Walllace Stegner (February 18, 1909 – April 13, 1993) was an American historian, novelist, shot story writer and environmentalist.
He was often referred to as the "The Dean of Western Writers" in later years, a phrase he himself never embraced after being labelled thus by the New York Times, a paper he always felt privately if not openly disparaged writers of the American West As it turned out this was a feeling not entirely without basis after the paper refused to review his masterpiece Angle of Repose after it won the Pulitzer prize albeit they did manage to publish an article rebuking the award for the selection made.
Later he would win the National Book Award for The Spectator Bird amongst other commendations including his semi-autobiographical novel Crossing to Safety in addition to setting up the creative writing program at Stanford where he also taught students including Ken Kesey.
Stegner was a prominent environmentalist and wrote several significant non-fiction works relating to his beloved West as well as being an apparent man of principle after refusing the NEA's National Medal feeling they had become too politicized.
In addition to his longer works Stegner was also more than an accomplished short story writer. He was a master in this poster's humble opinion and his collection of short stories available from Penguin is well worth a look.
Stegner was also a disciplinarian who pretty well wrote something for every day of his life. He also by all accounts would 'warm up the fingers' in the morning by typing out several multi page responses to each fan letter irrespective of the individual involved before beginning work proper.
Above all for me Stegner was a master storyteller and prose writer who clearly had a great passion and understanding of the West and someone I am happy to encourage members here to read as he remains a somewhat underrated master in his own country let alone overseas.
He was often referred to as the "The Dean of Western Writers" in later years, a phrase he himself never embraced after being labelled thus by the New York Times, a paper he always felt privately if not openly disparaged writers of the American West As it turned out this was a feeling not entirely without basis after the paper refused to review his masterpiece Angle of Repose after it won the Pulitzer prize albeit they did manage to publish an article rebuking the award for the selection made.
Later he would win the National Book Award for The Spectator Bird amongst other commendations including his semi-autobiographical novel Crossing to Safety in addition to setting up the creative writing program at Stanford where he also taught students including Ken Kesey.
Stegner was a prominent environmentalist and wrote several significant non-fiction works relating to his beloved West as well as being an apparent man of principle after refusing the NEA's National Medal feeling they had become too politicized.
In addition to his longer works Stegner was also more than an accomplished short story writer. He was a master in this poster's humble opinion and his collection of short stories available from Penguin is well worth a look.
Stegner was also a disciplinarian who pretty well wrote something for every day of his life. He also by all accounts would 'warm up the fingers' in the morning by typing out several multi page responses to each fan letter irrespective of the individual involved before beginning work proper.
Above all for me Stegner was a master storyteller and prose writer who clearly had a great passion and understanding of the West and someone I am happy to encourage members here to read as he remains a somewhat underrated master in his own country let alone overseas.
