Writing the Northwest
Archives
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What Happens to Our Knowledge of a Place–Past or Present–When Daily Newspapers Face No Real Competition in Reporting the “News”?
Read more: What Happens to Our Knowledge of a Place–Past or Present–When Daily Newspapers Face No Real Competition in Reporting the “News”?A few days ago, Portland’s Willamette Week brought momentary life to the local journalism scene by critiquing a new venture launched by its older, larger, and richer rival, The Oregonian. The critique, by reporter Aaron Mesh, is mild as critiques go, especially when judged by the rousing wars Northwest newspapers…
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2022 Donald J. Sterling, Jr., Senior Research Fellowship in Pacific Northwest History
Read more: 2022 Donald J. Sterling, Jr., Senior Research Fellowship in Pacific Northwest HistoryI learned this week that I’ve been awarded the 2022 Donald J. Sterling, Jr., Senior Research Fellowship in Pacific Northwest History…which means, I guess, that my position as the curator of this website is a bit more legitimate now. The Oregon Historical Society gives out two Sterling fellowships each year,…
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Guest Post: “Oregon, My Oregon” Exhibit at Portland’s Central Library Gives Expansive View of How Writers, Artists, and Others Have Depicted the State Throughout Its History
Read more: Guest Post: “Oregon, My Oregon” Exhibit at Portland’s Central Library Gives Expansive View of How Writers, Artists, and Others Have Depicted the State Throughout Its Historyby Jim Carmin (John Wilson Special Collections Librarian, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR, jimc@multcolib.org) When, in October, I was asked, at the last minute, to install an exhibition at the Central Library, my eyes closed and my mind raced as I wondered how I’d approach this new challenge. Then, when…
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Where and What Do We Mean When We Say “the Pacific Northwest”?
Read more: Where and What Do We Mean When We Say “the Pacific Northwest”?Before we talk too much about writing the Northwest, we should attempt to define where and what the Northwest is. One of the few writers who has tried to write comprehensively about the region, historian Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes, who taught for many years at the University of Idaho, has written:…
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Two Excellent Websites Offering Brief Writings on People, Places, and Events in Pacific Northwest History
Read more: Two Excellent Websites Offering Brief Writings on People, Places, and Events in Pacific Northwest HistorySometimes you don’t want to have to dig through a big history book to learn more about a particular person or event you’ve heard about somewhere. Fortunately, there are excellent websites that offer vast collections of useful and often intriguing writings about all aspects of history in both Washington and…
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Lewis & Clark Revisited: The First Americans to “Write the Northwest”
Read more: Lewis & Clark Revisited: The First Americans to “Write the Northwest”The first Americans generally credited with “writing the Northwest” were Captain Meriwether Lewis and 2nd Lieutenant William Clark, who reached the Pacific Ocean on this date 216 years ago. The journals covering their approximately-two-and-a-half-year journey, written by them and four of the three dozen men in their Corps of Discovery,…
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Spotlight on NW Publishers: Featuring Voices from Home
Read more: Spotlight on NW Publishers: Featuring Voices from Home(You can purchase most of the books below through the Writing the Northwest portal at Bookshop.org.) The Pacific Northwest has a large number of quality publishers—some larger, some smaller, some known across the country, some known only to a few thankful readers. One thing almost all of them have in…
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Visions of NW Writing: Nature, Stereotypes, and the White Default
Read more: Visions of NW Writing: Nature, Stereotypes, and the White DefaultIf you Google “writing the Northwest,” one link that pops up is a 2004 tongue-in-cheek piece from The Stranger called “How to Write a Great Northwest Novel.” Among the elements author Ryan Boudinot suggests be included are several that are nature-centric: salmon, weather, and trees. While the others—like strong-willed women,…
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What Does It Mean to “Write the Northwest” Today?
Read more: What Does It Mean to “Write the Northwest” Today?Exactly 75 years ago—on Halloween weekend in 1946—a group of authors, journalists and academics gathered for three days at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for the first and only Writers’ Conference on the Northwest. The conference organizers’ stated aim was not to hold a traditional writers’ conference, in which young…
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