Events

  Clara and Merritt unfolds amidst the violent strife between longshoremen and Teamsters in Seattle in the 1930s and '40s.  When Clara Hamilton, the daughter of a longshoreman, and Merritt Driscoll, a member of the Teamsters union, fall in love, their relationship is immediately threatened by the fierce antagonism between the rival unions.  Encompassing the West Coast labor movement, World War II, the rise of McCarthyism, the Northwest School of Art, and much more, this exciting new novel explores how people reckon with the larger forces of world events in their everyday lives—extending author Peter Donahue's remarkable exploration of Northwest history. A graduate of the University of Washington, Virginia Tech, and Oklahoma State University, Peter is an associate professor of English at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, where he teaches creative writing and journalism and organizes the BACHE Visiting Writers Series and the annual WRITING TODAY Writers Conference. He is the author of the novel Madison House  (2005), winner of the Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction, and the short story collection The Cornelius Arms (2000).