Wilder, in 1962, weary of being a public intellectual, settled in Douglas, AZ, where he read voluminously, wrote incessantly, and hit the bars nocturnally. Eighteen months later, rejuvenated by his relative anonymity, he returned east, his literary skills re-energized. The presentation explores Wilder‘s Arizona sojourn, showing its importance in his literary life and America’s literature. This unknown slice of Arizona’s recent past reveals the crossroads of a small border town with the American literary establishment. Drawn from Miller’s July 2009 Smithsonian piece. For more info, e-mail Tom Miller at tlmolinero@msn.com.
