Geddes Discusses Justice and Healing in Africa

Please join us Tuesday, February 7, at 7 pm to hear author Gary Geddes read from and discuss his recently published book Drink the Bitter Root: A Search for Justice and healing in Africa (Counterpoint Press).  

Drink the Bitter Root is a provocative, emotionally charged account of one writer’s travels in sub-Saharan Africa. Haunted by the 1993 murder of a Somali teenager by Canadian soldiers in what became known as the Somalia affair, and long fascinated by the “dark continent,” the author decided at age 68 to make the trip. His explorations are guided by questions: How can a tribunal in a suburb of Europe change things on the ground in Africa? Is international aid improving the lives of ordinary Africans or contributing to their suffering?

He began his trip at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, then traveled to Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Somaliland. The stories Geddes brings back are haunting, uplifting, stark and sometimes unbearable, but all are presented with the essential lightness Jean-Paul Sartre insisted is so crucial to good writing. This masterful blend of history, reportage, testimonial and memoir is a condemnation of the horrors spawned by greed and corruption and an eloquent tribute to human resilience.

Geddes, who lives on Thetis Island in British Columbia, has written and edited more than 40 books and has received numerous literary awards, including the British Columbia Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and Chile’s Gabriela Mistral Prize. He is the author of two bestselling travel memoirs, The Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things and Sailing Home.

Long fascinated by Africa, Geddes studied the works of Joseph Conrad, who described the Belgian Congo as “the vilest scramble for loot that has ever disfigured the history of human consciousness" -- and Geddes reports that the scramble for loot in Africa continues. He read the works of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and other African writers. But he felt a growing urge to understand first-hand what was taking place on the "Dark Continent." Before traveling to Africa he consulted one of his fellow Canadians, the columnist Jonathan Manthorpe, who had served as foreign correspondent in Africa for many years. His advice? "Keep moving. Don't stand around looking lost or confused. An injured animal is fair game in Africa."

As he traveled through Africa, it was the personal stories, rather than the statistics, that got to him the most: "some shouted, some delivered in the faintest of whispers, others dragged screaming from the vault of memory."

Here is a little of what Geddes learned in his journey:

"I’m no expert, just a concerned observer, but I encountered so many examples of kindness, grace, intelligence and progressive thinking that contradicted the impression many Westerners have of the Africa as site of corruption and violence, with chaos looming over everything. I hope that, by addressing my own ignorance and modest discoveries, others might be encouraged to do the same."

"In short, I learned that Africans are ready to instruct us about restorative justice, to provide valuable lessons on care, community and solidarity, and to forgive us for the travesties of the past. In exchange, they demand genuine respect, for individuals, cultures and languages; that we regulate our extractive industries abroad, making them accountable for environmental and human rights violations; and that we remove those subsidies that jeopardize their chances of entering into the worldwide fair exchange of commodities."

We hope you can join the discussion at Broadway Books tomorrow night at 7 pm.

Allen Say at Broadway Books Tonight!

We're so excited to be hosting local author, artist, and treasure Allen Say tonight at 7 pm! We last blogged about Mr. Say a little more than a year ago, with a link to a wonderful article about him by Jeff Baker of The Oregonian.

Tonight he will be here with his newest book, Drawing From Memory -- part memoir, part graphic novel, part narrative history. It is the story of the author's path to becoming the renowned artist he is today. Shunned by his father, who didn't understand his son's artistic leanings, Say was embraced by Noro Shinpei, Japan's leading cartoonist and the man he came to love as his "spiritual father." The book, accompanied by Say's wonderful illustrations, tells the complex story of the real-life relationship between a mentor and his student.

Allen Say won the Caldecott Medal for Grandfather's Journey and won a Caldecott Honor and Horn Book Award for The Boy of the Three-Year Nap. Some of his other books include The Bicycle Man, Tree of Cranes, Ericka-San, and Tea with Milk. Say came to the United States when he was 16 and moved to Portland in 1999.

We hope you can join us tonight to meet this delightful author/illustrator.

George Estreich to Read from Memoir

We hope you can join us Tuesday night (August 2nd) at 7 pm to hear Corvallis author George Estreich read from his recently published memoir, The Shape of the Eye: Down Syndrome, Family, and the Stories We Inherit.

When his younger daughter, Laura, was born, her appearance presented a puzzle: did the shape of her eyes indicate Down Syndrome, or the fact that she has a Japanese grandmother? In this powerful memoir, Estreich tells his daughter's story, reflecting on her inheritance -- from the literal legacy of her genes, to the family history that precedes her, to the Victorian physician John Landon Down's diagnostic error of "Mongolian Idiocy." Against this backdrop, Laura Estreich takes her place in the family as a unique child, quirky and real, loved for everything ordinary and extraordinary about her.

