Portland Book Events: March 27-April 2

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 March 27, 2010 through April 2, 2010 are:

Saturday March 27-

Voices in Verse (Cedar Mill Community Library, @10:00am): Bring along a cup of coffee and share your own poetry or listen to others read their favorites. The group meets on the fourth Saturday morning of each month in the library’s upstairs meeting room.

Zine Launch Party: Dixon Ticonderoga (St. John’s Booksellers, @2:00pm): As he says at the end of his opening essay, Dixon Ticonderoga is Stevan Allred’s love letter to the pencil. In the true DIY spirit of zinesters, its very existence says ‘Make art–this is how to survive and move on.’  Join us for a party to celebrate the release of Dixon Ticonderoga, featuring editor Stevan Allred and 11 other contributing writers and artists: Joanna Rose, Elinor Shanklin, Cris Colburn, Lisa Colburn, Dale Woods, Peggy Skycraft, Steve Denniston, Jackie Shannon Hollis, Christi Krug, Kristin Kaye, and Harold Johnson. Light refreshments will be served.

VoiceCatcher Reading (Central Library, @2:00pm): VoiceCatcher presents prose and poetry from its fourth women writers anthology. The work of six contributing authors will be highlighted. VoiceCatcher‘s mission is to publish an anthology of Portland-area women’s writing reflecting a diversity of voice and genre. They offer a local publishing opportunity that respects, nurtures and promotes local artists.

Moby (Powells City of Books, @4:00pm): In Gristle (New Press), multi-platinum musician Moby, one of the world’s most famous vegans, brings together 10 of the country’s leading foodies, doctors, policy makers, business leaders, and activists to create a smart, concise guide for Americans who are questioning the meat in their diets. Moby will be joined by editor Miyun Park.

Makeshift Reclamation: New Feminist Art and Activism (In Other Words Women’s Books & Resources, @7:00pm): This multimedia event will showcase how contemporary feminists are resisting and creating alternatives to not only gender-based oppression but also a collapsing economic system, climate crisis, and more. Featuring readings, performances, and video works by artists and activists including Jessica Hoffmann, coeditor/copublisher of the independent, transnational, antiracist feminist magazine make/shift; Hilary Goldberg, whose new project, recLAmation, is a Super 8 experimental documentary/narrative film in which queer superheroes navigate a future beyond capitalism; writer/activist/artist Alexis Pauline Gumbs; and others.

Sunday March 28-

Big Joy Project Fundraiser (Q Center, @4:30pm,$10-$50 suggested donation): A fundraiser for the Big Joy Project. A documentary about the revolutionary poet and filmmaker, James Broughton. There will be performances, film viewing, food and revelry. “Featured Artist” author Tom Spanbauer will read from his works, inspired by James Broughton.

Ruth Reichl (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, @7:30pm, $30): Reichl is a long time editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine and the former food critic for the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. She is also the author of three critically acclaimed memoirs, including Tender at the Bone, Garlic and Sapphires, and most recently, Not Becoming My Mother. Reichl believes food tells us a great deal about ourselves and our society. The Los Angeles Times has written, “Ruth Reichl is a commanding and daunting figure in American culture.”

Portland Poetry Slam featuring Greg Bee (Backspace, @7:30pm): Greg Bee is a writer and performance poet based in Seattle where he is a member of the 2009 Seattle Slam Team. Greg has performed on stages across the Pacific Northwest and is the author of a chapbook called One Lap Around. Greg’s poetry will make you better at parallel parking. It will make you appreciate yogurt more; the fruit on the bottom kind. His poetry is always fat free and carb-free with only a small hint of cheese. When not writing poetry, Greg is dispensing relationship advice through his alter ego: The Bitter Single Guy.

Monday March 29-

Matthew Dickman and Carl Adamshick (Lewis & Clark College, Smith Hall, @7:00pm): Matthew Dickman’s first collection of poetry, All American Poem (Copper Canyon Press, 2008), received the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Award.  In addition, Dickman has received fellowships for his work from the Michener Center for Writers, the Vermont Studio Centers, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.  He lives and works in Hudson, New York.

Carl Adamshick has published poems in Beloit Poetry Journal, American Literary Review, Rhino and Mid-American Review. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Angry Fat Girls (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): Angry Fat Girls (Berkley) is Frances Kuffel’s funny, painfully honest memoir that follows five women — including the author — as they diet and eat, lose and gain weight, and struggle to find their individual definition of freedom along the way.

