Entries Tagged 'reading' ↓

Street Books has had a fantastic Summer. In fact, I think the project went so much better than Laura expected that she and her and her co-conspirators (Sue Zalokar, among others) have decided to turn it into a year round project.

One of the things I’m most excited about in the long-term project is converting existing patrons into paid librarians. Totally awesome.

In order to get a start with funding, they’ve started a Kickstarter project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/streetbooks/street-books-a-bicycle-powered-library-for-people

Check it out!

Also: if you’re in Portland, tonight’s the reception.

Coen has taken to carrying a pencil and pad wherever he goes. He’s crazy about taking notes and writing. I taught him how to create a clue-based treasure hunt and so he’s been making these in the house with sticky notes. It’s really fun.  However, since he’s in a Spanish immersion program, he learned to read and write in Spanish. That doesn’t stop him from sending us notes in English though. The following note (there are 4 words, last in pencil) reads spot-on with a thick Spanish/Mexican accent.

I haven’t done as well as I’d like keeping up on healthcare bills and the news and the progress of Obama’s presidency (when I have a new project going, a lot of other things — like keeping good track of the churning of the news — get dropped. Word count is 83,212 words, incidentally). I have certainly heard impressive amounts of criticism from all sides, and reserved optimism, too.

But from afar, here are two writer-related items that just makes me feel incredibly happy to have a president that is so radically different than our last.

#1 – Obama sent Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, a fan-letter. (!)

Martel says:

“If there was a way of tattooing it on my back, I would. What amazes me is the gratuity of it. As you would know, there is a large measure of calculation in what public figures do. But here, what does he gain? I’m not a US citizen. In no way can I be of help to President Obama. Clearly he did it for personal reasons, as a reader and as a father. And in two lines, what an insightful analysis of Life of Pi.”

There is irony here, since Yann Martel has been on a multi-year campaign to send Canadian Prime Minister  Stephen Harper a book a week, along with an inscribed letter from him, in order to raise arts awareness. This is all documented on the website http://www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca. In the most recent post (in which Stephen Harper receives a copy of King Leary by Paul Quarrington, guest author Steven Galloway gives a sort of nice tagline for the site:

“In a way, you’re in what must be the world’s most exclusive book club, albeit somewhat unwillingly. I bet Mr. Obama is jealous!”

Read Obama’s letter on Fiction Writer’s review

#2 – Look at the edits that Obama put on this speech. Just look at them.

I’m sure to someone receiving an edit like this on the job (speech writer Jon Favreau) it must be frightening, but right now the only edits I see are mine. Pages like this are gold — it means that the text has been worked, and worked hard. That someone cares about what is said, and how it is said. The piece has been honed. Bravo.

All other things aside, I really love having a smart president.

Original article here: Editor in Chief found via John Scalzi’s Whatever

Laura and I were invited to read at Read to Rebuild, a reading benefit for Haiti put on by Reading Local and Mercy Corps, and hosted by my friend Mel Favara.

Reading Local’s astute interviewer Karen Munro interviewed both Laura Moulton and myself here. They were great questions.

Tom Spanbauer, Ariel Gore, Kevin Sampsell and Margaret Malone will also be reading. Sponsors include Dark Horse Comics and Hawthorne books and it will be held at the Writer’s Dojo (March 16th @ 6:30pm). Needless to say,  it’s going to be a rad night.

Get all the  details at Reading Local’s page on Read to Rebuild: A Haiti Benefit Reading

One of the lovely people responsible for selecting, editing, publishing, and sending Couch on its way into the world is going to be in town this Thursday.

Jedediah Berry is an editor at the prodigiously talented Small Beer Press where there they don’t even let you answer the telephone unless you have several books to your name.

His first novel, The Manual of Detection, is a fantastically good read and it’s freshly out in paperback. I love the new cover and after reading it it was hard not to imagine it set in Portland, what with our bicycle obsessions and drenched climate.

He’ll be at Powell’s Books on  Hawthorne at 7:30 this Thursday (3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd.) and it’s sure to be a great reading. Ask him about bicycles, umbrellas, first novels and getting your book considered at Small Beer Press. We’ll be there — hope to see you. Yes, you.

Just look at this beautiful cover:

For some reason in this posting at the Portland Mercury I am talked about first, but I assure you I just happen to be a sidecar at the Portland Fiction Project’s reading at The Maiden.

The reading is themed:

Love is Not Punny, It’s Surrealist

So maybe I’ll read something along those lines that somehow is contained within this new mss I’m working on? It’ll be at The Maiden, Monday February 1st at 7pm. The Maiden is a great venue for reading and I hope to see you there.

Here are some links to the Portland Fiction Project:

Portland Fiction Project on Facebook

portlandfiction.net