Washington
Click an author to read a biographical essay prepared by a local student.
Washington: The Land Makes the Writers Though Washington State did not have a publishing house until after it entered the Union in 1889, it has developed a superb literary tradition in its
scant century of existence. Of course, the Pacific Northwest was full of stories before the white man ever even laid eyes on it. The tales of the Chehelis and Shoshone and Umatilla provided Anglo newcomers with a rich
foundation of history and lore on which to build. Today, the state can claim a garland of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, as well as a thriving artistic culture that has appeared in everything from leading regional theaters
to major forces in rock music such as Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. Pioneering Literary Roots The earliest printed literature was accounts of the early explorers and fur traders in the region. As the
settlers came in the mid-19th century, poetry and narratives written by pioneer women often saw publication. The first real roots of European culture came with the missionaries. They founded the state's original
schools, including those of higher education. The most famous of these, Narcissa Whitman (1808-1847), maintained a journal, which was eventually published. Much of it concerned the seven Sager children, who lost their
parents along the Oregon Trail and were subsequently adopted by Whitman and her husband. The Whitmans lost their lives at the hands of Native Americans in the 1847 Waiipatlu Massacre. By the time Washington was made a state
in 1889, its citizens felt a need to document the pioneers' trek west and the lives that they made there. This brought on a wave of pioneers' accounts—some brutally honest, some highly romanticized—that produced Washington's
first crop of genuine writers. One such pioneer was Ezra Meeker (1830-1928), who traveled by ox team to the Oregon Territory in 1852, returning to Ohio the same way fifty years later. He wrote of the journey in "Ox
Team Days" and "Hitting the Trail." Life and literature in Washington was influenced by other cultures besides those of European extraction. One example is Sui Sin Far (Edith Maud Eaton,
1865-1914). Far, the daughter of a Chinese mother and Anglo father, arrived in Seattle in 1900 and joined the Chinese community of less than 500 people. While her appearance decidedly favored her father's heritage and
the era saw shamefully discriminatory laws against immigrant Chinese, she chose the pen name of Sui Sin Far to make plain her Asian roots. Far addressed issues of race, class, gender, and cultural differences. She is
best known for her short stories in periodicals and for a collection of her short fiction, Mrs. Spring Fragrance. Reaching Literary Heights By the end of the third decade of the 20th century,
Washington writers had reached the American literary pinnacle. Vernon Parrington (1871-1929) won a Pulitzer Prize in American history for his book, Main Currents in American Thought
(1928). Seven years later, Audrey Wurdemann (b. 1911, also known as Mrs. Joseph Auslander) was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her collection called Bright Ambush. Wurdemann was, at twenty-four,
the youngest person to ever receive the Pulitzer at that time. In 1954, the same award was bestowed on Washington poet Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) for his collection entitled The Waking. By the end of his life
he had brought home every major literary prize in America. Roethke's poetry melded his inner vision of life with the richness of the land in which he lived to make him one of America's premier poets. Roethke
passed the Pulitzer tradition on to one of his University of Washington students, Carolyn A. Kizer (b. 1925), who won in 1985 for her book of poetry entitled Yin. Her work is sometimes satirical, often funny, and
of special interest to women. Betty McDonald (1913-1958) is likely the most-read author from Washington. Her book The Egg and I
discussed life on an egg ranch in a less-than-civilized part of the state. McDonald also gave American popular culture Ma and Pa Kettle and their huge brood of children. In her last book, The Plague and I,
McDonald discusses living in a sanitarium when she caught tuberculosis at the age of thirty. Despite the privations of a short life, she still wrote with considerable humor and wit. The Second World War signaled the same
sea change for Washington literature that it did for everything else. A less innocent and more complex world meant that things would never be the same again—no longer would happy pastoral histories or funny farming stories be
its staple. Typical of the new breed was sometime Washington resident Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), who is usually credited for creating the phrase "Beat Generation." Restless cross-country wandering—and the drug
and alcohol bingeing that would kill him—inspired Kerouac's best-known book, On the Road. Gary Snyder (b. 1930) could be called a disciple of Jack Kerouac, but he has also been called one of the greatest living nature
poets. Snyder grew up in Oregon and Washington on small farms. His Turtle Island received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975. Washington's best-known science fiction author is Frank Herbert
(1920-1986). He is famous for his Dune
series but wrote many other books as well. He was the first author to receive both the Nebula and Hugo awards. Another Pulitzer Prize was secured by a Washington author when Annie Dillard (b. 1945) won for
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in 1975. Other notables of recent vintage include Raymond Carver (1938-1988), whose best-known work is probably the short story collection titled, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
. Carver's protégé Tess Gallagher (b. 1943) received acclaim for Moon Crossing Bridge
(1992), a collection of 60 poems she penned after Carver's death. Additionally, Seattle native David Guterson (b. 1956) won the Pen/Faulkner Award for Snow Falling on Cedars
, a novel about racial tensions between whites and Japanese after a disputed death. The state's best-known young writer brings its literary tradition into a full and apropos circle. Native American-descended Sherman Alexie
(b. 1966) fought great odds just to stay alive. He was born hydrocephalic and doctors predicted he would be severely retarded. Alexie learned to read at age three and by age five he was reading Steinbeck. He
wanted to be a doctor, but when that didn't work out (he fainted three times in anatomy class), he took a class in creative writing. Since then Alexie has written thousands of poems and short stories, most containing brutally
honest recollections of his personal experiences as a Native American. "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" (1994) is probably his best-known work to date. Tess Gallagher explains the
spirit of the state well when she says: "It's a place where you can talk about things that elsewhere might embarrass people . . . That may stem from the region's history. It is pioneer country. I think the
people who came here first believed God got them here." Becky Mills is a substitute teacher in Salem, Oregon.
by Becky Mills