Happenings, Week of September 17

This week is full of book-related events, not least of all the Library of Congress National Book Festival.  As always, please please let us know of your book events!


Week of September 17


MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17

Courtney Miller Santo, The Roots of the Olive Tree, 7:30 p.m., Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, Portland, OR


TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

--


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

Betty Jones, A Child’s Seasonal Treasury, 7:30 p.m., Capitola Book Cafe, Capitola, CA

Shann Ray, American Masculine, Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was Aztec, and Bill Wetzel, contributor The Acorn Gathering,7:30 p.m., Casa Libre en la Solana, Tucson, AZ

Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins, 4:30 p.m., Purdue University, Rawls Hall, Room 2058, West Lafayette, IN

Lidia Yuknavitch, Dora: A Head Case, 7:00 p.m., Elliott Bay, Seattle, WA


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20

Brush Creek Presents, co-sponsored by Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, the University of Wyoming Art Department, and the University of Wyoming MFA, 5 p.m., Visual Arts Building, Laramie, WY

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, Do Lectures, Campovida, Hopland, CA

Lysley Tenorio, Monstress, 9:15 p.m., Cork International Short Story Festival, Cork, Ireland

Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN

Yuvi Zalkow, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, 7 p.m., Annie Bloom’s, Portland, OR


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

David Abrams, Fobbit, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover Colfax, Denver, CO

Alyson Hagy, Boleto, 7 p.m., Old Firehouse Books, Fort Collins, CO

La Jolla Literary Festival, a 17-speaker event that includes Mitch Albom, Ridley Pearson, and James Bradley, Sherwood Auditorium, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, Do Lectures, Campovida, Hopland, CA


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

CAConrad, A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon, 5 p.m., Night Heron Books, Laramie, WY

La Jolla Literary Festival, a 17-speaker event that includes Mitch Albom, Ridley Pearson, and James Bradley, Sherwood Auditorium, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA

Library of Congress National Book Festival, National Mall, Washington, DC

Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried, Writers in the Woods, Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe, NV

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, Do Lectures, Campovida, Hopland, CA

Lance Weller, Wilderness, 10 a.m., Northwest Bookfest, Kirkland, WA


SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

La Jolla Literary Festival, a 17-speaker event that includes Mitch Albom, Ridley Pearson, and James Bradley, Sherwood Auditorium, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA

“Three Ways to Look at a Landscape,” a benefit for youth literacy and leadership program Adventure Risk Challenge sponsored by Bona Fide Books, with Janet Smith, Sue Kloss, and Michelle Murdock, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sagehen Field Creek Station, near Truckee, NV

Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis, Under Wildwood, Baghdad Theater, Portland, OR (tickets Etix.com)

Library of Congress National Book Festival, National Mall, Washington, DC

Gregory Spatz, Inukshuk, with Eric Sasson, Margins of Tolerance, 7 p.m., KGB Bar Sunday Night Fiction, New York, NY

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, Do Lectures, Campovida, Hopland, CA

Happenings, Week of September 10

This week of happenin' Happenings!  Be there or be square.  And as always, let us know what's happening in your world.


Week of September 10


MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

--


TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11

--


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

Michelle Alexander with Liliana Segura, 7 p.m., Lannan Foundation, Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

David Abrams, Fobbit, 7 p.m., Barnes & Noble, Billings, MT

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, Toronto, Canada

Lance Weller, Wilderness, 7 p.m., Tacoma Public Library, Tacoma, WA

Lidia Yuknavitch, Dora: A Head Case, with Chelsea Cain, Kill You Twice, 7:00 p.m., Broadway Books, Portland, OR


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

Casper College/ARTCORE Equality State Book Festival and Literary Conference, featuring Pat Frolander, Zak Pullen, Cat Urbigkit, Kendra Spanjer, Karla Oceanak, Alyson Hagy, David Romtvedt, Linda Hasselstrom, Rebecca O’Connor, Renee d’Aoust, Brian Turner, Matt Daly, Claudia Mauro, W. Dale Nelson, and Luis Carlos Montalvan, Casper College, Casper, WY

Celebration of Writers at Valhalla, 7 p.m., from Tahoe Writers Works, with Stefanie Freele, Steve Robinson, Tim Hauserman, and Suzanne Roberts, Valhalla Grand Hall at the Tallac Historic Site, South Lake Tahoe, CA (tickets $10)

