Today's Featured Book Event-David Abel at Cover to Cover

Today’s Featured Book Event:

David Abel Reading (Cover to Cover Books, @7:00pm): David Abel is a writer, performer, and multidisciplinary artist, as well as an editor, bookseller, and curator/organizer. Born in Salt Lake City in 1956, he has lived in Utah, Florida, New York, California, New Mexico, and Oregon. As an undergraduate at Deep Springs College, Bard College, and New Mexico State University, he studied language, literature, and music; in 1984 he was a member of the first class to graduate from the interdisciplinary MFA program of the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, where he pursued studies in poetry, music, and video.

Abel was involved in the “downtown” literary and music communities in New York City in the 1980s, appearing often with composers and artists such as Jackson Mac Low, Franz Kamin, Charlie Morrow, and others. He edited the newsletter for the New Wilderness Ocarina Orchestra and assembled the book-and-media store for the 12th Annual International Sound Poetry Festival in 1980; opened and operated the Bridge Bookshop from 1987–89; and co-directed Granary Books gallery and shop in 1990–91. From 1994–96 Abel maintained Passages Bookshop and Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he also organized the Tangents Reading Series. In 1997, he moved to Portland, Oregon. In Portland, he has collaborated with many individuals and organizations on literary, music, film, theater, and intermedia projects. Abel was a member of the Four Wall Cinema Collective (2002–03), and is a founder and member of the Spare Room reading series (www.flim.com/spareroom), now in its eighth year.

Abel is the author of numerous chapbooks and artist’s books including Twenty- (Crane’s Bill Books), Let Us Repair (with Anna Daedalus; wax paper scissors), Black Valentine (Chax), and Threnos (with Katherine Kuehn). In the spring of 2007 he curated the exhibition By All Means: Artist’s Books and Objects for the New American Art Union (www.newamericanartunion.com), and produced and edited the collection of artists’ multiples that served as the catalogue of the exhibition. He has also contributed poems, essays, and reviews to magazines, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues.

Other Book Event’s Today:

Matthew Dickman and Endi Bogue Hartigan Reading (Reed College, Psychology 105, @6:30pm): Matthew Dickman’s first collection of poems, All American Poem, won the 2008 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry. His poems appear in Tin House, Clackamas Literary Review, Agni Online, and The New Yorker, among others. Endi Bogue Hartigan’s first book, One Sun Storm (Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, 2008), was selected for the 2008 Colorado Prize for Poetry by poet Martha Ronk. A member of Reed’s Class of 1994, and an M.F.A. recipient from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Hartigan has lived primarily on the West Coast and Hawaii, and now works and lives in Portland, with her husband and son. For more information, visit the Visiting Writers website.

Poetry Reading with VoiceCatcher (Looking Glass Bookstore, @7:00pm): Join VoiceCatcher poets for a National Poetry Month reading at Looking Glass. Featuring readings from the new anthology: VoiceCatcher 3! Poet line-up to be announced, so stay tuned…

Deadly Diversions Book Group (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): This month’s mystery book group meets to discuss From Doon with Death by Ruth Rendell. New members to the group are always welcome.

Travis Williams Reading (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): The first comprehensive guide ever written about this 200-mile-long body of water, Travis Williams’s The Willamette River Field Guide (Timber Press) is the story of Oregon’s earliest inhabitants, the connection between the river and the towns along its banks, the wildlife it supports, and the effects of alterations to its geography and ecology. Includes tips for more than a dozen riverside visits and trips.

The 12 Step Buddhist (Powells Books on Hawthorne, @7:30pm): In this refreshing look at the true reasons behind destructive, addictive behavior, Darren Littlejohn combines Buddhist wisdom with the traditional 12-step program, presenting a guidebook to inner peace and spiritual sobriety that is aimed at those for whom the traditional approach does not work. The 12-Step Buddhist (Beyond Words Publishing) provides wisdom and meditations that can help addicts truly find a deep, spiritual liberation from all causes and conditions of suffering — for good.

Please check your community Libraries schedule using these links: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County. For other book events this week, please check the list.