Author Event: Friday, Nov. 17, 2017 from 12:30 to 5:30pm
Northwest poet and literary historian George Venn will sign copies of his most recent book of poetry Nov. 17 at Book and Game, downtown Walla Walla. The book has been nominated for the 2018 Pulitzer prize
Former writer-in-residence at Eastern Oregon University partnered with Book and Game to display and sign copies of “Lichen Songs: New and Selected Poems.” The signing will held between 12:30 and 5:30 at the East Main store. Venn's other books will also be available.
John Witte, editor emeritus of “Northwest Review,” called the publication, “a long-awaited and highly recommended collection.” Fifty-one poems in the 127-page volume are reprinted from Venn’s earlier books: “Off the Main Road” (1978), “Marking the Magic Circle” (1987) and “West of Paradise” (1999).
The title comes from a poem called, “The Lichen Family Story,” that is featured at the Oregon Zoo. Venn said the collection serves as a companion to last year’s “Beaver’s Fire,” which compiled his regional and historical writing.
The Oregonian called Venn “one of the best-known and most respected poets in the state.” Prior to retiring in 2002 as EOU’s Distinguished Teaching Faculty, Venn garnered numerous awards including a Pushcart Prize, the Andres Berger Award, an Oregon book award and the Stewart Holbrook Award.
Writing about the book, Dan Lamberton, Walla Walla University, wrote: "What a detective of place George Venn is; how private his eyes are! Yet in "Lichen Songs" you come to know what a good man can make known, what an avid man can feel, and what, in George Venn's hands, the craft of poetry can do. He magnifies the landscape and what he sees turns to music–a choir of wheeling nature, students, family, lovers, still rooms. You will find much to care for in this bright man's new and selected work. "
In 2005, the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission and Oregon State Library chose Venn’s collection “Marking the Magic Circle” as one of the “100 Best Oregon Books (1800-2000).” His second collection of poems, “West of Paradise,” was a finalist for an Oregon Book Award and both the Oregon State Library and Poetry Northwest selected it for their meritorious booklists in 2009. Other works include “Darkroom Soldier,” a collaboration with the late Fred Hill, its companion volume, “Fred Hill: A Photographer’s Life,” and “Keeping the Swarm,” a collection of personal essays.
Author Event: Friday, Nov. 10th, 2017 from 11am to 2pm
Please join us on Friday, November 10, 2017 from 11am to 2pm for Light of the Northern Dancers by Robin F. Fainey.
Gainey’s second novel is a story of two dynamic nineteenth century women, each with a unique style. Fiery aristocrat, Eden Rose, uprooted from her native Scotland, has tended a foundering marriage and failing ranch at the corner of Crazy Woman Creek and the Powder River for a decade. Best friend, backwoods spitfire Maddie True, has her own woes a few miles away: widowed with a passel of children and caretaker to her addled father. Abandoned by her husband during the height of Wyoming Territory’s worst drought in history, Eden depends on her inept brother, Aiden, to see her through the coming winter. But when he disappears into the wild Bighorn mountains, she shuns Maddie’s fearful cautions, teaming with enigmatic Lakota Holy Man, Intah, to find him before the wicked snow holds them all hostage. Guided by spirit and love, their lives are transformed.
Community Event: Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 2pm
Words and Wine
Event is on Saturday, August 26 at 2 p.m at Eternal Wines, 9 S. 1st Ave. Lynn Knapp of Walla Walla will read from Giving Ground, her book about her Walla Walla neighborhood, Lenora Rain-Lee Good of Kennewick will present poems from Blood on the Ground: Elegies for Waiilatpu, echoes of the tragic Whitman Mission story, and Thomas Hubbard, known for his Gazoobi Tales imprint, will read from his collected work which includes Junkyard Dogz and Injunz, a chapbook about mixedblood life.
Author Event: Sat. August 12, 2017 from 11am to 2pm
Please join us on Saturday, August 12, 2017 from 11am to 2pm for Reap 23 by J.J. Perry.
Future nations, surviving a devastating pandemic, collaborate in the Repopulation, Expansion, and Annexation Program (REAP) designed to send one-way missions to twenty-five potentially habitable moons or planets within five thousand light-years from Earth. Four couples staff each mission with two critical goals: populating the new planet and sending a message back that the orb is habitable. REAP 23, the twenty-third and longest mission, takes eight months of gravitational acceleration to achieve 70 percent of the speed of light. Despite extensive psychological screening and years of training, the stress of pending hibernation ending in finding a planet that is unsuitable results in conflicts on many levels. Insanity, sabotage, mutiny, violence, adultery, and death mar the ideological journey before entering ultrahibernation under the care of robots for thousands of years.
Author Event: July 14, 2017 from 11am to 2pm
Please join us on July 14, 2017 from 11am to 2pm for And I Dreamed About Bears Last Night by Marcia Dean
About the author:
Marcia and her husband live in Walla Walla Washington. They have three grown children and six grand- children. Marcia graduated with a BA in Elementary Education from Washington State University and taught first grade for fourteen years. Having been raised in the Northwest Marcia spent many summers enjoying the out of doors.
This is her first book.
About the book:
And I Dreamed About Bears Last Night
Marci is excited that her family is going to Montana on vacation. She wonders if they would see any bears. Right away she makes new friends who also enjoy camping. Join her as she explores the campground, always on the lookout for bears.
Author Event: Saturday, July 8, 2017 from 11am to 3pm
Please join us on Saturday, July 8, 2017 from 11am to 3pm for The Low Road by Martin McCaw.
The night Mark Roundtree's mother dies, he's told she had a lover who was murdered. Memories from 44 years ago take on new meaning: erased tracks in the snow, a hushed conversation in the church's cloakroom, his father sitting on a bed reading old letters, and a child nobody will talk about. Returning to his childhood home in search of the truth triggers other memories and a troubling question: how did a naive, churchgoing farm boy become such a con man?