ABOUT
Doug Underwood is a widely-regarded scholar on the impact of trauma on literary figures in history. His book, Chronicling Trauma: Journalists and Writers on Violence and Loss (2011), examines the influence of childhood neglect, exposure to war, and other traumatic events in the lives and literature of 150 journalist-literary figures – including many women writers. Jan Whitt, the author of Women in American Journalism, has called the book a “beautifully interdisciplinary work that effortlessly combines psychology, literature, and journalism studies to carve out its own frontier.”
Always, Tessie (2025) creates what Underwood has studied: namely an historical fiction story about the plight of a 1960s young woman caught up in abusive circumstances in an indifferent man’s world. Inspired by Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, the novel is a modern reflection of how women have suffered, and sometimes healed from, the effects of traumatic abuse throughout history.
"What makes this book so profound (is) ... Tessie's part of the story, especially when we see her go from a confused girl, now a woman, who can reach back in time and name what happened to her," wrote Demetria Head in Reader View reviews. "... I love how the ending doesn't offer closure with a neat little package with a bow... Readers who love to see characters grow through uncomfortable but believable steps will have every reason to appreciate what Underwood did with his story," .
Underwood also has taught about journalism’s influence in the fields of literature, religion, ethics, and media management and reform at the University of Washington in Seattle since 1987. He is the author of When MBAs Rule the Newsroom (1993) and From Yahweh to Yahoo! (20002). Three other books – Journalism and the Novel (2008), The Undeclared War between Journalism and Fiction (2013) and Literary Journalism in British and American Prose (2019) -- explore the tensions between literary journalists who believe the best of their nonfiction deserves to be in the literary canon versus journalists who have turned to fiction writing which they believe best expresses what is timeless, universal, and true about the human condition.
Before teaching creative nonfiction writing for more than twenty years at the UW, he was a political and investigative journalist at The Seattle Times, the Washington D.C. bureau of the Gannett News Service, and the Lansing (Mich.) State Journal.
A native of the Pacific Northwest, he grew up in the Portland area and resides in Seattle. He has two daughters living in Oslo, Norway and Seattle.
Photo by Brian Burd
Other places where you can read about the author:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Underwood_(journalist)
Univ. of Washington website: https://com.uw.edu/person/doug-underwood/