Theodore Wheeler
This program focuses on the historical figures who serve as the backbone of Wheeler’s latest novel, The War Begins in Paris, what drew him to write about that era, and the connection between his literary community activism in Nebraska and that era’s journalists.
Description
This program focuses on the historical figures who serve as the backbone of Wheeler’s latest novel, The War Begins in Paris, what drew him to write about that era, and the connection between his literary community activism in Nebraska and that era’s journalists. The novel is informed by years of research into the experience of journalists during World War II and was instigated by Wheeler’s discovery of the story of Jane Anderson. Jane was an Atlanta debutante who became a pioneering female war correspondent in her early twenties as she reported from trenches, biplanes, and submarines during the First World War. However, Jane Anderson is not famous because she was a contemporary of trailblazers like Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson—Jane Anderson is now mostly known as one of the “Radio Traitors,” a group of American journalists who broadcast propaganda into the United States on behalf of the Nazi regime.