The local link between Ludwig van Beethoven and John Steinbeck, a man who loved Broadway but preferred Bach, gave minds at San Jose State University—where the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies shares space with the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies—the bright idea for The Art of Biography, an exhibit of images and objects from the two collections that runs through July 6, 2019 on the fifth floor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. Timed to coincide with the 2019 Steinbeck conference, held May 1-3, the exhibit’s Steinbeck content was created by Alexandra Mezza and Allison Galbreath, graduating students in the MFA creative writing program directed by Nick Taylor, who also serves as director of the Steinbeck center.

The local link between Ludwig van Beethoven and John Steinbeck gave San Jose State University the idea for an exhibit of images and objects from the two collections.

Like this exhibit photo of Elaine Steinbeck, taken at Cannery Row in 1975, the 2019 conference field was dominated by women with a special touch for John Steinbeck. Speakers included Mary Papazian, the Milton scholar who became San Jose State University’s president since the last Steinbeck conference was held three years ago; Noelle Brada-Williams, the new chair of the university’s English department; Susan Shillinglaw, English professor and author of the artful biography, Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage; Marisa Plumb, also of the English department; Barbara A. Heavilin, professor emeritus at Taylor University and editor-in-chief of Steinbeck Review; Mimi Gladstein, the University of Texas, El Paso, superstar who writes about Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Faulkner’s women; Cecilia Donohue, a retired professor of English at Madonna University; Elisabeth Bayley, who teaches at Loyola University in Chicago; Aya Kubota, a professor at Japan’s Bunka Gakuen University; Lori Newcomb, a teacher at Wayne State College; Naama Cohen of Tel Aviv University; Danica Cerce, a member of the faculty of the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia; Debra Cumberland, a teacher at Winona State University; Robin Provey, a graduate student at Western Connecticut State University; Jennifer Ren, an entering law student at the University of Houston; and Audry Lynch, the veteran educator from Boston who had the unusual experience of interviewing each of Steinbeck’s three wives in California.

Like the exhibit photo of Elaine Steinbeck taken in 1975, the 2019 conference field was dominated by women with a special touch for John Steinbeck.

Women also filled the stage for after-hour attractions during the conference. Three 2018-19 Steinbeck Fellows in Creative Writing at San Jose State University—Katie M. Flynn, Kirin Khan, and Christine Vines—read from their fiction on opening night. When the formal program closed on Friday, 20 of 50 conference attendees boarded the bus for Salinas, where Susan Shillinglaw led a look-and-listen tour that included the Red Pony Ranch, the Steinbeck House, and the National Steinbeck Center, where Michele Speich—a nonprofit professional from Monterey—recently succeeded Shillinglaw as the Salinas organization’s executive director. Steinbeck House dinner was served by members of the Valley Guild, the group of mostly female volunteers who bought the home in the 1970s and pay the bills by running the restaurant and encouraging donations. If Martha Heasley Cox had such women in mind for the future of John Steinbeck’s legacy when she started the center that bears her name, also in the 1970s, today’s results would have to make her happy.

Photograph by John Bryson courtesy of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies.