Nice to hear Portland indie publisher Hawthorne Books recognized in a recent NPR story about memoir—twice. In one of those segments where an author selects three books to recommend, memoirist Marion Winik (The Glen Rock Book of the Dead) chose ‘rebel memoirs,’ including The Chronology of Water by Portland’s Lidia Yuknavitch (a recent PNBA Award winner!) and 501 Minutes to Christ by Poe Ballantine, who lives in Nebraska but seems like a NW author, especially since Hawthorne has published four of his books and has a fifth on the way. Winik calls Ballantine “unflappable, hilarious, and so observant of his fellow men and women that his half-cocked hobo lifestyle cannot be mistaken for anything but a spiritual path.” She says Yuknavitch is a “recklessly inventive writer whose work is a jolt of energy for those trying to find their voices on the page and their place in the world.” She also selected Stephen Elliott’s The Adderall Diaries.
“To read an author who speaks about the darker parts of experience honestly, beautifully, humorously, and insightfully is more than just titillating,” Winik writes. “It makes the world a less lonely place.”
Congrats to Hawthorne, Yuknavitch and Ballantine!