By: Spencer Newlin-Cushing
Hi Book Folk! So unfortunately, this is going to be a Short Edition of the weekly roundup. I won’t make excuses, but I will say I will need a month of detox and some good calm reading to recover from a ridiculous weekend. Just too much. I look forward to the tasty words of Cormac McCarthy, Charles D’Ambrosio and maybe finishing the last few stories I have left in Portland Noir. And I will be back next week with a full host of links for your Portland Blog Roundup.
Hawthorne Books
Frank Meeink’s Lecture at Washington and Jefferson College – Nov. 19 2009
-An amazing several part video link to a lecture by Frank Meeink, whose story is told in Hawthorne Books coming title Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead
Powell’s Book Blog
A Very Fine Engagement
-Now I am truly, truly sad I couldn’t make it to Kevin Sampsell’s reading last week for his book A Common Pornography. He also managed to squeeze in a proposal to his girlfriend! Oh and there’s some other news at the bottom of this post, but it’s not nearly as exciting as the warm fuzzy from the engagement pictures.
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By: Gabe Barber
Today’s Featured Book Event:
Matthew Dickman (University of Portland, Buckley Center @7:30pm): Dickman, a Portland native, earned his M.F.A. at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Austin. His first collection, All American Poem, published in 2008, received the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Award and the prestigious Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Dickman has also been awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship. He has been featured in a wide range of publications, including Poets and Writers, The New Yorker and Tin House.
Other Book Events Today:
Altered Books Show (Marylhurst University, Streff Gallery, @5:00pm): Streff Gallery in Shoen Library is reserved for the month of February 2010 for the Altered Books Show. What is an “altered book”? It is any book, old or new, that has been recycled by creative means into a work of art. They can be: rebound, painted, cut, burned, folded, added to, collaged in, gold-leafed, rubber-stamped, drilled, or otherwise adorned … and yes! It is legal! Pick up a book now and start making art…if worse comes to worst, read it.
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By: Gabe Barber
About a month ago Karen wrote about Chloe Eudaly’s (owner of Reading Frenzy) efforts to print a revised and expanded 2nd edition of Crap Hound #4: Clowns, Devils, and Bait! Well the fundraising drive, which was conducted through Kickstarter, has received pledges from 251 261 Backers and is now 90% 93% of the way towards meeting its goal of $12,500. But with only 4 days left for pledges to be made, the project is still about $1,200 $1,000 $800 short of being fully funded.
So can you help push this effort over the top by pledging your support? Your pledge may inspire some of the existing backers to up their pledge just to make sure all of this effort wasn’t for naught. As Karen noted in her previous post, this isn’t solely about reprinting Crap Hound #4 either. It’s also about supporting Reading Frenzy, as Crap Hound is the store’s “bread and butter.” I just pledged $50, will you make a pledge today?
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By: Gabe Barber
Today’s Featured Book Event:
Spare Room presents Jesse Morse & Allison Cobb (Concordia Coffee House, @7:30pm): Jesse Morse, for the time being, lives and writes out of Portland, Oregon. His work, most recently, appears in Peaches & Bats, Vanitas, and Page Boy. He curates the Smorg reading series. He’s been writing sonnets, with a revolving acrostic, for the last half year.
Allison Cobb is the author of Born2 (Chax Press) and the just-published Green-Wood (Factory School), which chronicles her experiences in Brooklyn, New York’s famous nineteenth-century Green-Wood Cemetery. She was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as were the first atomic bombs, and she now lives in Portland, Oregon. Check out RLP’s interview with Allison.
Other Book Events Today:
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By: Gabe Barber
Every Saturday we will bring you links to articles from around the web featuring members of Portland’s lit community. Please feel free to pass along any you come across as well, by emailing us at portland@readinglocal.com, and we will include them in next week’s edition of Short Stories.
Over on Wallet Pop Marc Acito discusses the Supreme Court’s decision to allow unlimited corporate political donations:
It’s official – the words “Supreme Court Justice” are an oxymoron. Or just moron, period. Thanks to the Supremes’ recent decision giving corporations free reign to purchase politicians, now we can look forward to product placement in the Oval Office, logos emblazoned on the walls of Congress and endorsement deals for Samuel Alito. (“I take Viagra so I can screw America!”)
