Still crazy about Betty MacDonald after all these years
There are many reasons to be thankful for the life and work of author Betty MacDonald.
If you have a love/hate relationship with chickens, her best-seller “The Egg and I” will satisfy both passions. If you have children in your life, her “Mrs. Piggle Wiggle” series will likely delight and challenge them. And if you suffer from self-doubt her book about finding work in the Great Depression, “Anybody Can Do Anything,” may help.
The road to MacDonald’s remarkable success began with a short-lived marriage, situated on a chicken ranch on the Olympic Peninsula, and wound its way to a cabin on Vashon Island well-suited for the life of a soon-to-be-famous writer. “The Egg and I” sold a million copies in less than a year.
In honor of MacDonald’s birthday on March 26, 1907, we’re presenting this talk by Paula Becker. Becker is a Seattle-based writer and historian and the author of “Looking for Betty MacDonald: The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I.”
She gave this talk at the Seattle Public Library on September 10, 2016.
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John O'Brien
Senior Producer, All Things Considered
John O’Brien is KUOW's All Things Considered Senior Producer. He spends his days setting up interviews with newsmakers on subjects from politics and public health to arts and culture. John learned to make radio starting in 2006 as an intern on KUOW’s The Conversation with Ross Reynolds.
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