The Shape of the Eye is predominantly about raising his youngest daughter. But, in the author's words, it is also about "fly-fishing, heart surgery, family, the history and meaning of “Mongolian idiocy,” genetic engineering, prenatal diagnosis, what it’s like to be stared at, feeding a child with a tube, made-up signs for French fries, and the way Down syndrome can become sort of ordinary."

Tracy Daugherty, author of the Oregon-Book-Award-winning biography, Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme, described the book as "a splendid, stimulating, and extremely moving account of what it means to be a family, what it means to be human.” Physician and writer Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, and The Tennis Partner: A Doctor's Story of Friendship and Loss) says, “This is a poignant, beautifully written and intensely moving memoir, and I think only one writer in the world, George Estreich, could possibly have pulled this off. It will become part of the canon of narratives that are studied and taught in medical humanities courses.” Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter said "The Shape of the Eye taught me a great deal. It is a story I found myself thinking about long after I'd finished the final pages.

Estreich's first book was a collection of poems, Textbook Illustrations of the Human Body, which won the Rhea and Seymour Gorsline Prize from Cloudbank Books in 2003.

He was born in New York City and received a BA from the University of Virginia and an MFA in poetry from Cornell. After years of teaching freshman composition, he quit to become a full-time stay-at-home dad. He and his wife, an associate professor in the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University, have two daughters and a dog named Jet.

Please join us on Tuesday if you can!

The Emotional Currency of Money

Money is a weird thing. It can be the source of great pleasure, but it just as readily brings about great angst and fear. Tomorrow night we are joined by psychotherapist and author Kate Levinson, who will read from and discuss her recently published book Emotional Currency: A Woman's Guide to Building a Healthy Relationship with Money, published by Celestial Arts.

Before beginning to explore the psychological and emotional roots of her relationship with money, Levinson always assumed that her discomfort with money was caused by "the amount I had and how I mismanaged it, never glimpsing that most of my money dilemmas had to do with my feelings and what it meant to me....Though financial advisers suggest that we just be rational in our dealings with money, this is rarely possible for most of us, as we attach a complex set of thoughts, beliefs, and feelings to money." These emotions affect every aspect of our lives, whether we have lots of money or not nearly enough.

Emotional Currency, according to Levinson, is "a guide to exploring your personal experiences of having, not having, making, not making, spending, saving, giving, investing, inheriting, and losing money....It will teach you how to integrate your feelings into money matters." The book includes dozens of real-life stories, as well as questions and exercises to help the reader explore the emotional and psychological aspects of  money and to provide strategies for working through confusion or struggles.

Interestingly, Levin's husband, Steve Costa, owns Point Reyes Books -- a profession I can easily confirm for you does not typically lead to great wealth. In fact, the author says it's a good thing she made her discoveries about the emotional component of money before he decided to buy the bookstore: "Without having done some of my inner money work, I would certainly have said, 'We can't! We don't have the money.' And our lives would have been poorer. Instead, our world has been immeasurably expanded and enriched, but of even more value to me has been the deepening of our partnership."

Levinson holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology and is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She is a member of the teaching and supervising faculty at The Psychotherapy Institute, and has also taught and supervised students at J.F.K. University’s Graduate School of Clinical Psychology. She specializes in helping individuals and couples deal with money from a psychological perspective.

Please join us Thursday, July 27th, at 7pm for what is sure to be an eye-opening discussion. I am eager to learn from the author's insights. Here is a link to an article about the book to whet your appetite.

Comma Features Bridges and Skye

It's almost the third Thursday of the month, which means it's time for our monthly Comma reading series! Joining us this month are Sharon Wood Wortman and Skye Leslie. Sharon is the author of The Portland Bridge Book, as well as a book of poetry, Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass: Poems about Bridges Real and Imagined. Skye is a member of Tom Spanbauer's group of Dangerous Writers and has been published in The Comstock Review and The Criterion. She is currently at work on memoir, short stories, and poetry.

Each month, the Comma reading series brings together two regional writers from different genres who are free to read from new projects, published pieces, or ongoing works-in-progress. And then discuss. With your participation. If you've attended before you know just how great an evening it is. Please join us! The fun starts at 7 pm the third Thursday each month. Which this month means tomorrow, July 21.

