Reading Local: Portland

We’re coming so close to the big event and have been receiving so many generous donations to the prize raffle that will take place at our Read to Rebuild Haiti Benefit Reading Hosted by Writers’ Dojo. Join us in less than a week and make a donation or several, for your chance to win. Here are just two more we’re grateful to receive.

Annie Bloom’s Books – They’ve thrown in a solid $10 Gift Certificate to their store! Thanks Annie Bloom’s!

Annie Bloom’s Books first opened its doors in Multnomah Village in 1978. Thirty years later, and we’re still thriving!

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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 January 23, 2010 through January 29, 2010 are:

Saturday January 23-

Voices In Verse (Cedar Mill Community Library, @10:00am-11:00am): 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.

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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 January 16, 2010 through January 22, 2010 are:

Saturday January 16-

Mother Daughter Book Club (Hillsboro Main Library, @10:00am): A book discussion group for girls in grades 3-5 and their mothers or other significant women in their lives to read and discuss great books together. The group meets the third Saturday each month at 10 a.m. at the Main Library. New members are always welcome and no registration is required!

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From what I could find (please contact me if you have an event you would like me to add to this or future schedules), the local book events for the week of January 9, 2010 through January 15, 2010 are:

Saturday January 9-

William Stafford Celebratory Reading (Tigard Public Library, @2:00pm): Join us for an afternoon of stories about William Stafford and readings of his poems, as well as the works of four local poets.  Bring your own favorite Stafford poem to read, your memories of Stafford or ways he influenced you and your work, as well as a poem of your own to read. The featured readers are:  Co-hosts Bill Siverly and Michael McDowell, Robert Davies, Melanie Green, Donna Henderson, and David Oates.

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From what I could find (please contact me if you have an event you would like me to add to this or future schedules), the local book events for the week of December 14, 2009 through December 20, 2009 are:

Monday December 14-

Greg Mortenson – Stones Into Schools (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, @7:00pm, SOLD OUT): Since the 2006 publication of Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson has traveled across the U.S. and the world to share his vision with hundreds of thousands of people. He has met with heads of state, top military officials, and leading politicians who all seek his advice and insight.

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Today’s Featured Book Event:

Jesse Katz presents The Opposite Field (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Just in time for the holiday season, here’s a memoir that will grab your heart. The title is The Opposite Field, and the author is Jesse Katz, a resident of Monterey Park, California, and a single father. Faced with the collapse of his son’s Little League program (consisting mostly of Latino kids in the largely Asian suburb of Los Angles), he finds himself thrust into the role of baseball commissioner for La Loma Park. This memoir follows Jesse and Max through nine seasons of baseball in an immigrant community. It is a father-son story, but also a memoir of place, an L.A. story you have not heard before. Through it all, Jesse’s emotional mainstay is Max, his son, who quietly bests his father’s brightest hopes. Over nine springs and summers with Max at La Loma, Jesse learns nothing less than what it takes to be a father, a son, a husband, a coach, and, ultimately, a man. This totally true story also features Jesse’s mother Vera Katz, during the time when she served as Portland’s mayor and was also fighting cancer. Jesse’s father Mel Katz is a well-known Portland artist and resident of Irvington.

Other Book Events Today:

Children’s Tales for Jewish Book Month (Annie Bloom’s Books, @2:00pm): To help kids celebrate Jewish Book Month, the Jewish Theatre Collaborative will be acting out two children’s stories at Annie Bloom’s. Come with your little ones and take a journey that captures the cultural flavor of Jewish oral traditions with stories of the old country, immigration, changing family ways and holiday celebrations in a diverse world. This storytelling program, targeted for the six-and-under crowd, features two of PJ library’s selections, The Friday Nights of Nana by Amy Hest and When Mindy Saved Hanukkah by Eric Kimmel, both intergenerational celebrations of Shabbat and Hanukkah traditions.

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Today’s Featured Book Event:

Brian Brett presents Trauma Farm (Annie Bloom’s Books, @7:30pm): Brian Brett’s farm on Salt Spring Island is affectionately known as Trauma Farm. There, he raises chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, and goats, tends an extensive orchard and vegetable garden, concocts fabulous meals from the bounties of the farm, and has various misadventures. This funny and thought-provoking memoir traces one day on Trauma Farm. In it, Brett explores the natural history of the small mixed farm, meditates on the perfection of the egg, offers critiques of factory farms and the slaughtering industry, muses on the uses and misuses of gates, and ponders the constant presence of death as he goes about the activities of farming — birthing lambs, contending with rats, helping an aged horse to his death. Underlain with deep knowledge of biology and botany, this erudite, witty, and passionate book is an unforgettable portrait of the issues all farms face in this age of industrialization and homogenization.

