E.B. White

E.B. White wrote a lot of books.  Books for children.  Books for adults.  Books for writers wanting to improve their skills.  My favorite — and probably yours, too — is Charlotte’s Web.

By all accounts, White was a shy man and writing didn’t always come easily to him.  According to one report, from September 1922 to June 1923, (he was 23/24) he was a cub reporter for The Seattle Times. On one occasion, when White was stuck writing a story, a Times editor said, “Just say the words.” He was fired from the Times and later wrote for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer before a stint in Alaska on a fireboat.

In 1924, after a few years “out west” White returned to New York City. When The New Yorker was founded in 1925, White submitted manuscripts to it and received offers to become a staff writer.  However, it took months to convince him to come to a meeting at the office and additional weeks to convince him to work on the premises. Eventually, he agreed to work in the office on Thursdays.

His contemporary, James Thurber, said of him:  Most of us, out of a politeness made up of faint curiosity and profound resignation, go out to meet the smiling stranger with a gesture of surrender and a fixed grin, but White has always taken to the fire escape. He has avoided the Man in the Reception Room as he has avoided the interviewer, the photographer, the microphone, the rostrum, the literary tea, and the Stork Club. His life is his own. He is the only writer of prominence I know of who could walk through the Algonquin lobby or between the tables at Jack and Charlie’s and be recognized only by his friends.

Although I will never forget Wilbur or Fern or Templeton, I did lose sight of the fact that Mr. White had spent time in the Northwest.  It was running across the following poem that prompted today’s blog:

Our Own History

Long ago
Things were slow
Down by Elliott Bay.
Cougar tracks
One room shacks
‘Neath the forest lay.
Pioneers
Minus fears
thought they’d start a town:
Lumber mills
Homes on hills
Street cars up and down.
Things went right
Over night
Sprang a heap big city,
Trade was good
Fish and wood
Added to the kitty.
Here we are
Gates ajar
Ships upon the way;
Mighty well
Just to dwell
Down by Elliott Bay.
    E.B. White, 1922