David A. Taylor, author of Soul of a People (Feb 1-14)

Please welcome David A. Taylor, author of
Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America. David will be chatting on LibraryThing until Feb. 14th.

I’m really happy to start the chat here at Library Thing. The real-life characters in Soul of a People include young people with a variety of destinies – future Nobel prize winners along with renegades, authors of bestselling westerns alongside crime thriller screenwriters, teachers who turned to investigative history and poets who would usher in new voices.

I'll answer your questions as best I can throughout the coming days. There’s also a documentary film version too, so for a quick intro to Soul of a People I invite you to have a look at the preview:
http://tinyurl.com/yk5ewum

There's also a webpage with an overview (see the pamphlet under Downloads), excerpts, and much more:
www.davidataylor.com. So please have a look.

Now for your questions...

A first question to consider: What's your favorite novel from (or about) the 1930s?

Hi! I haven’t yet read your book, but I’m intrigued by it. Is your book about the project itself or about its influence on the writers who participated? Do you think the works created by the Federal Writers Project are underutilized resources?

I know it's a classic, but I'm afraid I didn't care for The Grapes of Wrath. I think I've heard so much about the difficult times my grandparents endured during the Depression that I've avoided reading fiction written about that era.

How did you go about selecting the handful of WPA writers included in your book?

While I had read books set in the 1930s, most have been set in other countries. I don't think I'd call most of the American ones from that era that I've read favorites. My mother, who grew up in that era, really enjoyed the Bobbsey Twin books as she was growing up. I have enjoyed books by Bess Streeter Aldrich, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Willa Cather, Marjorie Rawlins, Daphne du Maurier, and others that were written in that era (although not necessarily set in that era).

I watched the documentary -- I think it was on the Smithsonian OnDemand channel -- a couple of weeks ago, and I was fascinated by it, particulary since I read Zora Neale Hurston's wonderful Their Eyes Were Watching God a couple of months ago. In general, The Great Depression is an era that really interests me, but I knew little about the Writers' Project -- other than there had been one -- and I was not aware of much of the information in the documentary.

I hadn't realized that you had also written a book. Perhaps I wasn't watching closely enough, but it seems a bit of a shame that it wasn't more obvious in the film. Since I'm a reader, and not so much a TV watcher, I'll be looking for your book.

Hi CBL_TN,
The book is about the Project and how it put together the WPA guides and interviews, mainly as it was experienced by the WPA writers themselves. Since it involved thousands of people, I selected a handful of people across the country -- New York, Illinois, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Minnesota, Idaho, Nebraska, California, New Mexico, Louisiana, Florida, and a few in Washington, DC (also glimpses of Utah and Mississippi). It does look at how that experience introduced those writers to new people, and how it may have influenced those writers later.

John Steinbeck actually was never on the Writers' Project -- his career was going too well for him to qualify for relief. He was interested in their work, though.

I do think the WPA guides and interviews could get a lot more use than they do. It seems like people are getting more interested in them now. Thanks for writing.

Thornton, thanks for writing. It was a big challenge which handful to include. I wanted the most vivid stories, pro and con, to capture the full range of excitement, exasperation, and all the other ups and downs of that experience. I looked to include stories from all different parts of the country, and from unknowns as well as later-famous writers. I was especially looking for surprises -- people like Harry Partch, later a famous avant garde composer, who was alternately a hobo and a WPA writer in California and Arizona. And I was limited by the people I could either interview or talk with their families, or who had left behind a memoir or essay about those experiences.

I like many of the authors you mention too, especially Daphne du Maurier. As a teenager I tore through a bunch of her novels, especially Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in fact was one of the most prominent writers who helped the Project in Florida.

Hi Ivyd,
Glad you enjoyed the documentary! You're not alone in being interested in the Great Depression but not knowing much about the Writers' Project -- that's how I went into the research on this. I was working on the book at the same time as the film, so they both came out months ago. Smithsonian Channel has more about both on their website.

Enjoy the book! It gets more into the stories and characters from the film, plus a lot more.

Thanks for all the information, David. I've got your book in my wishlist. It may be a month or two before I can actually buy it, but I'm looking forward to it.