Big kudos to Portland author/publisher George Wright for taking one of those staring-out-the-window-of-the-car-on-a-long-drive-type ideas and making it happen.
Just a few months ago on a road trip, Wright was thinking as usual about books and authors and readers and the role of brick-and-mortar stores, when he dreamed up this crazy plan to bring “gangs of writers” to NW indie stores for reading and signing events. It was just an idea, but he started talking about it to everyone he could. On a pit stop in Shelton at Sage Bookstore, he ran it by owner Carolyn Olson, and her enthusiasm convinced him to move forward.
The following Monday, Wright started calling NW book industry leaders to find out what they thought of the idea and he was encouraged. “Then when I started calling Oregon’s notable authors no one said no unless they had a conflict,” he says. “Isn’t that great? I mean no one!”
Those yeses included Oregon favorites Molly Gloss, Ursula K. Le Guin, Lauren Kessler, Robin Cody, Jane Kirkpatrick, Naseem Rakha and Phillip Margolin.
The resulting event is called the Crazy 8’s tour, so named because of its eight stops at eight participating bookstores. There are 28 participating authors who will appear, 8 at a time, at bookstore events in mid-September through mid-November this fall. Wright put together a great site for it here.
“So now I am herding authors toward various venues with car pooling, arranging discounted lodging and so forth,” Wright says. “A fun monster I’ve created. Ha.”
The tour launches September 14 at Betty’s Books in Baker City with featured authors Ruth Tenzer Feldman (Blue Thread); Tawna Fenske (Believe it or Not); Anna Keesey (Little Century); Gina Ochsner (The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight); Anne Jennings Paris (Killing George Washington); Eliot Triechel (Close is fine); Ellen Waterston (Where the Crooked River Rises); and Karen Spears Zacharias (A Silence of Mockingbirds: The Memoir of a Murder).
The other bookstores involved are Klindt’s Booksellers (The Dalles), Cannon Beach Book Company, Paulina Springs Books, Broadway Books (Portland), Third Street Books (McMinnville), Waucoma Bookstore (Hood River) and Graham’s Book & Stationery (Lake Oswego).