Ivan Doig, The Bartender’s Tale, 7:30 p.m., Powell’s City of Books, Portland, OR

Alyson Hagy, Boleto, Equality State Book Festival, Casper, WY

Lance Weller, Wilderness, 7 p.m., Elliott Bay, Seattle, WA


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

~ ~ ~

Book Launch

A Growing Season, by Sue Boggio and Mare Pearl

Hailed by Booklist as "Two talented authors who vividly bring to life the beauty of New Mexico and its people", Sue Boggio and Mare Pearl return to Esperanza, New Mexico, where a devastating drought threatens the farming community's survival. Vultures circle in the form of developers who see failing farms as ripe pickings for a bedroom community for Albuquerque. Court battles pit the endangered silvery minnow against the farmers as the once mighty Rio Grande shrinks from its banks even as demand for its precious water increases.

Abby Silva and her adopted son Santiago must heal from the violence of the past to claim their futures. CeCe and Miguel Vigil care for CeCe's octogenarian Jewish parents, whose long-distance disapproval of their marriage is now played out under their own roof, threatening their once solid union. Their daughter Rachel finally confronts the Jewish half of her ethnicity through her grandparents, Holocaust survivor Zeyde Mort, and irrepressible Brooklyn Bubbe Rose.

In A Growing Season, Esperanza is an American community at the crossroads. A place where people are struggling to preserve a traditional way of life and bring it into the future despite overwhelming odds. A place where cultures must cross divides if all are to thrive. Where love is risked, secrets are revealed, past wounds healed, compromises become victories and somehow, standing together despite their differences, good, brave people prevail.

 1963. President Kennedy was assasinated. All the adults were distracted and sad. The TV sets in Iowa began to show a war brewing in Southeast Asia. Sue's parents sold the house she had come to consciousness in, a lovely little green cottage with a grove of pine trees perfect for forts and secret gardens. They moved a mile west into a new subdivision where all the trees were so puny they had ropes attached to stakes to hold them up in the wind.

      
It was lonely in the new neighborhood. Sue was ten and her little sister was only six and therefore boring. She walked two blocks to the new grade school she would be attending. Along the way, any kids she saw stared at her and she stared right back. They were all younger and therefore boring. She thought about the Beatles. They were the only interesting thing in her life. When she had seen them on Ed Sullivan she felt something she had never felt before. It was joy and sadness mixed together and it became hard to breathe. Afterward, on the commercial break, she found she had squeezed her fists so tightly her fingernails had made little cuts in her palms.

By the school there was a house with a girl in the yard who looked about her age. She had wavy long dark hair and she held the collar of a mean looking dog. They looked at each other and knew each other at first sight.

Mare was short and kind of round and Sue was tall and skinny. Mare was Lennon and Sue was McCartney. Jewish and WASP. Brash and funny, reserved and serious. Mare taught Sue how to giggle and Sue taught Mare how to think deep thoughts. They played Beatle music non-stop and spent every minute they could together. They started their sentences with "What if" and then let their imaginations run wild with scenarios in which they would meet John Lennon and Paul McCartney and impress them with their sarcastic wit and maturity. These 'what ifs" became stories, with dialogue, plots with twists and surprise endings. They harmonized to Beatle songs and Mare learned guitar.

To read the rest of their entertaining biographies, go to their website.

Buy A Growing Season at IndieBound or at Amazon


~ ~ ~


Sue Boggio and Mare Pearl, A Growing Season, 3 p.m., Bookworks, Albuquerque, NM.

Casper College/ARTCORE Equality State Book Festival and Literary Conference, Casper College, Casper, WY

Alyson Hagy, Boleto, Equality State Book Festival, Casper, WY

Ruben Martinez, Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West, 5 p.m., Skylight Books, Los Angeles, CA

Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn, 7 p.m., Alumni Bookfair & Festival, OSU Bookstore / Barnes and Noble, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio


SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

Junot Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her, 7 p.m., Baghdad Theater, Portland, OR

Happenings, Week of September 3

Here's the Happenings for this week.  Find a book event near you! And as always, if you have something to add, please email us at nativehomeofhope@gmail.com.


