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What Happened to Residents’ Health Long After the Donora Death Fog?
“Our scientists tell us that the Donora episode was a rare phenomenon. We hope and pray it will never recur. This study by the Public Health Service into the Donora episode, the most exhaustive ever made on a problem in air pollution, is a step toward positive assurance that such a thing will not happen…
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When Writers Can’t Write
Lots of things going on in the McPhee household lately, so much so that I haven’t been able to write for a few months, and I absolutely hate it. I feel unmoored on a lake during a storm. I can see land all around me, but I’ll be damned if I can get there. I…
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Incident at the Marshall House
He was either a traitorous villain or a martyr for the cause, depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon line your ancestors lived. It was 1860, and a man named James W. Jackson, a rabid secessionist, was managing the Marshall House, a hotel that once stood on the corner of King and Pitt Streets in…
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Why I Write
I have been writing now — officially, professionally, occasionally happily — for 35 years, and I don’t believe I have ever, until now, committed to paper exactly why. So, let’s have at it. I write to…
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It’s Semi-Official: I’m Writing a Book
Hemingway (certainly not McPhee) at work Well, I am semi-officially writing a book. I say “semi-officially” because I’m in the early stages of research and development and I don’t have a publisher yet. I decided first that I did not want to self-publish. I’ve worked in publishing for many years and have gained an enormous…
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Getting Ready to Rumble! Or, You Know, Write.
My first two weeks of retirement have been spent partly getting used to being retired and mostly working around the house, doing a bunch of things I needed to do and normally would have done on weekends. Well, I’m almost finished with those kinds of things and will soon be really digging into my writing.…
