Tonight 2-19: Story and Song: A Benefit for Bradley Rosen at The Blue Monk

Today’s Featured Book Event:

Story and Song: A Benefit for Bradley Rosen (The Blue Monk, @7:00pm, $8): Bradley Rosen was recently hospitalized with a staph infection in his spine, and now his fellow Dangerous Writers members are holding a benefit reading to help pay for his medical bills.  An impressive line up includes Tom Spanbauer, Margaret Malone, Monica Drake, Cheryl Strayed & Emily Chenoweth. Musical guests include Highwater, Nicole Berke and Closureyes!

Other Book Events Today:

Mapping History: How Narrative Nonfiction Brings the Past Alive (PSU, Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 298, @11:00am): What is narrative nonfiction? How does it differ from other literature? How do writers use it to bring history alive? In this public conversation, award-winning author Paul Collins will discuss how various authors use narrative nonfiction to animate works like The Ghost Map. Collins, a professor at Portland State, is the author of five books and regularly appears on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday as their “literary detective.”

Young Writers’ Workshop (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @4:30pm): Children’s authors Rosanne Parry (Heart of a Shepherd), Fran Cannon Slayton (When the Whistle Blows), and Edith M. Hemingway (Road to Tater Hill) demonstrate how writers can help make each other’s writing stronger in a workshop titled An Inside Look at Story Critique: How Writers Help Other Writers. Writers of all ages are invited. Observe, ask questions, share ideas, or bring the first page of something you’ve written and receive friendly suggestions.

Exploring History through Poetry with Allison Cobb and Kaia Sand (St. Johns Books, @7:00pm): Allison Cobb and Kaia Sand will read from their newest collections. Each just-released book shares several features: each combines essay-writing with poetry to investigate the political history of a specific place (for Cobb, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn New York; and for Sand, the Expo Center in Portland), making connections to our present moment.

Black History Month lecture Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Reed College, Vollum Lecture Hall, @7:00pm): Melissa Harris-Lacewell is an associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton University. Her academic research is inspired by a desire to investigate the challenges facing contemporary black Americans and to better understand the multiple, creative ways that African Americans respond to these challenges. She received her BA in English from Wake Forest University, her PhD in political science from Duke University, and she is currently a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York. For more information, visit the Black History Month website.

Cheeky Pages Romance Book Group (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): This month we meet to discuss My Zombie Valentine by Katie MacAlister. Join us!

Heidi W. Durrow (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): Winner of the Bellwether Prize, Heidi W. Durrow’s debut novel, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (Algonquin), tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. Growing up in the 1980s, she confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white. “[A] post-postmodern novel with heart that weaves a circle of stories about race and self-discovery into a tense and sometimes terrifying whole,” hails Ms. magazine.

Live Wire Radio (Mission Theater, @7:30pm, $20): Guests include: Actor Daniel Stern (Diner, City Slickers, Wonder Years), Writers for The Family Guy, John Viener and Alec Sulkin, Fisher Poet Dave Densmore, Storyteller and Pop Culture Commentator DAYVID FIGLER. Musical guests HOLCOMBE WALLER and rising star HALEY BONAR.

You can find other events on your community Libraries schedule using these links: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County, and the rest of this weeks Portland book events here.

Image credit Facebook Events.