As a retired high school English teacher and member
of the Western Literary Association since 1976, I truly enjoyed the
books and essay issue and read every article
(HCN, 10/29/07).
Ray Ring’s review of
two books on firefighting was especially interesting. I gave a
paper at last October’s WLA meeting in Boise on blowups and
needless deaths since the Mann Gulch fire, culminating in the
Thirtymile Fire. I used George R. Stewart’s
Fire, Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire, and
John Maclean’s two earlier books plus some correspondence with him
about Thirtymile.
I’d like to give a plug to JoAnn Roe of
Bellingham, to add to the list of Pacific Northwest writers of note
by Brian Doyle. Her The North Cascadians (1980)
was followed by Ghost Camps and Boom Towns
(1995), The North Cascades Highway (1997) and
Stevens Pass Highway (reprinted in 2002). Her
book Frank Matsura: Frontier Photographer (1981)
contains a group of black and white photographs he took in Okanogan
County from 1903 to 1913. He died of consumption in 1913.
Bob Lyon
Bellevue, Washington
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Of writers and fires.
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