Week of September 3

~ ~ ~

Book Release

Okay, this was technically last Saturday, but we missed it. And, you know, the launch is this Saturday. So we’re including it in this week’s happy happenings. Happy birthday, Dora: A Headcase!

Dora: A Headcase, by Lidia Yuknavitch


Dora: A Headcase is a contemporary coming-of-age story based on Freud’s famous case study—retold and revamped through Dora's point of view, with shotgun blasts of dark humor and sexual play.

Ida needs a shrink . . . or so her philandering father thinks, and he sends her to a Seattle psychiatrist. Immediately wise to the head games of her new shrink, whom she nicknames Siggy, Ida begins a coming-of-age journey. At the beginning of her therapy, Ida, whose alter ego is Dora, and her small posse of pals engage in "art attacks." Ida’s in love with her friend Obsidian, but when she gets close to intimacy, she faints or loses her voice. Ida and her friends hatch a plan to secretly film Siggy and make an experimental art film. But something goes wrong at a crucial moment—at a nearby hospital Ida finds her father suffering a heart attack. While Ida loses her voice, a rough cut of her experimental film has gone viral, and unethical media agents are hunting her down. A chase ensues in which everyone wants what Ida has.


 Lidia Yuknavitch

In 1986 my daughter died the day she was born. From her I became a writer.

My writing is informed, deformed, and reformed by these things:

1. I think gender and sexuality are territories of possibility. Nevermind what we’ve been told or what the choices appear to be. Inside artistic practice the possibilities open back up.
2. I think narrative is quantum.
3. I think the writer is a locus through which intensities pass.
4. I think literature is that which fights back against the oppressive scripts of socialization and good citizenship.
5. I think the space of making art is freedom of being.
6. I think things that happen to us are true. Writing is a whole other body.
7. I believe in art the way other people believe in god.

I have had lots of jobs. Some of my favorites were being on an all-male house painting crew because you could see and touch your labor and it had concrete meaning and I could drink beer, pee standing up, and fart anytime I wanted; seasonal farm work like picking basil and fruit because I got to be outside and meet cool people; and working on the road crew with Mexicans two of the times I was arrested.

In the more recent past all my jobs have been bourgeois teaching gigs. I don’t know what I think about teaching. Mostly I show up and beg people to have a dialogue with me about ideas. I do feel lucky to have a job and health insurance. It’s just hard to be an isolate and do something so public every day.

In Eugene I invented a magazine called two girls review. In Portland my husband and I made a press called Chiasmus. Both are the result of radical collaborations.

Oh. And I am a very, very good swimmer. Which must be why, as my friend Mia says, I have not drowned. When pulled under, kick.
Buy Dora: A Headcase at IndieBound or at Amazon

~ ~ ~



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3

Authors in Pubs, area writers read original works, 7:30 p.m., Jack London Bar, Portland, OR

Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival, Seattle, WA

Josh Garrett-Davis, Ghost Dances, 7:30 p.m., Powell’s Hawthorne, Portland, OR



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

 ~ ~ ~

Book Release

Fobbit, by David Abrams

“Abrams’s debut is a harrowing satire of the Iraq War and an instant classic. The Fobbits of the title are U.S. Army support personnel, stationed at Baghdad’s enclave of desk jobs: Forward Operating Base Triumph. Some of the soldiers, like Lt. Col. Vic Duret, are good officers pushed to the brink. Others, like Capt. Abe Shrinkle, are indecisive blowhards. But the soul of the book is Staff Sgt. Chance Gooding Jr., a public relations NCO who spends his days crafting excruciating press releases and fending off a growing sense of moral bankruptcy. A series of bombings, street battles, and media debacles test all of these men and, although there are exciting combat scenes, the book’s most riveting moments are about crafting spin, putting the “Iraqi Face” on the conflict. A sequence in which a press release is drafted and edited and scrutinized, held up for so long that its eventual release is old news, is a pointed vision of losing a public relations war. Abrams, a 20-year Army veteran who served with a public affairs team in Iraq, brings great authority and verisimilitude to his depictions of these attempts to shape the perceptions of the conflict. Abrams’s prose is spot-on and often deadpan funny, as when referring to the ‘warm pennies’ smell of a soldier’s ‘undermusk of blood,’ or when describing one misshapen officer: ‘skull too big for the stalk of his neck, arms foreshortened like a dinosaur... one word came to mind: thalidomide.’ This novel nails the comedy and the pathos, the boredom and the dread, crafting the Iraq War’s answer to Catch-22.” ~ from starred review in Publishers Weekly