Allison Cobb & Kaia Sand (Pacific University, Taylor Auditorium, @7:30pm): Allison Cobb and Kaia Sand will read from their new books of poetry that investigate history and political history. Cobb’s Green-Wood centers on a historic Brooklyn cemetery, while Sand’s Remember to Wave explores a Portland site of Nikkei internment.

Run Like a Mother (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): A book for today’s multitasking wife/mother/working woman, Run Like a Mother (Andrews McMeel) offers an insider’s advice on how a woman can strengthen her inner athlete. Drawing on personal experience, Sarah Bowen Shea informs women about shoes, training, racing, marathoning, nutrition, injuries, life beyond running (husband, kids, job), and a host of practical topics.

Indu Sundaresan (Powells Books on Hawthorne, @7:30pm): From internationally bestselling author Indu Sundaresan comes Shadow Princess (Atria), an epic novel based on actual events about princesses fighting for power and respect in India’s 17th-century royal court.

Tuesday March 30-

Mark Henry and Jaye Wells (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): Irreverent and nasty, sexy and hilarious, Mark Henry’s Battle of the Network Zombies (Kensington) treats readers to more outrageously campy urban fantasy courtesy of Amanda Feral, Seattle’s most glamorous zombie. In Jaye Wells’s The Mage in Black (Orbit), Sabina Kane — whose grandmother, the leader of the vampire race, just tried to kill her — arrives in New York to meet the mage side of her family, a reunion that takes the “fun” out of dysfunctional.

INFKP presents David Abel, Dean Gorman, and Narwal Creative Music Ensemble (3968 SE Mall St., Apt A, PDX, @7:30pm): David Abel is a poet, interdisciplinary artist, bookdealer, and freelance editor. He is one of the founding organizers of the Spare Room reading series, and copublisher (with Sam Lohmann) of airfoil chapbooks. Dean Gorman lives in Portland, Oregon, where he plays in the bands Sweet William’s Ghost and The Tumblers. He is co-founder and former co-editor of Pilot Books and Magazine. Narwal Creative Music Ensemble values the bizarre, under appreciated, the experimental and the esoteric, finding inspiration in the new (Terry Riley, Ruth Crawford Seeger, George Crumb), the hip (Henry Threadgill, John Zorn, William Basinski), and the crusty (Gregorian chant, Bach). For further info please check the INFKP website.

Wednesday March 31-

Kevin Sampsell (Portland State, Smith Memorial SU, #238, @6:00pm): Kevin Sampsell reads from “A Common Pornography,” a memoir, told in vignettes, that captures the history of one dysfunctional American family. An extension of a 2003 “memory experiment” of the same name, “A Common Pornography” weaves recollections of small-town youth with darker threads from his families story, including incest, madness, betrayal, and death. A regular contributor to Dave Eggers’ The Believer and McSweeneys, Sampsell has written “the kind of book where you want to thank the author for helping you feel less alone with being alive” (Jonathan Ames).

Book Group Social (Tigard Public Library, @7:00pm): Librarians will share book talks, book lists, news about the latest great books, tips and tricks for running book groups and online and library resources for your group.  Then meet, eat, mingle and talk about books and book groups with fellow enthusiasts!  Refreshments!  Prizes!

Pete Rock (Lewis & Clark College, Armstrong Lounge, @7:00pm): Pete Rock is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Rock was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the author of the novels The Unsettling, The Bewildered, The Ambidextrist, This is the Place, and Carnival Wolves. Rock attended Deep Springs College, received a BA in English from Yale University, and held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. He has taught fiction at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Deep Springs College, and in the MFA program at San Francisco State University. His stories and freelance writing have both appeared widely. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Pico Iyer (University of Portland, Chapel of the Christ Teacher, @7:00pm): Pico Iyer, one of the world’s finest travel writers and spiritual essayists, is the author of many books of nonfiction, two novels, and a book about His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Among his best-known travel books are Video Night in Kathmandu, Falling off the Map, and Imagining Canada. Born in Oxford, England, and a graduate with top honors from that ancient institution, he now lives in Japan and in a monastery in California; he is “Thomas Merton on a frequent flier pass,” as the Indian writer Pradeep Sebastian has said. “As a guide to far-flung places, Pico Iyer can hardly be surpassed,” says The New Yorker. Iyer has written of saints, grace, prayer, and the rock band U2 in the University’s Portland Magazine.

Patricia Briggs (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): In Silver Borne (Ace), the latest installment in Patricia Briggs’s New York Times-bestselling urban fantasy series, shapeshifter Mercy Thompson attempts to return a powerful Fae book. But it seems the book contains secret knowledge — and the Fae will do just about anything to keep it out of the wrong hands.