Suzanne Sigafoos Reads from Held in the Weave

One of the saddest parts of editing the video clips from author events at Broadway Books is deciding what stays in and what gets left on the cutting room floor. Given that the videos range from ten to fifteen minutes, and most authors read and/or take questions for close to an hour, clearly a lot gets left on the floor -- all stuff that you really shouldn't miss. But then you would have had to be there. The good news, though, is that the clips give you a flavor of the night, and hopefully inspire you to want to read the book yourself.

I had to take several passes at this video before I could get it under the time limit -- there were so many moments I wanted to share with everyone! Suzanne Sigafoos recently had her first collection of poems published by Finishing Line Press, and we were delighted to celebrate the launch of her book with her. Held in the Weave is a beautiful collection of poems, most of which are quite short but pack power loads of thought and vision. Some will prompt tears, some laughter, and some will leave you holding your breath with awe. I wish you ALL could have been there that night; it was magical. But for those of you who couldn't make it, here's a taste of what you missed. [PS: Copious apologies for the frog that was living in my throat that day, which made for a somewhat raspy/squeaky introduction!]

Check Out the Three Events at BB This Week!

We promised you more events at Broadway Books -- how does three this week sound for you? We start tonight with an event in honor of Father's Day (more on that in a second post), which is this Sunday. Local author Kevin Renner will be here tonight at read from and discuss his newly published book, In Search of Fatherhood: A Mother Lode of Wisdom from the World of Daughters.

Renner spent more than a year traveling around the world and interviewing women (50 are presented in this book), asking them to reflect on what they had absorbed from their fathers and what they didn't get that they still yearned for. His goal was to better understand the father-daughter relationship so that he could do a better job with his own daughters. He talked to women from across cultures, economic strata, professions -- those who felt loved by their fathers and those who felt abandoned or abused. In the book he presents the stories of their relationships, along with his own story.

Renner is the founder and president of B2B Market Strategies. He divides his time among his family, writing, and his work as a marketing and brand strategist to emerging companies. He lives in Portland with his wife Meg, daughters Julia and Katherine, and an ever evolving animal population. Renner received his social science degree from UC-Santa Cruz before beginning his career as a business journalist. Later he completed an MBA at UC- Berkeley, where he lived with 600 women and men from around the world at The International House.

On Tuesday night we welcome the editor of and several contributors to Volume V of Drash: Northwest Mosaic, just recently published. Drash is a Seattle-based annual literary magazine that features an ecumenical embrace of poetry and prose with a Northwest and Jewish tilt. Scheduled to read tomorrow night are Akiva Miller, David Fuks, Jeanne Krinsley, Hanna Goldbaum, Carolyn Martin, and the editor, Wendy Marcus.


Thursday night we host our monthly Comma reading series, moderated by Kirsten Rian. On the third Thursday of each month,Comma features two regional authors, representing a variety of literary genres.  Each author reads for 20 to 25 minutes from new projects, established pieces, or ongoing works in progress and then engages in discussion with each other and with the audience.

This month Comma presents Barry Sanders and Tim DuRoche. Sanders is a professor emeritus of Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He is currently writer-in-residence at Pacific Northwest College of Art. He is also a social activist and the author of two recent books: The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism and Unsuspecting Souls: The Disapperance of the Human Being -- both of which were nominated for this year's Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction. He loves teaching at PNCA and brings his students to the Donald E. Long detention center in Portland to teach reading and writing.

DuRoche is a writer, jazz musician, artist, and curator. His writing about visual culture, jazz and performance, planning, urban history, and cultural policy have appeared in a number of print and online venues. Since moving to Portland in 2000, he's worked with a number of creative cultural institutions including Northwest Film Center and Portland Center Stage. Currently he is the Director of Programs for the World Affairs Council of Oregon. He is a frequent public speaker and moderator for cultural organizations across the state and hosts a weekly jazz program on KMHD-89.1 FM.

Each of these events will begin at 7pm. Please join us for one, two, or all three events -- it's always a pleasure to see you!

Marjorie Sandor to Read from New Memoir

Tonight we are excited to be hosting Corvallis author and professor Marjorie Sandor, reading from her recently published memoir The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction, published by Arcade Publishing. The book tells the story of five seasons of change and renewal in a woman's life, braiding entries from a garden journal with lyric meditations and full-blown essays on our eternal -- and contradictory -- hunger for adventure and refuge.

