My brother and I made our dad’s headstone ourselves. We bought a bag of Quikrete from Home Depot. We built a form, poured the cement, and carefully pressed metal letters in as the slab cured. We kept the words simple; Loyd’s name, relevant dates, and a fragment of his favorite poem. If you love something, …
Ordinary Girls is a book that makes me feel seen. Too often, those of us who grow up below the federal poverty line spend the rest of our lives erasing ourselves. If we manage to migrate out of poverty, we do so at a cost. The gatekeepers of academia, and of literature, only want to hear …
If you haven’t yet, it is time to read Wild Honey, Tough Salt, the latest collection of poetry from Kim Stafford. Whatever ails you– this is your medicine. With Wild Honey, Tough Salt, Kim Stafford once again shows himself a poet for the people. With his clean lines and approachable lyricism, Stafford invites readers to join him, to sit …
Winter 2018-2019 was a tough one. Snow and ice hit much of the region hard. Today, we officially welcome spring! May your walkways be clear, your carpets be unsalted, your deliveries be regular, and your snow shovels be stored away snugly. Below is a trip down snowy memory lane for February 2019– all after the …
Heart Berries achieves that most elusive and sacred goal of literature, to make us feel less alone in the world. With a beautiful and original voice, Mailhot applies the precision of the poet to her prose. Each sentence feels necessary, each paragraph vital, as she grapples with daughterhood, motherhood, sisterhood, wifehood, and finally, selfhood. Mailhot has …
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, the regional trade association for independent bookstores, just concluded its annual fall trade show this week. This means that the PNBA Board of Directors gathered, and when that happens, there’s a tradition of going around the room to introduce ourselves and something we’ve read lately. Below are the books that …
The first nonfiction book by Portland novelist Pauls Toutonghi is on sale today, and Pauls will be touring the region starting tonight at Broadway Books. Broadway Books’ launch event for Dog Gone: A Lost Pet’s Extraordinary Journey and the Family Who Brought Him Home will be an evening with a delightful duo, as a matter of …
Last year, I attended the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association’s annual tradeshow on behalf of Girl Friday. I moderated a panel on building book communities and sat on a second panel about reading and influencing. Last year was my first time at the conference and I was amazed by the sense of community. Here were folks …
I am delighted to be serving on the PNBA awards committee when Leslye Walton’s debut novel was nominated. Reading The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender feels like dreaming or being under a spell. A heartbroken woman turns into a canary, a kiss on the neck leaves a permanent mark that only slowly fades through …
Be warned: To read Adrianne Harun’s A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain is to subject yourself to a constant sense of subdued terror and simultaneous wide-eyed wonder. Harun is a master storyteller and Mountain reads like folklore. She delivers blaringly real characters and setting mixed with carefully metered out magical realism and …
