On Tuesday, April 12,  Robert Hill will be reading from his new novel, The Remnants, published by Forest Avenue Press. The town of New Eden has arrived at its last days. As two near-centenarians prepare for their annual birthday tea, a third vows to interrupt the party with a bold declaration. With wit and inventive wordplay, Robert delivers a bittersweet elegy to the collective memory of a dying community.

 

Robert is a recipient of a Literary Arts Walt Morey Fellowship and a Breadloaf Writers Conference Fellowship. His debut novel, All Is Said and Done (Graywolf Press,) was short-listed for the Oregon Book Award’s Ken Kesey Award for Fiction.

 

 

 

 

David Rorden will read from the manuscript of his legal novel, A Method to Her Madness, which tells the story of a young public defender who finds himself thrust into a high-profile jury trial defending a mental patient found sitting in the middle of the freeway. The attorney soon learns that his client staged the event in order to put the state’s system of forced mental treatment on trial. But she has another, and darker agenda.

 

 

Steve Anderson, WordFest regular and author of the novel, Book of Hours: The Beguilement of Brother Alphaios, will be reading from his memoir.

 

There will be an open mic period following the presentations.

 

 

 

 

The monthly gathering of readers and writers meet the second Tuesday of each month, 6:00-8:00 PM, at Cassava, 1333 Broadway in Longview. 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.

 

 

 

Charolette Conklin will be hosting the next WordFest gathering on Tuesday, March 9, at 6:00 pm. A regular participant for many years, Charolette has read her often humorous poetry and short stories that have been published in The Salal Review, The Rambunctious Review, and the WordFest anthology, That Holiday Feeling. 

 

 

 

Local writer and poet Mary Lyons returns to Wordfest with essays, poetry and an excerpt from a short story, all part of a wide-ranging collection she’s writing entitled Body Parts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patrick Kubin will be reading an excerpt from his novel, Foolish Fire, a coming of age story about a teenage girl overcoming hardships and family tragedies while growing up in the 1970s on a farm in the fictional town of Riverview, Oregon.

Patrick is a writer and lawyer living in Longview. His short stories and photos have been published in the Salal Review, The Daily News, The Columbia River Reader, and Portland Magazine. He has written three previous novels.

 

Cam Parvitee will be reading from the second book in her Black Dragons series, about the trials and challenges of a group of senior citizens and the twelve neighborhood children they befriend.

 

There will be an open mic period following the presentations.

 

 

The monthly gathering of readers and writers meet the second Tuesday of each month, 6:00-8:00 PM, at Cassava, 1333 Broadway in Longview. 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last July, Ellen Urbani visited WordFest to discuss her novel, Landfall, about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. In August, she officially launched the book at Powell’s in Portland, and then set off on a book tour along the east coast and through the South.

 

Ellen returns to the next WordFest on February 9 to talk about the tour. She will be discussing what she describes as “the fun and foibles of a book tour, ways to draw audiences, what support authors can expect from bookstores, how to make an event/appearance engaging (or, how to keep your audience from falling asleep while you’re on stage)”, and tips based on what she learned from the experience (e.g., “Don’t put your iPad in the little storage compartment on the back of the seat in front of you on the airplane.”)

 

 

 

Local artist, songwriter and performer Mark Dykstra will give a presentation on songwriting, sharing his process in writing lyrics and developing melodies for his song, “The fire burns deep in the mines.”

Mark has been performing since he was sixteen, and over the years has opened for several well known artists. He organizes and performs at the Acoustic Music and Brews events at The Five Dons Brewery in Longview, held on the first and third Saturdays of each month between 4:00 to 7:00 pm., featuring local acoustic musicians.  He has a degree in arts education from Portland State University, and practices in a variety of media within the arts and music. He has worked with several local authors on their book covers and book trailers.

 

Alan Rose will be revisiting his 2010 novel, Tales of Tokyo. The second and most autobiographical of his novels, Tokyo is a modern quest novel, following the adventures of four young people who go to Japan to teach in the 1980s. “Each is on a personal quest: Chris is looking for love; Sally is searching for an identity (preferably someone else’s); Jason is seeking a God in whom he doesn’t believe; Delia is out to reform the world—This year it will be Japan.”

Alan will read excerpts from the novel and discuss how the idea for the characters and the book came to be and how they developed.