At a time in her life when she once thought a person should have been well settled in for the long haul, she falls in love with a colleague, leaves her husband, and co-parents a daughter through adolescence. As they are building a home and a life together, her partner undergoes sudden emergency heart surgery, reminding them vividly of the frailty of life. Then they learn that a developer plans to build a multistory student apartment complex just behind their small, nascent, back garden, threatening their new-found haven.

Through it all, as a recent review in The New York Times notes, Sandor gardens, proffering "nimble meditations on healing, friendship, literature, architecture, and music." And her gardening mirrors her writing habits. "Over the centuries, around the world, we have always come home to one truth: Gardening sustains life, love and happiness."

Booklist says about her writing, "Whether she is writing essays...or fiction, Sandor's prose is as tangy and luscious as just-plucked fruit."

Sandor is the author of four books and the 2004 winner of the National Jewish Book Award in Fiction for Portrait of my Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime: Stories. Her earlier book of personal essays, The Night Gardener: A Search for Home, won the 2000 Oregon Book Award for Literary Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in magazines such as The Georgia Review and TriQuarterly and in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Twenty Under Thirty, The Best American Spiritual Writing, and other anthologies. She teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing at Oregon State University.

Tonight's reading starts at 7 pm -- we hope you can join us!

Lidia Yuknavitch Reads from Her Memoir

I have some idiosyncrasies when it comes to my reading habits. For instance, I tend to avoid Irish novels and memoirs about abuse or addiction. I also tend to use an overly large brush when painting books with these stripes. I can't explain this bias, and I certainly can't justify it. It's just one of my reading tics.

So when I first started hearing about The Chronology of Water, by Lidia Yuknavitch, my first thought was "probably not my cup of tea," because I had slapped it with the brush "abuse memoir."  But I decided to check it out anyway because the book is published by Hawthorne Books, a Portland-based publisher.  Hawthorne is a small press, publishing just a few books each year, so they are very selective in what they choose to publish. And then they work closely with their authors and designers to produce books that are of excellent quality, both in terms of content and design. So I figured I'd try just a taste.

I had no idea what I was in for. Three days later I came up for air. Once I started reading The Chronology of Water, I had to force myself to go to work and to sleep and anything else that required putting the book down.

You know you're in for an emotional ride when a memoir begins "The day my daughter was stillborn...."  But I was not prepared for such a breathtaking combination of heartbreak and stoicism. It is intense. Powerful.  Fearless. Honest.  It makes you mad, and it makes you weep. It takes turns you do not see coming. But don't just take my word for it.

Cheryl Strayed calls the book "a brutal beauty bomb and a true love song," saying it is "alive with emotion, both merciful and utterly merciless....This is the book I'm going to press into everyone's hands for years to come." Chuck Palahniuk calls the book extraordinary and says he's read it a dozen times: "And I will, most likely, return to it for inspiration and ideas, and out of sheer admiration, for the rest of my life."

And those are just the pre-pub reviews. Since the book was published, the reviews have been almost as stunning as the book itself; this memoir is definitely resonating powerfully with its readers. Here's a snippet from one: "Reading The Chronology of Water is like reading while swimming weightless under water with no need to come up for air. It's that different, that remarkable."

Or this: "If this isn't the most authentic, honest, attempt at a memoir from someone who's not protecting herself in the slightest, then Lidia has sold her soul to the devil. Again and again, I found myself thinking, 'I can't believe she's actually telling me this.' And there is no shallow end. It starts with gruesome, excruciating pain, and goes on from there." Another reviewer described her prose as "witty, jarring, worthy of dogearing," saying it alternates between "gleeful postmodern exercise and wrenching elegy."

I'm reluctant to describe the specifics of the book or Lidia's life; you really need to read the book for yourself. But I will say that it's about relationships, and creating, and water, and sex -- lots and lots of sex. My mom tried to buy a copy of The Chronology of Water when she was in the store this week, but I stopped her. Because the copy on the front jacket flap begins 'This is not your mother's memoir." Sorry, Mom! But for everyone else, dig in!

Lidia will be reading from her memoir at Broadway Books tomorrow night (Thursday, June 2) at 7 pm. I hope you can join us. It is likely to be a night that won't soon leave your brain.

A One-Time Traveler Hits the Road Again

On Tuesday, May 24th, we're excited to be hosting Vivian Swift, all the way from the Long Island Sound. Swift is the author of a most remarkable book, When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Travelers Journal of Staying Put, published by Bloomsbury for the amazing price of $20. I say the price is amazing because this is a hardbound book, hand-lettered, and full of the most delightful illustrations and watercolors.