 David Abrams is the author of Fobbit, a comedy about the Iraq War (Grove/Atlantic) that Publishers Weekly called “an instant classic.” His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Narrative, Salamander, Connecticut Review, The Greensboro Review, The Missouri Review, The North Dakota Review, and other literary quarterlies. He earned a BA in English from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. He retired from active-duty after serving in the U.S. Army for 20 years, a career that took him to Alaska, Texas, Georgia, the Pentagon, and Iraq. He now lives in Butte, Montana, with his wife. His blog, The Quivering Pen, can be found at:www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com. (Author photo courtesyLisa Wareham Photography.)

Listen to a piece by David on the wonderful Reflections West radio show, read by co-hosts Lisa Simon and David Moore.

Buy Fobbit at IndieBound or at Amazon

~ ~ ~

Book Release

 

Wilderness, by Lance Weller

Thirty years after the Civil War's Battle of the Wilderness left him maimed, Abel Truman has found his way to the edge of the continent, the rugged, majestic coast of Washington State, where he lives alone in a driftwood shack with his beloved dog. Wilderness is the story of Abel, now an old and ailing man, and his heroic final journey over the snowbound Olympic Mountains. It's a quest he has little hope of completing but still must undertake to settle matters of the heart that predate even the horrors of the war.

As Abel makes his way into the foothills, the violence he endures at the hands of two thugs who are after his dog is crosscut with his memories of the horrors of the war, the friends he lost, and the savagery he took part in and witnessed. And yet, darkness is cut by light, especially in the people who have touched his life-from Jane Dao-Ming Poole, the daughter of murdered Chinese immigrants, to Hypatia, an escaped slave who nursed him back to life, and finally to the unbearable memory of the wife and child he lost as a young man. Haunted by tragedy, loss, and unspeakable brutality, Abel has somehow managed to hold on to his humanity, finding way stations of kindness along his tortured and ultimately redemptive path.

In its contrasts of light and dark, wild and tame, brutal and tender, and its attempts to reconcile a horrific war with the great evil it ended, Wilderness tells not only the moving tale of an unforgettable character, but a story about who we are as human beings, a people, and a nation. Lance Weller's immensely impressive debut immediately places him among our most talented writers.

 

Lance Weller has published short fiction in several literary journals. He won Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A Washington native, he has hiked and camped extensively in the landscape he describes. He lives in Gig Harbor, Washington, with his wife and several dogs.

There’s a great video of Lance talking about Wilderness on the book’s Amazon pagehttp://www.amazon.com/Wilderness-A-Novel-Lance-Weller/dp/1608199371/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344716430&sr=8-1&keywords=wilderness+lance+weller

Buy Wilderness at IndieBound or at Amazon

~ ~ ~

Fourth Annual Hemingway Festival, a celebration of Ernest Hemingway, with Teju Cole and Sandra Spanier, among other events, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID

Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master’s Son, 7 p.m., Book People, Austin, TX

Lance Weller, Wilderness, 5 p.m., Square Books, Oxford, MS


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

David Abrams, Fobbit, 5:30 p.m., Quarry Brewing, Butte, MT

Duane Becker, Mount Spokane, 7 p.m., Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

Jonathan Evison, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, and Willy Vlautin, Lean on Pete,7:30 p.m., Powell’s Burnside, Portland, OR

Fourth Annual Hemingway Festival, a celebration of Ernest Hemingway, with Teju Cole and Sandra Spanier, among other events, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID

Fur Trade Symposium, Museum of the Mountain Man, Pinedale, WY

Gould Distinguished Lecture on Technology and the Quality of Life, Miriah Meyer, 12 p.m., Gould Auditorium, J. Willard Marriott Library, Salt Lake City, UT

Rick Hendricks, “Fiesta Lecture: Diego de Vargas’ Strategies,” lecture, 6 p.m., New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, NM

