David Von Drehle, Lincoln author and Editor-at-Large for Time Magazine was welcomed to Portland by five members of the Oregon Lincoln Bicentennial Commission at the coffee shop in Powell's Bookstore in downtown Portland.
Commissioners K.C. Piccard and Frank Krone arranged the informal get-together (they are also co-founders of the Oregon Civil War 150th Anniversary group) to give Von Drehle an award for publishing "Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year." The book covers 1862 in great detail, providing a great backstory to both Spielberg's currently showing movie on "Lincoln" and adding to the local and national observance of the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
One of the other commissioners meeting with Von Drehle was Milwaukie, Oregon resident and Lincoln Scholar Richard Etulain, who wrote a recently published review of David Von Drehle's book for the Oregonian. Von Drehle had to excuse himself from the meeting with the commissioners to record an interview with KGW's Joe Smith for the Live @ 7 broadcast of "PDX Tonight."
Then it was on to the program upstairs at Powell's where a standing-room-only audience gave the author a warm welcome, and afterwards formed a long queue to shake hands with Von Drehle and to have their books signed.