For twenty years, Swift traveled the world. "In between my many years of foreign wanderings I worked as a receptionist, gift shop sales lady, luxury hotel concierge, clothing store manager, book shop clerk, office temp, retail jeweler, horologist, auction house executive, and Faberge expert. I've also worked as an au pair, a chamber maid, a jewelry historian, and in a factory making plastic bottles for bleach." Then one day in her late 30s she decided to see what it was like to stay put for a while, and, on a whim, chose a small village on the Long Island Sound as her landing spot.

She bought real furniture and settled down. And she reflected on her travels. And then she spent ten years writing her stories and creating more than 300 works of art to go along with the stories. And then she got it published. Now she's working on a new book about France, with the working title That Damn France Book. Clearly she has a sense of humor. And a LOT of cats. And more than a few single mittens. Interestingly, Swift was born in Missoula, Montana, so she's got a little Western blood in her.

The book has been described as "a seasonal collage." It is detailed, carefully crafted, whimsical, quirky, thoughtful, entertaining, and beautiful. Nancy Pearl, the uber-librarian from Seattle and author of Book Lust and other books about books, is a huge fan of When Wanderers Cease to Roam. Here's what she wrote about it: "I cannot adequately convey how much I ABSOLUTELY loved [this book]....It's charming, delightful, and captivating....This is a perfect gift for travelers, those with artistic souls, those with a sense of wonder, those who are hug-the-hearths -- in short, nearly everyone on your gift lift."

I couldn't agree more with what Nancy says. Come see for yourself; I bet you'll agree to. And we hope you can join us next Tuesday to hear Vivian Swift talk about traveling. And about staying put. And about creating art. And making books. And who knows what else!

A Little Something for Everyone This Week

Looking for great evening activities this week? Look no further than Broadway Books, as we've got three wonderful readings lined up for you this week: Kelly Rodgers will be here to talk about Portland's food cart revolution and the book Cartopia on Tuesday;  Jim Shepard will read from his newest collection of stories, You Think That's Bad on Wednesday; and Molly Gloss and Bette Husted will be here Thursday night as part of our monthly Comma reading series. All events start at 7 pm and are free.

Kelly Rodgers and Kelley Roy, and their aptly named Roy Rodgers Press, are the creators of Cartopia: Portland's Food Cart Revolution. Through stories and photography, the book documents Portland's independent culture, artisan economy, and "foodie" scene that created the food cart revolution. As the authors explore the factors that have placed Portland in the street food spotlight, they also document the personality and character of the Portland carts, and, by extension, of Portland itself. With photography by Andrew Burdick, Cartopia is a visual feast and a celebration of food, architecture, creative entrepreneurship, and civic spirit.

The two Kell(e)ys have been collaborating on projects since they met in 2001. Since moving to Portland in 1995, Kelly without the "e" has worked in a variety of areas to support the development of a sustainable city, including neighborhood planning, green infrastructure, community design, renewable energy, and sustainable transportation. She is the principal of Confluence Planning. Her passion is working to create cities where people know their neighbors, where resources are used efficiently, where people don’t have to get in the car to meet their basic needs, and where it’s possible to work collaboratively on creative energy, food, and housing solutions. Kelley with the "e" is the Director of ADX, a membership-based art and design facility in the heart of Portland’s Central Eastside. Her passion is all things Portland, and she provides business and marketing consulting services for Portland artists and designers who want to make a living doing what they love.

I think I'm going to dedicate my summer to exploring in greater depth the Portland food cart culture - what a yummy way to spend the summer!

Jim Shepard is the author of six novels and four story collections. His previous collection, Like You'd Understand Anyway, won the 2008 Story Prize and was nominated for a National Book Award. His stories are published regularly in such publications as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, McSweeney's, Tin House, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among others. In his newest collection, You Think That's Bad, Shepard offers us an even more wildly diverse collection of astonishingly observant stories. Like an expert curator, he populates the vastness of human experience—from its bizarre fringes and lonely, breathtaking pinnacles to the hopelessly mediocre and desperately below average—with brilliant scientists, reluctant soldiers, workaholic artists, female explorers, depraved murderers, and deluded losers, all wholly convincing and utterly fascinating.

One reviewer described Shepard as a writer who "thinks big and writes short," whose short stories "do the work of entire novels in capturing different places and times." And the author Richard Ford says that "His instinct around a sentence is virtuosic and masterful." In an article about writing, Shepard wrote, "We need to do everything we can, when writing, to stay in touch with pleasure. With fun. With the passionate engagement that we all manage, as children. Not only because that will keep us going but also because it will generate the freedom and the energy that allow us to exhilarate ourselves, and so exhilarate others." He lives in Willamstown, Massachusetts, where he teaches at Williams College and in the Warren Wilson MFA program.

