Here’s a quick reading guide—and thank heavens it’s a non-election year—for #summerreading in 2017.
fiction
There’s No Accounting for Taste
By Leigh Thomas leighkaisen
Recently in my leisure reading, I noticed I had coincidentally chosen a handful of books that all had to do with mermaids or the circus. These weren’t back-to-back reads; rather they were each chosen independently over the course of a year or so, but there they were: mermaids, a randomly specific topic that had surfaced […]
Book Clubs In and Around Portland
By Jacoba Lawson
If you ever find yourself in a reading rut, joining a book club could be your literary salvation. “There are too many good books in the world to bother reading something that just makes you go . . .” Heidi Hoogstra gives a little shrug to illustrate a lack of impact. “Whatever you like to […]
Backlist to the Future: 42
By Margaret SchimmingQuizzically, I gaze at myself in the mirror. I notice half my face is covered in thick stubble, the other smooth as a baby’s butt. Apparently, after my car was dropped off I’d forgotten to finish the rest of my shave. Now that explains people’s reaction to me while in Powell’s, while shopping for sticky […]
Guest Post: Dating a Small Press
By Karelia Stetz-Waters
I struck out. I had written a terrific novel. I got a dynamite agent, and … she couldn’t sell my book. I wasn’t really surprised. The Admirer is a thriller about a serial killer with an amputee fetish. It also contains a lot of lesbian sex. I understood why mainstream publishing did not bite. “Why […]
Celebrating Another Successful Send-Off
By Kate Marshall
It has only been a few short weeks since I have last updated, but it certainly seems like much longer. As I wrote during my last post of 2013, the launch party for The Ninth Day happened on December 16 at the Koehler House. One of the Ninth Day project team members blogged about […]