This summer Frank has worked on all sorts of film, TV and comedy projects and he’s been back and forth to LA a few times negotiating a television show. While there he’s hung out with folks like Slash, Kid Rock and Clifton Collins Jr.

Check out Frank below at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival opening night gala in late August. He’s at a 3 minutes 56 seconds.

Here’s a trailer for The Experiment starring Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker AND Frank Meeink. He’s at 33 seconds in and you’ll see him throughout…

Here’s a comedic take on everything that can go wrong during an interview thanks to the TV Fantastic folks…

Loretta Stinson has been cruising up and down the West Coast doing all sorts of book events for Little Green this summer. So the map and wheels in this book trailer above by Loretta’s partner Ben Rosenberg have a double meaning these days in regard to Little Green and Loretta.

Last week, Loretta was in the Bay Area doing readings and events at Book Passage, Green Apple Books and meeting with folks from San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium and The Riley Center. We’ll give you a report on that and other events Loretta did along the way shortly with images and videos but for now here are a couple posts that she did for the Wordstock blog recently. Click on the image and it will take you to the post…

Loretta Stinson spells it out...

Quick Q&A with Loretta over at the Wordstock blog...

So many good publications to send to...

We’ve been putting together various submission packets for literary publications of pieces drawn from Lidia Yuknavitch’s upcoming spring 2011 title The Chronology of Water. In the process of doing so we thought it’d be fun to blog about a few of our favorite lit. rags, quarterlies, and magazines. Here’s what we’ve been liking lately…

Rhonda:
The New Yorker
The Daily Beast
The Huffington Post
Salon

Kate:
Harper’s Magazine
The Atlantic
YES! Magazine
The New Yorker

Adam:
Willow Springs
Alaska Quarterly Review
Black Warrior Review
Ploughshares
Burnside Review
Sleepingfish
Creative Nonfiction
Tin House
Harper’s Magazine

Liz:
The Grove Review
McSweeney’s
The Believer Magazine
Granta Magazine
The Paris Review
The New Yorker

LORETTA STINSON & LITTLE GREEN

Loretta Stinson has been doing all sorts of book events and interviews for Little Green since it came out on June 1st. The next big dates on the horizon are late August when she sets off for the Bay Area with readings at Green Apple Books on Wednesday, Aug. 25th and at Book Passage on Thursday, August 26th. We’re hammering out the details at the moment but we know that the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium will be participating in the Green Apple event and we’ve got some other things brewing in the area as well with various domestic violence organizations and crisis centers.

Check out this Literary Arts interview with Loretta here.

FRANK MEEINK ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL’S GANGLAND

Frank Meeink of Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead has been busy with all sorts of projects. In the middle of his 20-plus city book tour this spring/summer he took time to film this History Channel segment that airs Friday night….

COVER SET FOR LIDIA YUKNAVITCH’S CHRONOLOGY OF WATER

We’re so pleased with the drop dead gorgeous final cover for Lidia Yuknavitch’s upcoming spring 2011 Hawthorne Books title The Chronology of Water — designed by Adam McIsaac at Pinch. And just so you know, there will be a book belly band available for booksellers concerned with the nudity.

SCOTT NADELSON & PLOUGHSHARES

Scott Nadelson’s short story collection Aftermath will be published by us next summer but in the meantime Scott has been busy teaching at Willamette University and, of course, writing, writing and more writing. Ploughshares published Nadelson’s Dolph Shayes’s Broken Arm in its spring 2010 issue guest-edited by Elizabeth Strout and you can read the story in its entirety on their site.

We really liked this Oregon Art Beat program featuring Hawthorne Books author Monica Drake when it came out a few years ago. It’s such a good slice of Monica, her Hawthorne title Clown Girl, and the rich and wacky literary world of Portland that we decided to put it on the blog this week. We also love that one of our favorite local media folks — Kelly Clarke, arts and culture editor at Willamette Week — was interviewed for the show.

If you haven’t read Clown Girl yet you can buy a copy directly from us for $10 including shipping and handling. And although I don’t think we really have to sell you on it at this point you should know what Chuck Palahniuk said about the book: “Clown Girl is more than a great book. Clown Girl is its own reality.”

Go clown around!

Loretta Stinson's friend Anja Spence of Miss Zumstein's Cakes and Desserts made a beautiful Ganesh ganache cake for the celebration. Tasted as good as it looks!

So many great people showed up last night for Loretta Stinson’s Little Green book launch party. Even though it was a Sunday night and on the later side with a 9pm start — it was a packed house. Some people in attendance include Debra Gwartney, Eduardo Fernandez, Tony Wolk, Hawthorne Books authors Kassten Alonso and soon to be Hawthorne authors Lidia Yuknavitch and David Rocklin. Here are a few snapshots from the night…

Some songs were sung by Loretta Stinson...

Rhonda Hughes introduced Loretta...

Loretta chatting it up with the lovely Debra Gwartney.

