Steve Duin (’76, MA ’79) joined the crowd of Wake Forest alumni writers who returned on March 23 for the Words Awake! writers conference, but he didn’t leave the experience behind after he landed at home in Portland. He treated his Oregon newspaper readers to his take on what made the event special, including his appreciation for his time at Casa Artom in Venice and the guidance provided by the inimitable James Barefield, Wake Forest history professor and purveyor of the comic view.
Portland’s Steve Duin
Duin is metro columnist for The (Portland) Oregonian and is the author or co-author of six books, the latest of which is “Oil and Water,” a graphic novel illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler. He served on the Words Awake! panel titled “Writing Sports,” an appropriate topic for someone who penned a compelling cover story for Wake Forest Magazine last summer about baseball coach Tom Walter’s gift of a kidney to then-freshman and centerfielder Kevin Jordan.
“Some of us are lucky. We happened upon Wake Forest, often by chance, and when we’re asked why we love the place, we remember Sunday mornings on the Quad, Saturday nights at the stadium and Wednesday afternoons with the romantic poets,” he wrote. “But everyone else? This is the story they will remember. When they hear the words ‘Wake Forest,’ they will celebrate the kidney that passed from Tom Walter to Kevin Jordan, a gift as big as life. And when they become fathers, this is the history they will tell their sons.”
Look for Duin’s next story that explains the University’s literary tradition in the Wake Forest Magazine summer issue, arriving in mailboxes in June. Here’s a preview of what’s in store: “And there were few checkpoints where we had to flash credentials, pay our dues or beg for permission. When we were still clueless, Wake Forest allowed us to make waves and mistakes. When we were still searching for God knows what, the University encouraged us to push the limits, exploit our immaturity, even take our innocence abroad to London, Venice or Ireland. You want to know why so many Wake grads became writers? Because when we walked into the room with a novel idea, someone’s eyes lit up.”
Joy Goodwin (’95) and Steve Duin at Words Awake!
In the photo above, you see Duin with Joy Goodwin (’95). The two share a love for Barefield. (The upcoming summer issue also features a Goodwin piece about the peripatetic professor who enjoys being a character.)
In the meantime, don’t miss Duin’s tribute in The Oregonian to Barefield in which he writes, “He and I have remained close over the years, a friendship that owes as much to the intimacy of Wake Forest as it does to the intensity of the Venice program.”
