Image provided by: SEIU Local 503; Salem, OR
About The Oregon state employee. (Salem, Oregon.) 1944-195? | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1951)
12 Authors Flourish By Loretta O. Fisher, Oregon State Library The opinion has been given that Oregon, and Portland in particular, ranks high as a writing center. Some authorities have estimated that, if such statistics were abailable for compari son, Oregon’s number of publishing authors in proportion to the popula tion would place it third or fourth in. the nation. Whatever the actual rank may be, we at the State Library have been amazed at the enormous number of Oregon writers we have located, and believe there are many more unknown to us. As a part of a project of the Pacific Northwest Library Association for gathering data on current Ñorthwea l writers, the State Library has since the first of May sent out 400 question naires to Oregon authors known to have had material published. To date 214 forms have been completed by the writers and returned to the State L ib rary which has been made the Oregon center for collection and deposit of the authors’ data. We have had excellent cooperation from the writers on this project and feel that eventually a large portion of the completed question naires w ill be returned to us. Through the work of a committee, a collection center was selected for each state and province in the Pacific L ib rary Association (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia) and a questionnaire compiled to be sent to all the authors. I The Oregon State Library was issued 100 copies of the questionnaire, but we immediately realized that we would need many more for our numerous authors. Oregon State Library was the logical collection center for Oregon, since this library has for many years maintained an Oregon author collection of books and an index to available biagraphical information. Too, the State Library compiles the Who’s Who of Oregon Authors for the Oregon Blue Book. A ll completed questionnaires, photo graphs and other material, submitted by Oregon authors, w ill be kept on file in the Orégon Statelfiÿyàry. How ever, the name of each author, from whom we have received a question naire, w ill be sent to the Pacific Northwest Bibliographic Center in Seattle, so that there w ill be a record of information available latæ M i center. Three items on the questionnaire on which librarians of the Northwest felt special need for information, because these things might well be reflected in their writing, were birth place and occupation of the authors and birth place of their parents. A good many of the authors, as in dicated on the questionnaire, write only as a hobby or to supplement their income. But many report that writing is their occupation. This includes au thors whose works appear frequently in national publications, such as Satur day Evening Post, American Mercury, American Magazine and Readers D i gest. Among this group is Robert Or mond Case, who has recently had a serial in Saturday Evening Post; his sister, Victoria I Case, the brothers Hawkins, John and Ward; Steve Mc Neil; Stewart Holbrook; Roderick Lull; and Richard Neuberger, who is also a state senator. Several Oregon housewives have re ceived national recognition for their books. Ardyth Kennelly of Portland, who is Mrs. Egon V. Ullman in private life, wrote The Peaceable Kingdom which appeared on the “ Best Sellers” list of 1949. Her second novel, The Spur, was published this spring. Martha Ferguson McKeown, who lives on a ranch near Hood River, has reported the adventures of her “ Uncle Mont” in Them W as the Days and The
