Birthplace Foundation Vice President on Writing Events and the Birthplace

In this week's issue of the Pocahontas Times, Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation Vice President Jolie Lewis uses her regular column "The Manuscript" to focus on writing, and how the legacy of Pearl S. Buck is still being used to help cultivate new talent, today.

The column gives some interesting detail on the program of several upcoming events such as the Pearl Buck Birthday Celebration, and the Writers Workshop and Blueberry Workshop.  It also talks about our new collaboration with West Virginia Writers, an association that promotes and supports writing and writers throughout the state.  This partnership resulted in

1) the presentation of two workshops inspired by Pearl Buck's writing at the West Virginia Writers annual conference, and 2) the announcement of winners in a brand-new category of the West Virginia Writers contest titled the Pearl Buck Award for Writing for Social Change.

For an account of the workshops and of the awards announcement, continue reading the story at the website of the Pocahontas Times.  A list of winners of the Pearl Buck Award is available here. Click on the link WVW Winners 2012 and download the pdf.

Pearl S. Buck in Schools and Universities Today

Pearl grew up in this home in Zhenjiang China and then
was a teacher herself, at the university there. 
All rights reserved by meckleychina

Do you study the life of Pearl S. Buck at your school?  

In a recent New Yorker article "Why is Literary Fame So Unpredictable?," Tom Vanderbilt uses Pearl S. Buck as proof that literary prizes do little to ensure the enduring reputation of an author, and asserts that her work is hardly read anymore.  I don't know how Pearl Buck stacks up against her contemporaries in terms of how much she is read these days, but Vanderbilt seems to have forgotten that The Good Earth, the best-selling, highly acclaimed novel that was most responsible for getting Pearl Buck all those honors back in the 1930s, received a huge boost in sales when Oprah's Book Club featured it in 2004.  

"The Good Earth" on the Underground New York Public Library

Check out the latest in "The Good Earth" series on Underground New York Public Library.  This site is just a collection of people reading literature on the subway.  The photo to the right is of a woman reading Pearl Buck's The Good Earth in a subway station.  It can be very interesting to see who is reading what in the photographs and how wrapped up in it they seem to be.

What Happens When Great Writers Get Together

Scene from Welcome Home

There’s something fascinating about famous writers spending time together.

Recently I’ve been reading Ernest Hemingway’s memoir, A Moveable Feast. I don’t know how accurate his reminisces are, but I’m enjoying them. I am enthralled to have a glimpse into Hemingway’s Paris in the 1920s, into a circle of writers and friends that included Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce.

This may seem silly, but my reaction is a little like the way I feel when I find a People Magazine in a doctor’s office. But where People gets me thinking about beauty and style, writers hanging out with writers gets me thinking about art and ideas and the way writers can change the world, and the ways they challenge and inspire each other.

This kind of intersection of great minds—and of big hearts—is at the center of a play that will be performed at the Opera House this Sunday afternoon. The play is Welcome Home, written by Courtney Smith, a playwright from Greenbrier County. It explores the friendship between Pearl S. Buck, Oscar Hammerstein II and James A. Michener.