Pam Houston, Sight Hound, and Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs, 7 p.m., Wilda Marston Theater, Loussac Library, Anchorage, AK

Lance Weller, Wilderness, 5 p.m., Lemuria Books, Jackson, MS


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

Fourth Annual Hemingway Festival, a celebration of Ernest Hemingway, with Teju Cole and Sandra Spanier, among other events, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID

Fur Trade Symposium, Museum of the Mountain Man, Pinedale, WY

William Gibson, Distrust that Particular Flavor, 7 p.m., Book People, Austin, Texas

Alice Hoffman, The Dovekeepers, Mittleman Jewish Community Center, Portland, OR

Stephen Graham Jones, Growing Up Dead in Texas, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover Colfax, Denver, CO

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, 6 p.m., Celebrate 30 years of Orion Magazine, On-stage conversation with Brian Doyle, Ecotrust Natural Capital Center, Portland, OR

Victoria Ann Thorpe, Cages, 7 p.m., Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

David Abrams, Fobbit, 5:30 p.m., Fact & Fiction Books, Missoula, MT

Sharon Coleman, The Christmas Calf, 5 p.m., Ritzville Art Gallery, Ritzville, WA

Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist, 7:30 p.m. Powell’s City of Books on Burnside, Portland, OR

Jonathan Evison, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, Jefferson County Historical Society, Port Townsend, WA

First Friday Poetry with Bill Campana, 7 p.m., Changing Hands, Tempe, AZ

Fur Trade Symposium, Museum of the Mountain Man, Pinedale, WY

Sierra Nevada College Literary Lollapalooza, with Suzanne Roberts, Shaun Griffin, the Sierra Nevada Review, and Bona Fide Books, 7:00 p.m., Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe, Nevada

Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
Fur Trade Symposium, Museum of the Mountain Man, Pinedale, WY

Jess Steven Hughes, The Sign of the Eagle, 1 p.m., Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

D. Andrew McChesney, Beyond the Ocean’s Edge: A Stone Island Sea Story, 2 p.m., Hastings, Spokane Valley, WA

Lidia Yuknavitch, Dora: A Head Case, book launch, 7:30 p.m., Powell’s City of Books on Burnside, Portland, OR


SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

Clemens Starck and Charles Goodrich, 7 p.m., the Studio Series, Stonehenge Studios, Portland, OR

Mo Willems, Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, 2 p.m., Powell’s Cedar Hills, Beaverton, OR

Happenings, Week of August 27

Here's what's in the hopper for the Week of August 27. Lots of great stuff! As always, let us know you happenings so we can post them (nativehomeofhope@blogspot.com).
 
Week of August 27

Utah Book Month, via The Bluestocking Society

Vegas Valley Book Festival Pre-festival events, August 13 to September 21 - Nominations Open For Crystal Bookmark Award, August 15 to November 3 - Wish I Was There! - international postcard project and exhibition, August 26 to October 5 - "Spark!" Poetry Contest (grades 9-12) entries, Las Vegas, NV


MONDAY, AUGUST 27

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

Literature Discussion Book Club on The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, 7 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Boise, ID

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days, Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA


TUESDAY, AUGUST 28


~ ~ ~

Book Release

 

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, by Jonathan Evison

Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where he is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism, and on how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider.

But when Ben is assigned to tyrannical nineteen-year-old Trevor, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he soon discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated adolescent with an ax to grind with the world at large.

Though begun with mutual misgivings, the relationship between Trev and Ben evolves into a close camaraderie, and the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver begin to blur as they embark on a road trip to visit Trev’s ailing father. A series of must-see roadside attractions divert them into an impulsive adventure interrupted by one birth, two arrests, a freakish dust storm, and a six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious brown Buick Skylark.

Bursting with energy, this big-hearted and inspired novel ponders life’s terrible surprises and the heart’s uncanny capacity to mend.

Buy The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving at IndieBound or at Amazon

 

 

 Jonathan Evison is an American writer best known for his debut novel All About Lulu published in 2008, which won critical acclaim, including the Washington State Book Award. In 2009, Evison was awarded a Richard Buckley Fellowship from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. A second novel, West of Here, will be released in February 2011 from Algonquin. Editor Chuck Adams (Water for Elephants, A Reliable Wife, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England) has called West of Here the best novel he's worked on in over four decades of publishing. In his teens, Evison was the founding member and frontman of the Seattle punk band March of Crimes, which included future members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Born in San Jose, California, he now lives on an island in western Washington.

