A new Federal Writers' Project? And a Himes query.

Eastern Washington University historian Larry Cebula proposes a new Federal Writers' Project as part of the stimulus package. The New Republic's Mark I. Pinsky has his own take on the idea (and misses a significant alumnus of the original project: Chester Himes).

There's an infuriatingly vague hint from Himes in Dear Chester, Dear John: Who is the "big fat mannish woman who wrote detective stories" (p. 19) and supervised Himes on the Ohio State Writers' Project in Cleveland in the late 1930s? I've checked Conversations with Chester Himes and resources on the Federal Writers' Project to no avail.

BTW, Clues still has an open Call for Papers on "Chester Himes and His Legacy."

(Hat tip to the AHA blog. About the photo: Chester Himes by Carl Van Vechten, 1946. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.)