Hawthorne Books author Kassten Alonso with senior editor Adam O'Connor Rodriguez and his wife Sarah Flynn.

Books, books and more books.

Thanks to everyone for coming out!

Time to shake a leg and celebrate Little Green!

We’re all getting pretty excited over here counting down the days until the book launch party for Loretta Stinson’s Little Green. It’s fantastic to have a book launch party precede all sorts of great coverage from the likes of Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, The Rumpus, ForeWord Reviews and then some. When it comes down to it though we don’t need these publications to tell us what we already know. Little Green’s got it going on. Come celebrate with Loretta Stinson and the entire Hawthorne Books crew this Sunday night at Mississippi Pizza Pub!

Little Green Book Launch Party
No cover. All ages. Live music. Pizza and beer on us!
Sunday, July 18th 9:15-11:30pm
Mississippi Pizza Pub
3552 North Mississippi Ave.
Portland, OR
503.288.3231
www.mississippipizza.com

Live music from The Barkers
www.thebandthebarkers.com

Little Green in good company at Powell's City of Books.

Even though it’s summer and summer is the sleepy season for many industries including publishing Little Green has been raking in great reviews just in time to launch Loretta Stinson’s book tour. Here’s the book event scoop as of now but please check Loretta’s website regularly for up to the minute events.

Wednesday, 14 July 2010 :: 7.30 – 9.00 pm
Powell’s Books | 3747 Hawthorne, Portland, OR 97214. (503) 235-3802 :: Reading.

Sunday, 18 July 2010 :: 9.00 – 11.30 pm
Mississippi Pizza Pub | 3552 North Mississippi Ave · Portland, Oregon T: (503) 288-3231. :: Please join us for the book launch party of Loretta Stinson’s debut novel, Little Green! Free pizza and beer and music.

Thursday, 29 July 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Eliott Bay Book Company | 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122. (206) 624-6600. :: Reading.

Wednesday, 25 August 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.30 pm
Green Apple Books | 506 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94118. (T) 415 387-2272. :: Reading.

Thursday, 26 August 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.30 pm
Book Passage Cafe | 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard, Corte Madera, CA 94925-1145. T: (415) 927-0960 :: Reading.

Tuesday, 14 September 2010 :: 6.30 – 7.30 pm
Multnomah County Library | Belmont Branch #1038, SE 39th Ave, Portland, OR 97214, T: (503) 988-5382 :: Reading.

Recent coverage:

“Stinson, thankfully doesn’t allow the narrative to wallow or glorify, and the hope found is hard-won and genuine.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Stinson’s first novel is a brutal but ultimately empowering story about the long road one girl has to travel, literally and figuratively, before she can find out who she is.” —BOOKLIST

The Rumpus review
Brain Candy Book Reviews
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
ForeWord Reviews debut author feature
Biblioklept
Reading Local

Tools of the intern trade...

Over the years Hawthorne has had some fantastic interns and we thought it was about time we featured them here. A lot of our interns have gone on to do great work and below you’ll find just out what just a few of them are up to. (If we’ve left you out please accept our apology. Drop us a line and let us know what you’re up to and we’ll include you in the next roundup of amazing interns.)

Hawthorne Books has had its 10 week unpaid seasonal internships for several years and a lot of our interns come to us directly from Portland State University’s Book Publishing Program — although not all. If you’re interested in applying for our internship please read more about it here.

Kyle Cassidy, editorial director of Wend Magazine
Shannon Carson, adjunct professor of writing at Portland State University
Kyla Buckingham, project editor Help Worldwide, Inc.
Scott F. Parker, editorial assistant at Rain Taxi Review of Books
Liz Crain, (yep, me) editor at Hawthorne Books, author of Sasquatch Books title Food Lover’s Guide to Portland
Spencer Newlin-Cushing, executive assistant Dark Horse Comics
Haili Jones Graff, copy editor and proofreader at Bitch Magazine
Robert Wicks, publicity assistant of Oxford University Press
Katie Shaw, proofreader and assistant to the content coordinator at Formations Inc.

Hawthorne Books’ author and 2005 Oregon Book Award finalist Kassten Alonso reads from, and talks about, his book Core and in these two videos. Here’s a synopsis of the book from our catalogue:

This intense and compact novel crackles with obsession, betrayal, and madness, and was an Oregon Book Award Finalist for fiction 2005. As the narrator becomes fixated on his best friend’s girlfriend, his precarious hold on sanity rapidly deteriorates into delusion and violence. This story can be read as the classic myth of Hades and Persephone (Core) rewritten for a twenty-first century audience as well as a dark, foreboding tale of unrequited love and loneliness. Alonso skillfully uses language to imitate memory and psychosis, putting the reader squarely inside the narrator’s head. In addition, deliberate misuse of standard punctuation blurs the distinction between the narrator’s internal and external worlds. A sense of alienation and Faulknerian grotesquerie permeate this landscape where desire is borne in the bloom of a daffodil and sanity lies toppled like an applecart in the mud.