~ ~ ~

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 11:45 a.m., The Book Stall, Winetka, IL

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., Anderson’s, Naperville, IL

Ruben Martinez, Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West, 5 p.m., Skylight Books, Los Angeles, CA

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days, with Patrick Somerville, This Bright River, Magers & Quinn, Minneapolis, MN


WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29

Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite, 7 p.m., Barnes and Noble River Oaks Shopping Center, Houston, TX

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover Colfax, Denver, CO

Susan Shulten, Mapping the Nation, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover LoDo, Denver, CO

Lysley Tenorio, Monstress, 7 p.m., San Francisco Public Library Excelsior Branch, San Francisco, CA


THURSDAY, AUGUST 30

Before There Is Nowhere to Stand: Palestine – Israel: Poets Respond to the Struggle, a reading for a poetry anthology, Joan Dobbie, Sandy Polishuk, Willa Schneberg, Scot Siegel, Sabena Stark, and Ingrid Wendt, 7:00 p.m., Broadway Books, Portland, OR

Maggie Nelson, The Art of Cruelty and Bluets, 6 p.m., UW Art Museum, Laramie, WY

Lysley Tenorio. Monstress, 7 p.m., San Francisco Public Library Main Branch, San Francisco, CA


FRIDAY, AUGUST 31

American Indian Sign Language Conference, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, Montana


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

American Indian Sign Language Conference, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, Montana

Helen Hegener, Matanuska Colony Barns, Wineck Barn, Alaska State Fair, hour's drive north of Anchorage

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

American Indian Sign Language Conference, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, Montana

Happenings, Week of August 20

Week of August 20

Lots of exciting literary happenings going on this week!  For a map of these events, click on over to the Happenings tab.  If we've missed an event, please let us know by sending it to NativeHomeOfHope@gmail.com


Utah Book Month, via The Bluestocking Society

Vegas Valley Book Festival Pre-festival events, August 13 to September 21 - Nominations Open For Crystal Bookmark Award, August 15 to November 3 - Wish I Was There!
international postcard project and exhibition, August 26 to October 5 - "Spark!" Poetry Contest (grades 9-12) entries, Las Vegas, NV


MONDAY, AUGUST 20

Rick Bass, The Black Rhinos of Namibia, 7:30 p.m., Powell’s Burnside, Portland, OR

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Bette Lynch Husted, Lessons from Borderlands, 5 p.m., BookPeople, Moscow, ID

David McDannald, The Last Great Ape, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover, Denver, CO



TUESDAY, AUGUST 21

Rick Bass, The Black Rhinos of Namibia, 7 p.m., Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

Paul Bendix, Dance Without Steps, 7 p.m., Elliot Bay, Seattle,WA

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., A Great Place for Books, Oakland, CA

Ruben Martinez, Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West, 7 p.m., Books Inc., Berkely, CA

Jack Nisbet, “David Douglas in the Shrub Steppe,” 7:30 p.m., presentation at the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, Cheney, Washington

Aaron Patterson, In Your Dreams, Idaho Writers Guild Literary Lunch, Cafe Ole, Boise, ID

Alex Jacobs, with Janet Marie Rogers, “Got Your Back,” presentation of poetry and music, Bookworks, Albuquerque, NM

Julie Titone, Boocoo Dinky Dow: My Short, Crazy Vietnam War, 7 p.m., BookPeople, Moscow, ID


WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 1 p.m., Copperfield’s, Petaluma, CA

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., Chaucer’s, Santa Barbara, CA

Shannon Hale, Palace of Stone, 7 p.m., Changing Hands, Tempe, AZ

Doyce Testeman, Hidden Things, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover, Denver, CO

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days, with Jac Jemc, My Only Wife, Mairead Case, and Beau Golwitzer, The Whistler, Chicago, IL


THURSDAY, AUGUST 23

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 11:30 a.m., Mysterious Galaxy, Redondo Beach, CA