 

In addition to Tokyo, Alan is the author of The Legacy of Emily Hargraves (2007) and The Unforgiven, published by Bold Strokes Books in 2012. He coordinates the monthly WordFest gatherings, hosts the KLTV program “Book Chat,” and is the book reviewer for The Columbia River Reader.

 

 

There will be an open mic period following the presentations.

 

The monthly gathering of readers and writers meet the second Tuesday of each month, 6:00-8:00 PM, at Cassava, 1333 Broadway in Longview. 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.

 

 

 

At the next WordFest on January 12, 2016, Linda Eddleston will be reading from her memoir, My Three Friends, which tells the story of four young girls living in the Oregon suburbs of the 1950s. She describes their choices, successes, trials, tragedies and their enduring friendship framed by the decades they grow up in.

Linda is a retired elementary and special education teacher living in Longview, Washington. Her work has been published in The Children’s Ministry Magazine, That Holiday Feeling anthology and in The Daily News. She has written travel journals, poetry and family stories. My Three Friends is her first book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Bonaudi, former president and long-time board member of the Washington Poets Association, will be reading a selection of “new and used poems with a look at what happens off the page.”

Karen has led poetry workshops and taught adult creative writing classes, and has been a member of a performance troupe. Her poetry has appeared in the Bellingham Review, South Dakota Review, Pontoon 2, The Far Field, Snow Monkey, and WPA’s Cascade Journal. Her chapbook Editing a Vapor Trail was published by Pudding House Press. A former Longview resident, she now lives in Renton where she edits www.sirensrock.com and publishes books by other writers.

 

Lilly Brock will read from a work of historical fiction that she is currently writing. The story concerns a family in the 1850s, migrating by paddle wheel steamship from New York to the rugged Pacific Northwest  where men outnumbered women twenty to one. The story gives an intimate view of what such journeys and settling into a rugged territory were like.

 

Now retired, Lilly and her husband moved from Olympia to live next to the Columbia River which, she notes, is “the perfect place to pursue her long awaited writing journey.” They have planted an orchard and an organic garden, and she wrote and published  Food Gift Recipes from Nature’s Bounty.

 

 

 

There will be an open mic period following the presentations.

The monthly gathering of readers and writers meet the second Tuesday of each month, 6:00-8:00 PM, at Cassava, 1333 Broadway in Longview. 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next WordFest on Tuesday, December 8, will celebrate art, stories, and thinking outside the proverbial box.

Artist, videographer, and former LCC instructor Yvette O’Neill Raynham will be reading a short piece of magic realism, titled El Niño, based on experiences “true and imagined” during a class she taught on the Arts of the Americas.

 

 

Yvette taught in the art department at Lower Columbia College for almost twenty years, retiring in 2007.  She believes that “art should be a part of life.  Mowing a lawn, cooking a meal, and driving a forklift can all be artistic expressions, depending on design, expression and execution.”  She lives in Longview and Astoria with her husband, Michael.

 

 

Kevin Hunter will be reading from his book, Is That the Best You Can Do?, available as an e-book on Amazon. The result of thousands of interviews, his book illustrates the necessary soft skills required for survival in today’s highly competitive marketplace. The book explains how one can think out of the box by changing life habits, and shows how creative thinkers intentionally interrupt their daily routines with a purposeful strategy.

 

 

Kevin is a business coach and mentor, and hosts business talk radio on “The Business Forum Show” (TBFS Radio). His first broadcast aired in Michigan in 1999, interviewing business guests and professionals from that area. Today, TBFS Radio airs in 220 countries and draws guests from all around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

WordFest regular Kelley Jacquez will be reading a story from her second collection of short stories set in the town of El Nido, New Mexico.

Kelley is the author of 14 short stories published in literary journals and anthologies.

 

 

Her book of interwoven stories, Holding Woman and Other Stories of Acceptable Madness, was acclaimed as one of the Great Books of 2013 by author and New York Times reviewer Madison Smartt Bell, and chosen as one of the Southwest Books of the Year 2014.

 

 

 

There will be an open mic period following the presentations.

 

 

The monthly gathering of readers and writers meet the second Tuesday of each month, 6:00-8:00 PM, at Cassava, 1333 Broadway in Longview. 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.