On Thursday it's time once again for our monthly reading series Comma, hosted by Kirsten Rian. This month we are honored to welcome Oregon authors Molly Gloss (Portland) and Bette Lynch Husted (Pendleton). Gloss, a fourth-generation Oregonian, is the author of five novels, the most recent being The Hearts of Horses. Her writing has won numerous awards, locally and nationally. She says her life of writing began with motherhood: "I might have become a writer eventually without first having become a mother, but it's hard for me to imagine it."

 

Husted's stories, essays, and poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Northern Lights, Northwest Review, Fourth Genre, and Best Essays NW. She is the author of a collection of memoir essays (Above the Clearwater: Living on Stolen Land) published in 2004 and a full-length collection of poems (At This Distance) published in 2010. In an interview, Husted said personal essays and poems aren't as different as they might seem: "Of course, poetry is more condensed -- like freeze-dried backpacking food, I used to tell students, a poem offers the crystallized essence, and the reader's mind adds the water."

Each of the writers at the Comma event will read from current work and engage in dialogue with each other and with the audience about their writing.

Pick one or two or come to all three -- it's a great week of literary entertainment at Broadway Books!

Kevin Desinger to Read from Debut Novel

In Kevin Desinger's debut novel, The Descent of Man, we meet Jim Sandusky, a quiet wine steward who lives in Portland with his wife, Marla. One night they wake to hear two men trying to steal his car. Jim makes a bad decision and ends up over his head, mired in a sinister situation and estranged from his wife.

The unfolding events of the story challenge the reader with a number of ethical issues that lead to the recurring question, “What would I do if faced with a similar situation?" The book is a suspenseful page-turner that will force you to consider how quickly it can all go bad and spiral out of control.

Author Bob Shacochis said this about Desinger's novel: "There are books that you can't put down, and there are books that won't go away even after you put them down, the force of their moral conundrums haunting the stories of our own lives. The Descent of Man is a spectacular showcase for both literary virtues—the riveting tale of a modest but perfect life under assault, and a resonating challenge to our own self-knowledge, the authenticity of that knowledge, which can only be confirmed through crisis." 

Kevin Desinger spent his first seventeen years in Coos Bay, Oregon, finished high school in Fairbanks, Alaska, and worked summers on the Alaska Railroad to pay for college. After graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he moved to Portland, where he has lived for the past thirty years. In the '80s he wrote for Willamette Week, the Oregonian, and a number of regional publications.

Desinger will read from his new novel at Broadway Books on Tuesday, May 10th, at 7 pm. We hope you can join us for the event.

Avel Gordly to Read from Memoir

We hope you can join us on Tuesday, May 3, to hear Avel Gordly -- the first African-American woman elected to the Oregon State Senate -- read from her memoir Remembering the Power of Words: The Life of an Oregon Activist, Legislator, and Community Leader, co-written with her Portland State University colleague Patricia A. Schechter and recently published by Oregon State University Press.

Avel Louise Gordly was born in Portland shortly after WWII, to a father who was a Pullman porter with the Union Pacific Railroad and a mother who had worked in the shipyards during the war. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in the Administration of Justice from PSU and has completed the Program for Senior Executives at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

She began her working life operating business machines for Pacific Northwest Bell, and, after earning her bachelor's degree, worked as an adult parole and probation office for the Oregon Department of Corrections. She then worked as the Director of Youth Services for The Urban League and as the Community Liaison for the Multnomah County Health Department.

In 1991 the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners appointed Gordly to fill a vacancy in the Oregon House of Representatives, beginning a long career in the Oregon legislature. She won the general election in 1992 and re-election in 1994 before winning a Senate seat in 1996. She served three terms in the Senate. In 2007, the city officially honored her many years of public service as a state legislator with an official proclamation from then-Mayor Tom Potter.

Currently, Gordly is an associate professor in the Black Studies Department at PSU. She has made numerous trips to African nations during her career and led an official mission to increase trade between Oregon and South Africa. She has received numerous awards and honors for her work over the years.

Gordly has earned a reputation as a bridge builder who puts principles above politics, consistently forming bipartisan coalitions to work on key issues. In 2006 she officially switched her party affiliation from democrat to independent. She is a long-time advocate for pre-school and for quality education for all children; a tireless worker on environmental, economic, and social justice issues; and someone who believes in the need for transparency in government. Not too surprising -- and music to our ears -- she is also an avid reader.



