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Naturalist-Poet Bob Pyle on WordFest-Zoom, Tuesday, December 8, 2020.

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Watch the video of the December WordFest on Zoom below.

Naturalist, essayist and poet Robert Michael Pyle is now also the subject of “The Dark Divide,” a film based on his personal story. Bob will talk about the making of the film and also read from The Tidewater Reach, a collection of his poetry accompanied by the photographs of Judy VanderMaten that celebrates the beauty, history and mystery of the lower Columbia River region.

Bob is the author of more than 20 books, including Wintergreen, Sky Time in Grays River, Chasing Monarchs, and Where Bigfoot Walks. A Yale-trained ecologist, Guggenheim Fellow, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, he lives in rural southwest Washington.

Retired judge Ed Putka is one of our most popular presenters at WordFest. His stories may be tall tales about growing up in his Polish neighborhood in Cleveland, or fishing on the Kalama River, but they all reflect his humorist’s wit and underlying themes of the value of family, friendship and community.

Ed will be reading a new story in the second half of the program.

WordFest on literary hiatus for 2020

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Global pandemics are no fun. Along with destroying lives and livelihoods, COVID-19 has also disrupted our local literary community.

At this point (July) it is not looking like WordFest will resume for the remainder of 2020. However, you can stay in touch with the community and literary happenings through our monthly newsletter by subscribing here.

Until we can meet again face(mask) to face(mask), please stay safe and sane.

WordFest & Longview Library host Pandemic Writing Club

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The Longview Public Library and WordFest will offer an 8-week series on writing about the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning Tuesday, May 5, 2020. Sessions will be conducted Tuesdays from 1:00-2:30 pm on the Zoom Conferencing platform.

Alan Rose, who coordinates the WordFest events, will facilitate the sessions. His newest novel, As If Death Summoned, about the AIDS epidemic, will be released in December by Amble Press, an imprint of Bywater Books.

“This is an unprecedented time in our community’s history,” said Rose. “We hope this class will provide people a way to experience it, express it, and share it in a positive and healthy way.”

All forms of writing are encouraged: nonfiction memoir and personal reflections on the pandemic, but also fiction short stories, flash fiction, poetry, science fiction and fantasy, even humor and whimsy, how ever people want to express their experience of the pandemic.

The program is open to all ages and all Cowlitz-Wahkiakum residents. People can participate by Zoom Conferencing on their laptops, PC/Mac, or tablets. The library will offer technical assistance to get people set up.

The organizers plan to publish some of the writing on the library’s website and on the WordFest webpage at www.alan-rose.com, and to hold a special WordFest event where writers read their works before the public at a future time.  

All sessions are free and open to the public, but spaces are limited and pre-registration and an email address are required. You can register today by contacting Elizabeth Partridge at the Longview Public Library at her email, [email protected].

Note: WordFest gatherings have been temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

WordFest suspended due to COVID-19

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With the closing of Washington state’s schools and out of concern for people’s health and literary well-being, the monthly WordFest events will be suspended for the foreseeable future.

Updates and bookish news will be posted in the monthly newsletter. Click here to sign up for it.

Stay safe, healthy and well-read!

March WordFest: Stories of strong women in memoir and historical fiction

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COVID-19 Notice: At the point when/if local schools are closed due to the coronavirus, we will also suspend WordFest events. I will alert the WF newsletter list. If you don’t currently receive the monthly newsletter, you can sign up for it here.

WordFest meets on Tuesday, March 10, 6:00-8:00 pm, at the Cassava Coffeehouse, 1333 Broadway in Longview.

Raised in rural Oregon in the 1960s, Jackie Shannon Hollis grew up playing “house” with baby dolls, riding horses, and tending to kittens and lambs on her family’s ranch. Other than her Aunt Lena, all of the women in Jackie’s life were mothers—of two, three, five, eight children. They cooked and baked, cleaned and washed, knitted and sewed, and they taught their daughters to do the same. Above all else, they were mothers. Jackie assumed she’d become a mother too. It’s what women did.

But in her late twenties, she found herself in love with a man who didn’t want children. She married him, certain she could be happy with a childless life. Then, only months into her marriage, she holds her sister’s baby girl and sinks deep into baby love and longing.

In her memoir This Particular Happiness:  A Childless Love Story, (Forest Avenue Press, 2019) Jackie explores the conflict at the heart of her marriage, examining her reasons for wanting a child and her husband’s reasons for not wanting one. Together, they navigate their shared future, a journey of love that follows the path from how we are raised to who we become.

Jackie Shannon Hollis is a writer, storyteller and speaker whose work has appeared in various literary magazines, including The Sun, Rosebud, Inkwell, High Desert Journal, VoiceCatcher, Nailed, and Slice Magazine.  Jackie and her husband, Bill, lead workshops on communication, conflict management, and building successful relationships. A childless woman surrounded by children (with over forty nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews), Jackie believes we all have an important role in supporting the children in our lives.

Elaine Cockrell will be reading from her second historical fiction novel, Broken Promises, the story of an orphaned child from the Depression through World War II and into the early 1950s. It begins in Alberta, Canada, when four-year-old Maida and her two-year-old sister Peg are sent to Eastern Oregon to live with the Ward family. Her father promises Maida he will come to get her as soon as he can find work. In the meantime, he agrees to send the Wards money for his daughters’ care. When both promises are broken, Maida and Peg are separated from each other as the young girls are given away to anyone who will take them.

A retired schoolteacher and administrator for the Kelso School District, Elaine has published a family history and written several professional articles about methods of teaching reading and writing at the middle school level.

There will be an open mic period following the presentations.

The monthly gathering of readers and writers meets the second Tuesday of each month, 6:00-8:00 PM, at Cassava. The events are free and open to the public.

Cassava offers a dinner menu for those who wish to enjoy a meal with the readings, as well as local wines and brews.

For more information, contact Alan Rose at www.alan-rose.com.