Today in history: Wallace Stegner

steemizen (69)in #history • 8 years ago

Hello Steemians!

Welcome to today's episode of the "Today in History" serial, where I bring you daily historical facts and events of the current date.

On February 18. 1909. Wallace Earle Stegner was born, an American writer, historian and environmentalist.

He was born in Lake Mils in Iowa.
His father George and mother Hilda have often moved towns so Wallace was growing up in different areas.
As he says he "lived in twenty places in eight states and Canada".

He received a Bachelor of Arts in 1930. at the University of Utah, then moved to the University of Iowa where he made his master's degree in 1932. and his doctorate in 1935.
He started teaching at universities and finally settled at the Stanford University.
In Stanford he created the creative writing program where he mentored many students who later became well known writers them selves, Larry McMurtry, Edward Abbey and Andrew Glaze are just some of the names that were his students.

He published his first novel Remembering Laughter at the age of 26 in 1937.
His novel Angle of Repose which was published in 1971. received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1972. followed by
the 1977. National Book Award for his novel The Spectator Bird.

Apart from 14 novels Stegner wrote, he also wrote 6 collections, his first being The Woman on the Wall in 1950.
He also wrote non fiction among which is the biography of John Wesley Powell, the first white man to explore the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.
A chapbook called "Genesis: A Story from Wolf Willow" published after his death in 1994.

Wallace Stegner died at the age of 84. on April 13. 1993. in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The 100th anniversary of his birth was reflected in The New York Times on the writer's legacy by Timothy Egan.