In her memoir, Gordly addresses the challenges she faced growing up Black in Portland in the '50s and '60s, as well as her long career as a legislator and community activist. "If you ever wondered how a principled woman lives a public life, read Remembering the Power of Words," writes professor and author Nell Irvin Painter. "Writing as a black female pioneer, she combines the personal with the political in a fascinating way that speaks to all of us."


We hope you can join us for what is sure to be an inspiring and interesting evening. The fun begins at 7 pm.

It's Raining Back Up at Broadway Books

Please join us Tuesday, April 26th, at 7pm for a free performance of poetry and music entitled Raining Back Up.  Local poet John Sibley Williams has coordinated a multi-media blend of contemporary poetry and experimental music that includes Anatoly Molotkov, David Cooke, Ragon Linde, and Carrie-Ann Tkaczyk.

John Sibley Williams is a poet and agent/publicist in Portland. He has two Master’s Degrees (Creative Writing and Book Publishing) and has served as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and as freelance agent/publicist for Three Muses Press, Carpe Articulum Literary Review, HoboEye, and individual authors. He has also worked with organizations, such as the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

Williams’ poetry was nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize and won the 2011 Heart Poetry Award.  His debut chapbook, A Pure River, was published in 2010 by The Last Automat Press.  Anatoly Molotkov is a writer, composer and co-founder of the Inflectionist poetry movement (Inflecionism.com).  He is the author of several novels and short story and poetry collections and won the 2010 New Millennium Writings and the 2008 E.M. Koeppel Awards for fiction.  Carrie-Ann Tkaczyk has recently finished her second book, Only Ghosts, about the clash of the mystic and the modern in Nepal.  David Cooke’s debut poem, Edges, won the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize and was nominated for the 2010 Pushcart prize.  Ragon Linde is a musician specializing in eclectic jazz and has played in a wide range of musical groups over the last 35 years.

Poet Jim Moore to Read Tuesday Night

Please join us Tuesday night (April 19th) at 7 pm to hear Jim Moore read from his newest collection of poetry, Invisible Strings, published by Graywolf Press. Moore is the author of six previous collections of poetry, including Lightning at Dinner, The Freedom of History, and The Long Experience of Love. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, the Nation, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Threepenny Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and in many other magazines and anthologies.  He has received numerous awards and fellowships from the Bush Foundation, The Loft, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Moore grew up in Illinois and began writing in the mid 1960s. He spent ten months in prison during the Vietnam War for refusing induction. Currently he teaches at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, as well as online through the University of Minnesota Split Rock Arts Program.  He is married to the photographer JoAnn Verburg.  They live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Spoleto, Italy.

The poems in his newest collection are brief, jagged, almost haiku-like. One reviewer called them "tricky masterpieces of revelation," and another said that Moore "elevates economy of phrase to an art." The author says the poems, which address "ordinary everyday kinds of moments and why they matter," came out of a time in his life when he was very busy, traveling a lot, with much disjointedness in his life. After his last book, Lightning at Dinner, which was a more narrative collection about the death of his mother, the author said he wanted to experiment with writing shorter, quicker pieces.

In a recent interview Moore said, "Oddly enough, I often feel more connected to the world (feel less distance from it) when I am in solitude than when I am with others."  Regarding the influences on his work, he said, "Anything that takes me out of myself is a major blessing and important  influence:  passion, love, nature, particular cities (Venice, Calcutta, New York, Spoleto) and places.  Blizzards work beautifully this way, as do mountains, the sea, the plains, certain rivers…anything that reminds me forcefully that my own ego is not the be all and end all.  Of course, poems by poets I love do that very well." 

We hope you can join us to hear Jim Moore read from and discuss his latest collection of poems. And don't forget that we're still celebrating National Poetry Month here at Broadway Books: For each book of poetry you buy at regular price, you can buy a second book (of equal or lesser value) for HALF PRICE! You can do this all month long, because we're nuts for poetry here. Or maybe we're just nuts.

Two Local Poets to Read on Tuesday

On Tuesday at 7 pm we have the pleasure of hosting two local poets, both former writers for The Oregonian: Don Colburn and Oz Hopkins Koglin.

Don Colburn was born in Georgia and grew in Massachusetts. A long-time reporter for The Washington Post and The Oregonian, Don was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. He is a graduate of Amherst College and has an MA in journalism from American University and an MFA in creatvie writing from Warren Wilson College.