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By: Teresa Bergen
We passed around souvenirs from the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair, feeling the softness of a silk scarf, prying open a 70-year old compact to smell the face powder inside. Kelli Stanley, research maniac, had brought her beloved ephemera along on her book tour.
A small group was privileged to meet the brilliant and outgoing Stanley Thursday night at Murder by the Book. In town to promote City of Dragons (Minotaur), she shared her love of research and her hopes for this and future books.
“I do the research more for myself than anyone else,” said Stanley, who haunts the San Francisco public library and the city’s old buildings. “I’ve got to feel it’s real.”
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By: Gabe Barber
Today’s Featured Book Event:
The Matter Zine Release (IPRC, @7:00pm): The Matter is a literary anthology of short-form illustrated fiction, produced in Portland, Oregon, publishing collaborative comics and illustrated prose from creators the world over. To celebrate the long-awaited release of The Matter no. 2, we are proud to present a reading and dramatic enactment of select stories found therein. Prose is to be read aloud while the accompanying illustrations are projected overhead. Comics are to be projected panel-by-panel with the text removed, and the missing lines dramatically read aloud by a cast of players. Featuring stories by Jack Bracken, Gunther Goltz, Eli Lyon, Reid Psaltis, Juan Carlos Rodriguez, A.J. Ryer, Matt Strackbein, Yoni Wilson, and Frasier Ziffer.
Other Book Events Today:
Kristin Hannah (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @2:00pm): Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother? From the author of Firefly Lane comes Winter Garden (St. Martin’s Press), a powerful novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past. Publishers Weekly raves, “Readers will find it hard not to laugh a little and cry a little more as mother and daughters reach out to each other just in the nick of time.”
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By: Gabe Barber
This marks the 1,000th post on Reading Local: Portland. Whether this is the first post you are reading, or if you have been here for all 1,000, we would like to say thank you for being a part of the Reading Local community! I would also like to thank all of the contributors and both of my partners for helping RLP get to this point. I could have never done it without each of you!
Here’s to the next 1,000!
By: Gabe Barber
The winner of January’s Reading Local Contest is…Gilion Dumas! Gilion has proved once again that she is the queen of commenting! Reading Local is grateful to have such an active member of our community. Gilion has decided to take the $25 gift certificate provided by Broadway Books and the $10 gift certificate provided by Second Glance Books as the just reward for her victory.
The other randomly drawn winners of the remaining gift certificates are:
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By: Gabe Barber
From what we could find (please contact us if you have an event you would like us to add to this or future schedules), the local book events for the week of February 6, 2010 through February 12, 2010 are:
Saturday February 6-
Kristin Hannah (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @2:00pm): Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother? From the author of Firefly Lane comes Winter Garden (St. Martin’s Press), a powerful novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past. Publishers Weekly raves, “Readers will find it hard not to laugh a little and cry a little more as mother and daughters reach out to each other just in the nick of time.”
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By: Gabe Barber
Portland based Bedouin Books operates by a simple yet profound publishing philosophy:
To give emerging writers legitimate, quality collections of their work in bound form as a springboard to their careers, publishing credit, as well as something they can sell.
Originally started by editor M. D’Alessandro in a cramped studio in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, Bedouin Books has lived up to its nomadic namesake as Portland is now its third home. A three year stint in Kauai was sandwiched in between. So it is only fitting that Bedouin Books’ new imprint has been named Nomads, which will focus on “emerging, non-fiction authors’ work in travel writing, memoir, essay and philosophy.”
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By: Gabe Barber
Today’s Featured Book Event:
First Friday: Graham Salisbury (West Linn Library, @6:30pm): Graham Salisbury, author of Night of the Howling Dogs (the Teen selection for West Linn Reads), will be our guest for this First Friday event. The library will also be giving away 55 copies of the book!
Other Book Events Today:
Connie Willis (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): Connie Willis, the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author of Doomsday Book, returns with Blackout (Spectra), an epic time-traveling story that follows three researchers from the future who are stranded in the past during World War II. “Willis uses detail and period language exquisitely well, creating an engaging, exciting tale,” praises Publishers Weekly.
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