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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.
The New Low-Maintenance Garden (Timber Press) by Valerie Easton, gets a nice cover shot and spotlight in the San Francisco Chronicle:
We’re gardening in a new millennium, with challenges such as limited space, dwindling natural resources and less free time, yet most of us do it the way our grandparents did, says Easton.
A garden columnist for the Seattle Times, she weeded and watered her own intensely planted quarter-acre for years, before realizing that all the work left her little time for enjoyment. Easton’s solution: Go the low-maintenance route with a minimum of lawn and plants that need pruning and dividing, spraying or staking. She assures readers that low maintenance doesn’t mean boring or something created by “people who tend to park trucks on their lawn.” It’s all about thoughtful design and editing, smart plant choices that include both ornamentals and edibles, and working with nature’s rhythms.
Did you know that Pinball Publishing allows you to make your own custom Scout Books? The Phobia thinks this is a pretty sweet deal:
Scout Books is a little company started by Pinball Publishing who began creating these Field Notes-esque notepads last year.
What’s fucking cool about it is that you can create your own notebooks and they’re pretty dang cheap. You can get 50 made for $195, so around $4 each. Think about selling each for $10 and you’re more than doubling your profit, nice, huh? This is a pretty rad idea for illustrators or graphic designers, Lots of really awesome notebooks to check out so get clicking!
The Kat Eye View of the World asks if Powell’s Books is the best bookstore in the world:
And here is a special section to me, the creativity section I discovered last spring at Powell’s. I walked around a corner and felt a jolt, it’s like the section just grabbed me and said “hello, here I am, you’ve been waiting for me.” I purchased and read several books from this section last year before the move and I’ve got several more after a visit on Saturday. Can’t wait to get reading! I just hope my suitcase is not overweight…
Representatives from the Multnomah County Library were in D.C. to accept their 2009 IMLS National Medal:
In Multnomah County, Oregon, volcanoes aren’t the only movers and shakers in town. Every day, the Multnomah County Library is overflowing with programs that help immigrants overcome barriers and successfully adapt by offering citizenship classes, English conversation practice sessions, and a Spanish language version of the Multnomah County Library Web site. The library also offers programs and services designed to address the most important period for literacy development: birth to age 8. Like its diverse community, the Multnomah County Library is continually growing and evolving, bursting with opportunities that fulfill community members’ needs for knowledge, community interaction, and fun.
Check Please has an entertaining profile of G. Xavier Robillard and his novel Captain Freedom:
“Captain Freedom: A Superhero’s Quest for Truth, Justice and the Celebrity He so Richly Deserves” is a sharp and fast-paced entry from first-time novelist G. Xavier Robillard, who has been steadily building a reputation as a witty and sophisticated satirist both online and off. (He took first place in this year’s HumorFeed online satire competition.) His frequent jabs at politics and popular culture lend a distinctly political edge to the book, in which the hero ends up finding true happiness only after (spoiler alert!) he assumes political office and – most importantly – finds an arch-nemesis against whom to pit himself.
Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch, published by Underland Press, was nominated for a Nebula Award. The winners will be announced in May at a ceremony in Florida.
Image credit Book People.
