Doig, too, ruminated on the region, which he affectionately termed “the great rain coast.” “I think rain is the ink of the Northwest,” he said. Precipitation is the Northwest’s “great ingredient,” one which “gives us a chance to hole up and write.”
“I don’t think that you could get that [same kind of art] in Kansas. I don’t think you could get the iridescent light coming out under the clouds and rain. I don’t think you can get the same music such as what comes out of Seattle, where you have kids hole up in garages, musicians like Kurt or Jimi Hendrix. Our great fiction out here, Sometimes a Great Notion—that can’t take place anywhere but that rainy Oregon rainforest country.
— “Rain Is the Ink of the Northwest”: Writers Talk about Place and Fiction at ALA Midwinter
