Here’s my favorite quote from him (last posted in 2009; this blog is getting old):
“Homesickness is a great teacher. It taught me, during an endless rainy fall, that I came from the arid lands and liked where I came from. I was used to a dry clarity and sharpness in the air. I was used to horizons that either lifted into jagged ranges or rimmed the geometrical circle of the flat world. I was used to seeing a long way. I was used to earth colors–tan, rusty red, toned white–and the endless green of Iowa offended me. I was used to a sun that came up over mountains and went down behind other mountains. I missed the color and smell of sagebrush and the sight of bare ground.”
The Writer’s Almanac told me today that he started the creative writing program at Stanford, something I did not know. His students there included Larry McMurtry and Ed Abbey.
February 18, 2014 @ 4:14 pm
I took a class on Stegner my last year of college. There was some talk of getting him to actually come to class and speak, but it never happened. I can’t remember if that was because he died during the quarter, or if he died shortly thereafter, but it was around the same time. One of my biggest disappointments…