know where the hell the fire truck is going.”