'Team Edward' Goes to Forks, WA!

Forks, Washington is best known as the setting of the Twilight saga — and September marks the anniversary of the book’s debut. To celebrate, my friend Suzanne and I headed over for Forever Twilight! with fellow vampire-culture enthusiasts.

We were lucky enough to catch a rare sunny day in Forks, a town famous for being one of the rainiest in the continental U.S. (over 10 feet of rain annually).

As we explored, one question kept coming up: how do towns ride a sudden wave of pop-culture fame? How do they evolve quickly enough to capture tourism attention — and the dollars that come with it — before the spotlight moves on?

I dive deeper into that question (and what it reveals about identity, community, and place) in my full post on Forks.