His first two collections of poetry, Another Way to Begin and As If Gravity Were a Theory, won national poetry manuscript contests. He has just published a third collection, Because You Might Not Remember, from Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Cloudbank, and Hubbub. Don has received numerous fellowships and poetry awards and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a board member of Friends of William Stafford.

About his newly published collection, author Naomi Shihab Nye had this to say: "Don Colburn's richly rooted, well-hewn poems are intensely pleasurable to read and absorb. The wide span of their attention has room for human foibles and flaws as well as fun."

Oz Hopkins Koglin was born in North Carolina, the great graddaughter of slaves, and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was a community organizer and was selected as a Danforth Foundation Metropolitan Fellow.  Her reporting career began in 1960 at The St. Louis Argus, one of the oldest African-American publications in the country. Oz is a graduate of Reed College. She was a journalist for The Oregonian for thirty years --  the first female African-American reporter to work for the newspaper full-time -- writing for many years on issues of health, medical research, and science.

Much of her writing is inspired by issues of civil rights, racism, and inequality, growing up during the time when America was experiencing the end of the Jim Crow era and the civil rights movement was in full swing.

Her poem have appeared in The Oregonian, Hubbub, VoiceCatcher, and Poetry Southwest. In celebration of Oregon's Sesquicentennial, Poetry Northwest and the Oregon State Library named her first chapbook, Gardens for Everyone, one of 150 outstanding Oregon poetry books. "Each poem in Gardens for Everyone is a gem," says Vern Rutsala, "with many making a u-turn at the end that gives the reader a sudden new insight into the subject."

Please come join us for an evening with two wonderful local poets!
 

Gemma Whelan to Read from Debut Novel

Gemma Whelan, an Irish-born theatre director and educator now living in Portland, has recently published her debut novel, Fiona: Stolen Child. In the novel, Fiona Clarke, an Irish writer living in New York, has been running from her past since she left rural Cregora, Ireland, for boarding school. That past finds her, many years later, when her thinly veiled autobiographical novel is optioned for a movie. Working as the film’s consultant, Fiona unearths deep secrets, relives childhood trauma, and connects with an estranged family thrust back into her life. As her history opens upon her, Fiona must stop running and confront her secret shame: her long-held sense of responsibility over the death of her little sister.

After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, Whelan directed more than sixty stage productions and was founding artistic director of GemArt and Wilde Irish Productions. She is also an award-winning screenwriter and film director.  In an interview, Whelan noted that screen writing is more controlled, that in writing her novel she had to learn to let go and trust the process, letting her characters become who they are. She graduated from Trinity College (Dublin) in English and French and has graduate degrees from UC-Berkeley in Theatre and from San Francisco State University in Cinema. She moved to Portland in 2008.

Whelan has taught at numerous colleges and conservatories, including UC Berkeley, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, and Mills College -- all in the Bay Area -- and at Pacific University, Portland Actors Conservatory, and PSU in Oregon. She has also taught theatre and film in Singapore and lead theatre tours to Ireland and England.

Gemma Whelan will read from her debut novel Tuesday, March 8th, at 7 pm at Broadway Books. We hope you can join us! The event is free and open to the public.

March Events at Broadway Books

March events at Broadway Books are now up on our website -- just click on the "Events" tab. We start this month's offerings the day after tomorrow with Dan DeWeese and his debut novel, You Don't Love This Man, and conclude with an Irishish St. Patrick's Day featuring Ger Killeen and Brian Doyle in our Comma Reading Series. In between we'll host Gemma Whelan, John Keeble, Don Colburn, and Oz Hopkins Koglin, for some fiction and some poetry. Hope to see you soon!

Climbing Portland's Stairs with Laura Foster

Here's another recently edited video from our Fall Reading Series -- progress is happening! This is one of our favorite Portland guides, Laura O. Foster (author of Portland Hill Walks and Portland City Walks) talking about her most recent book, The Portland Stairs Book, a delightful pocket-size guide to almost all of the wonderful staircases our city has to offer. Don't try to adjust your computer at the beginning of Laura's talk to make it brighter -- we had the lights down low so we could watch photographs of some of the stairs on her computer. It sort of reminds me of sleepovers, where someone would hold a flashlight by her chin shining up on her face and then tell spooky stories. Laura tells us stories, alright, but not particuarly spooky ones. Enjoy!

Brian Doyle Reading from Mink River (& more)

I'm happy to report that the video clip from Brian Doyle's reading from his debut novel, Mink River, has finally arrived! Enjoy. Because we sure enjoyed it!