Other Book Events Today:

John Schouten presents Notes from the Lightning God (University of Portland, Buckley Center Auditorium, @6:00pm): John Schouten will sign copies and read from his new novel, Notes from the Lightning God.

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Today’s Featured Book Event:

Veteran Workers Tell Their Story: Our Living History (Central Library, @2:00pm): A time to honor workers who have served their nation in the armed forces. Come share your stories and listen to others talk about their experiences in the workforce. Hosted by NW Oregon Labor Council

Other Book Events Today:

They Might Be Giants Booksigning (Powells Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, @4:30pm): Kids Go! (Simon & Schuster) is a dazzling, four-color sing-along book plus an animated DVD for children of all ages, from two-time Grammy Award winners They Might Be Giants.

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Today’s Featured Book Event:

To Pay My Way With Stories: A Documentary about Write Around Portland (NW Film Center, Whitsell Auditorium, @7:30pm, $8): Write Around Portland is a Portland-based non-profit that reaches out to under-served populations and provides them with the opportunity to enroll in a free, rigorous, identity-specific, ten-week creative writing workshop culminating in a public reading and a published anthology. Director Brian Lindstrom’s TO PAY MY WAY WITH STORIES closely follows participants and explores how they transcend their difficulties—including cancer, HIV/AIDS, methadone, Down’s syndrome and poverty—as they find their voices. (49 mins.)

Other Book Events Today:

Eighth Annual Jefferson High School Multicultural Film Festival (North Portland Library, @4:45pm): The North Portland Library is proud to co-sponsor Jefferson High School’s Multicultural Film Festival showcasing eight diverse movies. Watch “The Reckoning” and join us for a disccusion following the show.

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Congratulations to Gilion (aka Rose City Reader) who has returned to the victors circle by claiming the top prize in Reading Local’s October Contest!  Gilion has decided to take the $25 gift certificate to a bookstore of her choice provided by Reading Local and the $10 gift certificate provided by our newest sponsor Second Glance Books.  I would like to send out a big thank you to Gilion for not only being an active participant on the site, but for the terrific reviews of books by Portland authors she so graciously provides.

The other randomly drawn winners of the remaining gift certificates include some new faces:

• The $25 gift certificate provided by Annie Bloom’s was won by Sheila Deeth!
• The $25 gift certificate provided by Broadway Books was won by Helen!
• The $25 gift certificate provided by Title Wave Used Bookstore was won by Melanie Reaves!
• The $10 gift certificate provided by A Children’s Place Bookstore was won by Cara Holman!

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Today’s Featured Book Event:

Historic Zinesters Talking-Kevin Sampsell and Leanne Grabel (Central Library, @6:30pm): Meet some of the original creators of zines in Portland. Kevin Sampsell, of Future Tense Books and Powell’s City of Books, and Leanne Grabel, poet, performer and teacher, discuss the development of chapbooks, poetry and zines in Portland.

Other Book Events Today:

Bill Siverly and Barbara Drake (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Two very fine teachers and poets, Bill Siverly and Barbara Drake, will be with us tonight to read from new books. Bill Siverly, originally from Idaho, has lived in Portland since 1972. He is co-editor of Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, which features poetry of the Pacific Northwest and appears twice yearly on the equinoxes. Bill’s new book, Clearwater Way, is a journey from the Washington Coast up the Columbia, Snake, and Clearwater Rivers and into the woods of north Idaho. The journey is also back in time, to his childhood, and is inspired by the Wasco myth cycle about Coyote, who traveled the same terrain, creating land forms, resources, and cultural practices. Barbara Drake grew up at the Oregon coast. She is the author of a number of poetry chapbooks, a memoir, and a college textbook about writing poetry. Barbara’s new book is Driving 100. The major theme of this work is that the past in all of its mystery and wonder is driving relentlessly into the dark. Barbara’s strong voice and sympathetic observation create a haven in her poetry for things which are passing away, and in these poems they go on living in the light of her unique poetic reality, exquisite in line, image, memory and emotion.

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Today’s Featured Book Event:

Spooky Write-Off (IPRC, @7:00pm): Halloween is coming up, and the IPRC is hosting another Write-Off. The theme is Ghost Stories–but not as you have ever experienced them before! We are giving you the theme but not the genre. In each competitive round, a new genre will be picked from a hat (ie. an ode, a movie script, how-to, obituary), and contestants will write their brains out–about ghosts, in the given genre under a time limit. Cool prizes go to the contestants who demonstrate the most versatility and originality (and the most screams!).

Moe Bowstern of Xtra Tuf and IPRC director Justin Hocking will co-host the event, and a panel of judges will award prizes for the most terror-ific writing. We can guarantee a very entertaining evening. Participation is open to anyone up for the challenge, and attendance is free and open to all!

Other Book Events Today:

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