What Local Author Would You Rave About?

This morning I had the chance to peek in on a new program the Multnomah County Library is rolling out called Title Raves.  The program invites you to “join in a discussion about your favorite reads, what you have read lately, and why you liked them.”

From what I can gather through attending today’s program it looks to be about an hour long event featuring a panel of locals who are in some way involved with the literary community, and then a Q & A session following each of the panelists short presentations.  Today’s panel consisted of Jeff Baker from The Oregonian, Dennis Stovall and Karen Brattain from Ooligan Press, and local crime writer Lono Waiwaiole.

Unfortunately I was only able to stay for the initial 20 minutes due to Reading Local’s other contributor becoming increasingly squirmy, but I was there long enough to hear the first part of Jeff Baker’s presentation in which he recommended some 2009 releases from local authors.  Those recommendations closely followed recent articles in the Oregonian, with the first being Jonathan Raymond’s “Livability” (“O” Story), the second being Virginia Euwer Wolff’s “This Full House” (“O” Story), and the last one I saw being Peter Rock’s “My Abandonment” (“O” Story).  If he held true to form he may have next recommended one of the Dickman twins new poetry collections, although he could have also tipped his hand as to who was coming next in the “Northwest Writer’s At Work” series.  The series is great reading by the way, and I highly recommend you check them out.  They are more what I would like to accomplish with this blog, if my writing skills were any better.

What really intrigued me about this new program is that it looks as though it will be highlighting local authors.  This may be just how the first few were set up in order to get the program started, and then they will begin to focus more on the recommendations they get from attendees, but following today’s event is one on May 5th that will feature among others Sara Ryan and Ellen Heltzel.  I will send an email out to Candy Bertelson to see if this focus on local will continue throughout, and post the update here.

Before I left today I did get the chance to snag a couple pamphlets the library has put together listing books by Northwest Authors, with the first pamphlet consisting of fiction books and the second being non-fiction.

This then led me to the section on the libraries website I had somehow missed before, which features book lists of: Early Oregon, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, fiction from Northwest authors who write about the Northwest, Northwest Wildlife, Novels set in Portland, and a Welcome to Portland list that features the library’s collection of “books, maps, music and film [which] explore Portland’s history, cultural scene and attractions.”  Somebody will have to let Rose City Reader know about these so she can add them to her never ending “TBR” pile…