Selden Edwards, The Lost Prince, 7 p.m., Vroman’s, Pasadena, CA

“The Green Front Excavation: Digging up an 1890s Chinatown Brothel,” 6 p.m., Lecture, Hager Auditorium, Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, 7 p.m., Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI

Yuvi Zalkow, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, 7 p.m., Upstart Crow, San Diego, CA


FRIDAY, AUGUST 24

Thomas Keller, Bouchon Bakery, 7 p.m., Barnes and Noble Union Square, New York, NY

Wind River Outdoor Writers Conference, Central Wyoming College Sinks Canyon Center, near Lander, WY

Yuvi Zalkow, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, 7 p.m., Book Soup, Los Angeles, CA



SATURDAY, AUGUST 25

Jessica Hecket, The Water Words, 1 p.m., Hastings South, Spokane, WA

Amanda McTigue, Going to Solace, 7 p.m., Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Jane Mellor, Delicate Availability, 1 p.m., Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Pamela Ribon, You Take It from Here, 4 p.m., Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days, Watermark Books, Wichita, KS

Wind River Outdoor Writers Conference, Central Wyoming College Sinks Canyon Center, near Lander, WY


SUNDAY, AUGUST 26

David Abel, Float, and Standard Schaefer, The Notebook of False Purgatories, 4 p.m., Powell’s Hawthorne, Portland, OR

Lian Gouw, Only a Girl, 4 p.m., Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Jean Symmes, A Daughter's Inheritance, 7 p.m., Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Happenings, Week of August 13

This is our first in the series of Happenings, in which we post the week's book and author events.  For a map of these events, go to our Happenings page.  And, please,  if you have events to add, send them to nativehomeofhope@gmail.com.  We so much appreciate it!

Week of August 13

Utah Book Month, via The Bluestocking Society

Monday, August 13

~ ~ ~

Book Release

A Brilliant Novel in the Works, by Yuvi Zalkow

When Yuvi's wife finds him in his underwear, standing on top of his desk, she isn't particularly impressed with his writing habits.

But Yuvi worries. He has a wife who wants things he can't give her, an editor who wants a book he can't deliver, a brother-in-law whose gastrointestinal disease may lead him to a morbid end, and dead parents who, well, they don't really want anything, but that doesn't stop the memory of them from haunting him.

As the structure of Yuvi's novel falls apart, so do his life and marriage. His novel and his life blend together as he struggles to pull out of the mess, traveling from his suburban Jewish home in Atlanta to the North Carolina mountains of his father's childhood, to several hospital waiting rooms, to the living room of a grieving Palestinian man, and even to Uranus (and back, of course).

Heartbreaking and hilarious, A Brilliant Novel in the Works is the utterly original debut novel from Yuvi Zalkow, praised by Cheryl Strayed as “the secret love child of the smartest person you've ever met and the weirdo who lives down the block.”

Yuvi Zalkow is only slightly less desperate than the characters in his stories. His writing has been published in Carve Magazine, Rosebud, Storyglossia, The Clackamas Literary Review, and other magazines. He’s currently getting an MFA at Antioch University while trying to trick someone into publishing his novel and his short story collection. More information about his writing can be found at his website. Yuvi lives with his wife and stepson in Portland, Oregon. (2009 bio via Bewildering Stories)

Here’s a great video by Yuvi:




Buy A Brilliant Novel in the Works at IndieBound or at Amazon

~ ~ ~

Jenny Lawson, or The Bloggess, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Tattered Cover, Denver, CO

Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn, 7 p.m., Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

Tuesday, August 14

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover, Denver, CO

Jenny Lawson, or The Bloggess, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Barnes and Noble Mira Mesa, San Diego, CA

Marin Poetry Center Summer Traveling Show, with Mark Meierding, Ella Eytan, Patricia Garfield, Heidi Joseph, Melanie Maier, Yvonne Postelle and Charlotte Schmid, 7 p.m., Belvedere-Tiburon Library, Tiburon, CA

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, 7 p.m., Broadway Books, Portland, OR (tickets required)

Wednesday, August 15

Paul Bendix, Dance Without Steps, 7 p.m., Books Inc., Berkely, CA

Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite, 7:30 p.m., Tattered Cover, Denver, CO

Jenny Lawson, or The Bloggess, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Powell’s Cedar Hills Crossing, Portland, OR

