Iranian-American writer Elizabeth Eslami received her MFA from Warren Wilson College in 2003. Her debut novel, Bone Worship, was published this year by Pegasus Books, and she’ll read at Broadway Books on Tuesday, March 16 at 7 pm. 
We caught up with Elizabeth to talk to her in more detail about Bone Worship…and to give you a chance to win a free copy of the book. Enter to win by leaving a comment on this post, or by linking back here from your own blog or site. We’ll choose a winner at random later this week. (You must be in the U.S. to win.)
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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 March 13, 2010 through March 19, 2010 are:
Saturday March 13-
Gala Celebration Honoring Local Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (Barnes & Noble-Clackamas, @3:00pm): Come celebrate the talents of the SCBWI-Oregon. Sixteen authors and illustrators of children’s and teen’s books will be here to present and sign their books, including Emily Whitman, Carmen Bernier-Grand, Lisa Schroeder, Dale Basye and Nancy Coffelt.
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
Jennie Shortridge and Erica Bauermeister (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Jennie Shortridge and Erica Bauermeister will read from their new novels. Jennie’s novel is When She Flew (New American Library), the story of a girl and her father found living off the grid in Forest Park. Inspired by real events that many of us remember, this novel is a warm-hearted story that imagines what happens when an injured war veteran and his 12-year-old naturalist daughter are 
brought back to “civilized” life after being on their own. Erica’s novel is The School of Essential Ingredients (Berkley), a tale of a cooking teacher and her students that navigates readers through each character’s personal dramas, memories and musings as they handle, slice, chop, blend, smell and taste. It is a remarkable debut novel that creates a captivating culinary world where the pleasures of sophisticated food come to mean much more than simple epicurean indulgence.
Other Book Events Today:
First Thursday Book Club (St. John’s Books, @5:30pm): Join us for the inaugural meeting of our First Thursday Book Club. Get in on the ground floor of a book club in the making! Our first selection is Jane Austen’s immortal, inimitable Pride & Prejudice. We invite you to read (or reread) this classic tale of money and marriage in Regency England–then sit down with us to discuss it over tea and cookies.. Future discussion books will be selected at this meeting.
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We are excited to announce a really amazing donation to our prize raffle for the Read to Rebuild Haiti Benefit.
Broadway Books - They have quite generously donated a $100 Gift Card to their store to our prize raffle at the Haiti Benefit Reading. We can’t tell you how grateful we are to them for such a generous gift. As we have put this event together, we are constantly encouraged by the amount of support we have received for such a small group putting together such a great Event. We are happy every day to be a part of this passionate and kind-hearted community. Check out their store and buy some books. THANK YOU BROADWAY BOOKS!
Their Story -
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
Schoenfeldt Writers Series presents Paul Theroux (University of Portland, Buckley Center Auditorium, @7:00pm): Paul Theroux, one of the world’s finest travel writers, is also a prolific novelist whose works have been made into several films. Among his best-known works of travel are The Great Railway Bazaar,Sailing Through China, and The Pillars of Hercules; among his notable novels are The Mosquito Coast, Half Moon Street, and Picture Palace, which won the UK’s Whitbread Prize. “A large, lively, outrageous talent, without peer as the merciless obituarist of colonialism,” says Nobel Prizewinner Nadine Gordimer.
Other Book Events Today:
Steven Johnson: The Ghost Map and The Future of Cities (Portland State, Smith Memorial Center Ballroom, @11:00am): Author Steven Johnson will talk about how The Ghost Map’s 19th-century cholera epidemic can help us understand the future of our cities: the power of neighborhoods to solve problems, new forms of digital mapping and information sharing, and the challenges facing mega-cities in the developing world.
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
Meg Mullins (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Meg Mullins reads from her second novel, Dear Strangers (Viking). This book is the story of siblings Oliver and Mary, whose world is forever changed by a series of childhood tragedies: the deaths of a neighbor and their father, and the resulting abandonment by their mother of a child who was to have been adopted into the family. As adults, Oliver searches for his almost-brother and Mary copes with loss through denial. This is a luminous, moving portrait of grief, atonement, romance, and longing. It unearths the possibilities of hope and renewal in the unexpected bonds forged with family and strangers alike.
Other Book Events Today:
Owl Book Group (Cedar Mill Community Library, @1:00pm): You are invited to join the Owl Book Group! Newcomers always welcome. Please join us for a great book discussion in the Lewis Community Room upstairs at the Cedar Mill Community Library. February’s selection is Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher.
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
Ariel Gore (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Ariel Gore will read from her latest book, Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux). Discovering that many “experts” believe that women with feminist values are somehow less “happy” than those in more traditional roles, Ms. Gore asks the following question: Can a woman be smart, empowered, and happy? Written by a woman of intense wit and boundless curiosity, this book looks at the history, science, and experience of women’s happiness. It is a smart, no-nonsense, and uplifting study of the real secret of joy and whether it is truly at odds with the goals of modern women.
Other Book Events Today:
Heidi Durrow (Portland State, Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 236, @2:00pm): Durrow is co-host of the live weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat, Executive Director of the annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival, and author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, 2008 winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics of human relationships. Durrow will discuss her identity as a biracial woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white, and societies ideas of race, class, and beauty.
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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 February 20, 2010 through February 26, 2010 are:
Saturday February 20-
Bringing History to Life (Lewis & Clark College, Miller Center for the Humanities, @9:30am): Lewis & Clark College Special Collections in cooperation with the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation will host a series of three lectures by Stephen Dow Beckham, Gary E. Moulton, and Roger Wendlick. Recently all three of these individuals have spent time working on historical projects in the Lewis & Clark College Special Collections, and at this event the three will share their discoveries.
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
Penelope Scambly Schott and Henry Hughes (Broadway Books, @7:00pm): Two of Oregon’s most respected poets, Penelope Scambly Schott and Henry Hughes, will be with us tonight to read from new books. Henry Hughes will present his new collection, Moist Meridian (Mammoth Books). It’s a daring mix of savagery and civilization, eros and wit that show us the growing range and depth of this accomplished writer. Henry teaches at Western Oregon University. His first collection, Men Holding Eggs, received the 2004 Oregon Book Award. 
Penelope Scambly Schott, also a winner of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry, will be reading from her new book Six Lips (Mayapple). In this collection, the speaker instructs her lover, thinks about what animal she might become in her next life, discusses having one tail, two vaginas, three ears, and so forth, all the time chronicling her mother’s decline. “Nimble and tender, sensuous and biting, deliciously daring, and always grounded in felt experience….Six Lips is one of the strongest, most inventive books I’ve read in years.” –Ingrid Wendt
Other Book Events Today:
And&Review Release Party (Tiga Bar, @7:00pm): Mia Nolting and Rachel Peddersen present and&review, an arts publication based in Portland, Oregon that shares work from local and international artists and writers. A compilation of work that loosely adheres to a chosen theme for each issue, showing both contemporary trends in art-making as well as work from the past.
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The winner of January’s Reading Local Contest is…Gilion Dumas! Gilion has proved once again that she is the queen of commenting! Reading Local is grateful to have such an active member of our community. Gilion has decided to take the $25 gift certificate provided by Broadway Books and the $10 gift certificate provided by Second Glance Books as the just reward for her victory.
The other randomly drawn winners of the remaining gift certificates are:
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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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