Oregon Topics

Some of our material eludes fit into our Oregon Originals category, because it is more general in nature, such as Oregon dance history, or profiles a phenomenon such as Basalt that underpins the region’s creative realm. It opens with an overview of regional literary history in the early 20th century.

For example, Thomas Wolf: this talk, the keynote delivered to the annual Thomas Wolfe Society meeting in Portland May 25, 2002, is an overview of regional literary history in the early 20th century. The fabulous writer Tom Wolfe from North Carolina and Brooklyn came to Oregon in 1938 in part to recuperate from the effort of writing the 1.2 million words that emerged in his posthumously published novels, The Web and the Rock and You Can’t Go Home Again.

It’s information that perhaps would have proven invaluable to Tom Wolfe had he prolonged his visit, instead of up and dying on us. We trust it’ll help you in your own visit to our region’s 20th century literature.

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