Aimee Phan, The Re-Education of Cherry Truong, and Pauls Toutonghi, Evil Knievel Days,7 p.m., Books Inc., Palo Alto, CA

Yuvi Zalkow, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m., Elliott Bay, Seattle, WA

Thursday, August 16

Kate Hopkins, Sweet Tooth, 7:30 p.m., Powell’s Hawthorne, Portand, OR

Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish, 5 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Cheyenne, WY

Cathy Lamb, A Different Kind of Normal, 6 p.m., Powell’s Cedar Hills Crossing, Portland, OR

Jenny Lawson, or The Bloggess, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, 8 p.m., Elliott Bay, Seattle, WA

Marin Poetry Center Summer Traveling Show, with Sandra Cross, David Beckman, Kathryn V Gronke, Jodi L. Hottel, Mark Meierding, Paul Watsky and Terri Glass, 7 p.m., Dance Palace, Point Reyes Station, CA

Ruben Martinez, Desert American: Boom and Bust in the New Old West, 7:30 p.m., Booksmith, San Francisco, CA

O. Henry, A Short Story, Exhibit about O. Henry, aka William Sydney Porter, 2 p.m. Austin History Center, Austin, TX

Cheryl Strayed, or Dear Sugar, Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, 7 p.m., Seaside Public Library, Seaside, OR

Toby Thompson, Riding the Rough String: Reflections on the American West, 7 p.m., Elk River Books, Livingston, MT

Gail Tsukiyama, A Hundred Flowers, Books Inc., San Francisco, CA

Yuvi Zalkow, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, 7:30 p.m., Powell’s Burnside, Portland, OR

Friday, August 17

Rick Bass, The Black Rhinos of Namibia, 7 p.m., Ellliott Bay, Seattle, WA

Jenny Lawson, or The Bloggess, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, 6 p.m., Costco Aurora Village, Seattle, WA

Sun Valley Writers Conference, Ketchum, ID

Robert J. Torres, “The Struggle for Statehood: The Search for Law and Order along New Mexico’s `Lawless Frontier,” part of the New Mexico Centennial celebration, 12 p.m., New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, NM

Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins, 7 p.m., Changing Hands, Tempe, AZ

Saturday, August 18


~ ~ ~

Event Profile

Little Red Schoolhouse, Methow Valley

Mazama Festival of Books

Festival founder Art Gresh is working with The Methow Arts Alliance to bring authors of the Pacific Northwest to salon-style conversations with the public on August 18th and 19th.

The inaugural event at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Mazama seeks to connect Washington residents with local book culture.

The festival will host Ryan Boudinot (Misconception and Blueprints of the Afterlife), Erik Brooks (Polar Opposites), Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken (Plume), Jim Lynch (Truth Like the Sun), Colleen Mondor (The Map of My Dead Pilots), “freak music legend” Danbert Nobacon (Three Dead Princes), YA hero Blake Nelson (Dream School), Pauls Toutonghi (Evel Knievel Days), and Lidia Yuknavitch (The Chronology of Water) in conversation with Katherine Lampher and Lauren Cerand.

Admission is $5 per adult per program session, which include multiple events. Kids and teens (under 18) are free.

More at http://www.methowvalleyarts.org/arts-and-events/mazama-festival-books/

Inquire further with Lauren Cerand at correspondence@laurencerand.com

~ ~ ~

O. Henry, A Short Story, Exhibit about O. Henry, aka William Sydney Porter, 2 p.m. Austin History Center, Austin, TX

Dena M. Sedar, Nevada’s Lost City, 1 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Henderson, NV

Sun Valley Writers Conference, Ketchum, ID

Pauls Toutonghi, Evel Knievel Days,7 p.m., Mazama Festival of Books, Methow Valley, WA

Yuvi Zalkow, A Brilliant Novel in the Works, 4 p.m., Green Apple, San Francisco, CA

Sunday, August 19

Rick Bass, The Black Rhinos of Namibia, 3 p.m., Eagle Harbour Book Company, Bainbridge Island, WA

Mazama Festival of Books, Methow Valley, WA


If you would like to know Happenings in your area beyond this week, drop us a line nativehomeofhope@gmail.com.