Writing the Northwest
Archives
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Northwest “Cowboys and Indians” Partnering to Protect the Environment
Read more: Northwest “Cowboys and Indians” Partnering to Protect the EnvironmentI spent some time away last week catching up on reading I’d missed, including Naomi Klein’s provocative exploration of the link between globalization and climate change, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Simon & Schuster, 2014). You can read about the arguments and evidence Klein presents in this important…
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Stories with Trees in Them: Norman Maclean and the Real Northwest
Read more: Stories with Trees in Them: Norman Maclean and the Real NorthwestA lot of my writing on this site so far has been focused on Washington and Oregon as the core states in what we call the Pacific Northwest, but the writer most associated with Northwest writing is probably a Montanan–Norman Maclean–in part because Maclean’s two books, A River Runs Through…
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Feeling Wild and Lyrical: Jack Kerouac Spends a Night in Seattle
Read more: Feeling Wild and Lyrical: Jack Kerouac Spends a Night in SeattleIn the summer of 1956, at the suggestion of Oregon-born poet Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac hitchhiked up the Pacific coast to Washington State to live in solitude as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the Mount Baker National Forest. He was hoping to detox from alcohol, women, drugs, and…
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How One Man Made Seattle by Selling It to the World
Read more: How One Man Made Seattle by Selling It to the WorldIt may be hard for Seattleites to swallow but their city didn’t count for much in anyone’s eyes but its own until the end of the 19th century. That’s when the city’s Chamber of Commerce hired a man named Erastus Brainerd to promote it–and the advertising campaign he concocted and…
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How Writers Helped Shape the Myth of a New Eden
Read more: How Writers Helped Shape the Myth of a New EdenWhen choosing the name for this website, I considered calling it Writing About the Northwest, but I wanted the writing the site would explore to be more than that. It seemed to me writing related to a region like the NW doesn’t only describe it or explain it but also…
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The Long History and Continued Vitality of the Northwest’s Black Newspapers
Read more: The Long History and Continued Vitality of the Northwest’s Black NewspapersYou don’t have to do more than scratch the surface of Pacific Northwest history to see how unwelcoming the area has been for African Americans. Oregon’s constitution, enacted on this date (February 14) in 1859, made it illegal for Blacks to even stay overnight in the state. As late as…
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Writing About the History, Variety & Triumphs of Northwest Wines
Read more: Writing About the History, Variety & Triumphs of Northwest WinesA short time ago, I happened upon an article announcing that a group of writers who specialized in wine were starting a new print magazine dedicated to covering the NW wine industry. Called Great Northwest Wine, the publication is linked to a 10-year-old website with the same name, and most…
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Guest Post: Writer Stewart Holbrook Was the NW’s ‘Best-Known Personality’ But Never Received the Credit He Deserved
Read more: Guest Post: Writer Stewart Holbrook Was the NW’s ‘Best-Known Personality’ But Never Received the Credit He Deservedby Michael Schepps (you’ll find a full bio, including a link to Schepps’s new book, Split Aces, at the end of the article) Throughout much of his life, the writer Stewart Holbrook (1893-1964) was considered “perhaps the Pacific Northwest’s best-known personality.” In seemingly endless articles that garnered a devoted local readership…
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Guest Post: A Veteran Sports Reporter Laments the Decline in Access for NW Journalists Today
Read more: Guest Post: A Veteran Sports Reporter Laments the Decline in Access for NW Journalists Todayby Bud Withers [Bud Withers covered sports for decades in Eugene and Seattle. You’ll find his full bio at the end of this post, including information on his latest book, Mad Hoops. This writing is copyrighted and used by permission of the author.] The other day, on the anniversary of…
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