As a teenager in the ’80s, the music—the very existence—of Prince had a profound effect on me. Purple Rain (the movie, as well as the album) totally blew my mind. Seeing him in concert in 1985 was a highlight of my life (as was visiting his home and studio Paisley Park in Minnesota this past summer). So …
Grace Campbell of Olympia and Laura Stanfill of Portland met at Mineral School in Mineral, Washington, during a 2018 parent residency week. Grace Campbell is the Fiction Editor at 5×5 Literary Magazine. Her roots are in flash/microfiction, where she has been published in journals like Brevity, Hobart, Joyland, and Midway. Her work has been featured …
Tupac Shakur’s poetry collection, The Rose that Grew from Concrete, and the safety of a diary were my entries into becoming a writer. For the entirety of middle school and the first half of high school, I was the kid who came into class late while cracking jokes or quips and sat in the back …
It’s time for a Thursday Theme, when we shine a spotlight on some of the titles featured in this week’s Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association regional bestseller list. Hark, is that a guitar I hear? Well, I certainly see a few guitars when I look at covers of the bestsellers this week. Why not throw in a shiny …
Remember Eugene author J. C. Geiger‘s road trip from Oregon to NYC for Book Expo in 2017? Over 100 booklovers supported his journey (and the American Library Association) so he could meet his fundraising goal. For Geiger’s new book, The Great Big One, readers can travel along, both virtually through a mixtape with clues and …
It’s time for a Thursday Theme, when we shine a spotlight on some of the titles featured in this week’s Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association regional bestseller list. I’m having company over tonight for the first time in almost two years, and that meant I had to pare down the stacks of fiction, nonfiction, middle grade, and YA …
Initially skeptical to read a book about a young musician with just a couple albums out (who may not have even hit his creative peak yet), I quickly understood just why, in the year 2020, this book needed to come out. Using the framework of the 4 albums of Kendrick Lamar, Marcus J. Moore writes a …
A concert pianist honored by a massive ticker-tape parade through Manhattan? Violent riots breaking out over the appearance of an Austrian conductor at an American concert hall? It may be difficult to imagine such events taking place today, but as this book demonstrates in fascinating detail, the classical music world became caught up in the …
I’d been reading picture books to my kids for years before writing my own. I’d always taken pleasure in them but never really considered what a deep art form the genre is. It took creating Libba to figure that out.First, let’s take the words. Like in a song or poem, I wanted to get them just right. …
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, a trade association of independent booksellers, publishers, authors, and librarians, announced the 2019 Northwest Book Awards Shortlist, selected by a committee of independent booksellers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. From more than 400 nominations, the committee chose the following 12 finalists, written or illustrated by creators from the …