Classics Book Group (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): This month we meet to discuss both On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg. Join us!

Peter Nathaniel Malae (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): A blazing and authentic new literary voice, Peter Nathaniel Malae — a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Literary Award — has written a bold debut novel. What We Are (Grove) tells a raw, powerful, and bullet-fast story that looks at contemporary America through the eyes of one disillusioned son.

Thursday April 1-

Perspectives on Positive Aging: Pilgrim at Home (Central Library, @12:00pm): Part of the pleasure of daily life can be paying attention to the way little events in the outer world can stimulate discoveries in the inner life. Kim Stafford will talk about this experience as a “pilgrim at home,” a seeker after beauties, puzzles, stories, and other encounters savored by daily writing practice. Recommended reading: The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft by Kim Stafford. Stafford is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis and Clark College, and author of a dozen books of poetry and prose.

The Natural Man (Reading Frenzy, @6:00pm): Reading Frenzy is pleased to present the first Portland solo show by artist Shelley Turley. The Natural Man features two dozen pieces, all works on paper, that employ a process of “paper doll cut-out” college, water color, gouache and acyclic.  In this body of work Ms. Turley explores themes of modern American spirituality, and the search for tradition, ritual and meaning in everyday life. The exhibit will run for the month of April.

First Thursday: Quilts from Alabama Chanin (Powells City of Books, @6:30pm): Alabama Chanin is a lifestyle company that focuses on slow design and sustainability. They craft handmade, limited-edition products using a combination of new, organic, and recycled materials. Founder and creative director Natalie Chanin will join us in person on Tuesday the 13th to discuss her latest book, Alabama Studio Style.

WITS PDX Reading: Benson High (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Broadway Books is pleased to announce a special event featuring Benson High School students who will be here to read from their own writing. These students are part of Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools Program. This program pairs professional writers with high school students in ongoing collaboration for students to hone their writing skills. The writer that has been working with these students is poet Carson Cistulli, who will be in attendance and who will also read from his own work. This is the first time most of these students have ever read their work in public. It’s an exciting thing to witness. We hope you can join us!

Microcosm Publishing’s Post Punk Extravaganza (Artistery, @7:00pm, $5 or $12 w/dinner): Joshua Ploeg, a vegan chef (of Behead the Prophet and Lords of Lightspeed) will be cooking a 7 course vegan dinner, followed by a talk about making food, relating to his book “In Search of Lost Taste“. Following this will be Mia Partlow and Michael Hoerger talking about food and espionage, and discussing their new book “Edible Secrets“.  Finally, Joe Biel will be showing his latest documentary, about Plan-It-X Records, entitled “If It Ain’t Cheap, It Ain’t Punk“.

Nick Lantz (Lewis & Clark College, Smith Hall, @7:00pm): Winner of the 2008 Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for Poetry, Nick Lantz’s poems introduce a startling new voice. Taking its title from a dodging statement from former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, We Don’t Know We Don’t Know assesses what it means to claim new knowledge within a culture that professes to know everything already.   Nick Lantz is the author of a second collection, The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors’ House, which won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Jay Lake (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @7:00pm): Rejoin the adventure in bestselling author Jay Lake’s Clockwork Earth with Pinion (Tor), “a fine tale of humans in search of liberation from the clockwork and customs that ensnare them and us as well” (Sci-Fi Weekly).

Melissa Febos (Powells Books on Hawthorne, @7:30pm): While a college student at The New School, Melissa Febos spent four years working as a dominatrix in a midtown dungeon. With poetic, nuanced prose, Whip Smart (Thomas Dunne) charts how Febos’s unchecked risk-taking eventually gave way to a course of self-destruction.

Take Five Poetry Troupe (Annie Bloom’s Books, @7:30pm): Take Five is no ordinary poetry troupe. The women involved all have experience in performance, from stand-up comedy to singing and dancing to performance poetry. They invest energy and fun into their readings, which range from the ridiculous to the serious.

Friday April 2-

First Friday: Poetry Night (West Linn Library, @6:30pm): April is National Poetry Month! Join local poet Amber Keyser for an evening of creative writing and FUN! This is an after-hours event, so please use the downstairs back door. First Fridays are evening events for 6th-12th graders.

Alafair Burke (Powells City of Books, @7:30pm): In 212 (Harper), a new Ellie Hatcher thriller about the deadly side of the Internet, former Portland deputy district attorney Alafair Burke delivers yet another “knuckle-biting journey that’ll keep you turning pages until the very end” (Faye Kellerman).

——————————-

For further events check out the links to the community calendars for Tri-County area Libraries: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County.

Image credit Zorger.