Writing the Northwest
Archives
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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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Guest Post: Celebrating Ursula K. Le Guin’s Real and Imaginative Connections to a Place Called Portland
Read more: Guest Post: Celebrating Ursula K. Le Guin’s Real and Imaginative Connections to a Place Called Portlandby David Naimon, co-author of Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing [Editor’s note: The following is Naimon’s foreword to a new collection of writings by Portland writers called Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin, edited by Susan DeFreitas and published by Portland-based Forest Avenue…
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Rudyard Kipling Writes About NW Salmon…and Chinese Cannery Workers
Read more: Rudyard Kipling Writes About NW Salmon…and Chinese Cannery WorkersWarning: Quotes in this article contain racist descriptions of early Chinese residents of the NW. On the lookout for any kind of writing about the Pacific Northwest, especially early writing by writers from elsewhere, I was delighted to see Oregonian reporter Douglas Perry’s January 6 article, “How Rudyard Kipling’s salmon-hunting…
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Guest Post: The Myth of the “Other World” in Oregon-Set Films
Read more: Guest Post: The Myth of the “Other World” in Oregon-Set Filmsby Michael Schepps Despite Oregon’s geographic proximity to Hollywood, films shot in the state are a rarity. Rarer still are films actually set in Oregon, films that embrace it as a place unto itself. The singularity of the setting and its place in the American psyche may help account for…
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A Small NW Museum’s Presentation of a Japanese American’s Life and Art Raises the Question of What Might Have Been…
Read more: A Small NW Museum’s Presentation of a Japanese American’s Life and Art Raises the Question of What Might Have Been…Sometimes you find the most interesting and informative visions of an area like the Pacific Northwest in out-of the-way places. After reading an article in the Seattle Times, my wife and I traveled out to Edmonds, WA, the other day to view the works of Kenjiro Nomura, an amazing and…
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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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