Nelson Algren. Photographer unknown. Photograph, undated. (LC-USZ62-97839).
Nelson Algren. Photographer unknown. Photograph, undated. (LC-USZ62-97839).
Many Federal Writers' field research did influence their subsequent fiction. Passages in Nelson Algren's A Walk on the Wild Side echo his interview with a Chicago prostitute. Mari Thomasi, who collected life stories of Vermont granite carvers, based her novel Like Lesser Gods on that experience. Sam Ross, who interviewed jazz musicians, wrote Windy City, a novel that describes the Chicago music scene as he knew it as a Federal Writer in the 1930s.