Others
Gass’s standing among his generation’s most highly-regarded writers is unquestioned. He also was close friends with many of them, such as William Gaddis, Stanley Elkin and Donald Barthelme. He would often participate in co-interviews, panels and other activities with these esteemed writers, as well as others, and he has written many introductions and dedications praising them and their works.
In the 1980s and early 1990s Gass took part in writer-exchange conferences with both the U.S.S.R. and China. He traveled to both countries with other American writers such as William Gaddis, Allen Ginsberg, David Halberstam, Arthur Miller, Toni Morrison, Leslie Silko, Gary Snyder, Studs Terkel, and others.
Gass has also participated in several commissions, committees, juries, etc. to give publication opportunities, grants and awards to his peers, including: the National Book Awards (three times), Pen/Faulkner Prize, American Academy of Arts & Letters, National Endowment for the Arts, Iowa Writers Workshop, Pen/Nabokov, Truman Capote Literary Criticism Award, and more.
"Pole Vaulting in Top Hats: A Public Conversation with John Barth, William Gass, and Ishmael Reed" - from the UND Writers Conference, 1975
Typescript draft of an introduction for Donald Barthelme, undated
Announcement for Washington and Lee University's "Symposium on Contemporary Fiction," with Donald Barthelme, William Gass, Grace Paley and Susan Sontag, October 28-30, 1975
The New Fiction: Interviews with Innovative American Writers prospectus and book order form, 1975
An announcement for readings by John Hawkes, William Gass and John Barth at the Centre Culturel Americain in Paris, France, June 19-20, 1979
Manuskripte, Volume 79, 1983
William H. Gass, Allan Ginsberg, and Arthur Miller outside the apartment house of Fyodor Dostoevsky in St. Petersburg, Russia, 1985
Two drafts of introductions for John Barth, 1987 and undated
Group photograph from "Unspeakable Practices IV: Celebrating 25 Years of Conjunctions," Brown University, October 4, 2006
Audio recording of William H. Gass introducting David Foster Wallace for an International Writers Center, December 19, 1997. Use Firefox for best results.
Printout draft of a memorial speech for John Hawkes, April 14, 1999
Heide Ziegler, John Hawkes, William H. Gass, and John Barth at an American-German conference in Germany, July 1979