Central Multnomah Library (pictured here) is hosting many readings and lectures this winter with authors Kevin Renner, Joe Sacco, and Richard Meltzer.

Snowstorms and downpours, winter has arrived in full force and what better way to get out of the rain and fight off the winter blues than to attend some local literary events. Here is a list of readings, exhibits, and guest speakers going on in upcoming weeks around town. (I’m sure that I’ve left some out so please leave any that you know of in the comments!) In addition to this list, we will soon post events for our spring 2012 title A Very Minor Prophet by James Bernard Frost. Stay tuned!

“The Envious Tooth of Time”: Early Printed Works from the PSU Library Special Collections
When: January 13 – March 23, 2011
Where: Millar Library, 1st Floor Elevator Lobby on PSU Campus
Summary: This exhibition highlights original printed works from the Portland State University Library Special Collections, ranging from the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries.

First Wednesday Guest Speaker- Ed Edmo
When: Wednesday, February 1, at 7:00pm
Where: Oswego Heritage House, 398 10th St., Lake Oswego, OR 97034
Summary: Come hear Ed Edmo, a Shoshone-Bannock poet, playwright, performer, traditional storyteller, tour guide and lecturer, talk about Pacific NW Indian culture and storytelling throughout history.

Writers Talking – Kevin Renner
When: Saturday, February 4, 1-2:30pm
Where: Central Library, Multnomah County Library, U.S. Bank Room, space is limited.
Summary: Kevin Renner speaks about his recently published book. The event will be a lecture with a reading and discussion.

The Moth Mainstage-Walk the Line: Stories of Balancing Acts
When: Tuesday, February 7, 7:30pm
Where: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Fee: Tickets range between $25 – $60 order at ticketmaster.com
Summary: One of the most loved radio shows returns to Portland for another round of true! Featuring storyteller Lisa Lampanelli and event host Mike Daisey.

Molly Gloss Presentation: “The Community of the Book: Where Writers and Readers Meet on the Page”
When: February 11, 10:00am
Where: Oswego Heritage House, 398 10th St., Lake Oswego, OR 97034
Summary: Portland author Molly Gloss will talk about how her work has been shaped by the books she has read throughout her life; and by her readers, who collaborate in storytelling whenever they open one of her novels.

Writers Talking – Joe Sacco
When: Saturday, February 18, 2-4 p.m.
Where: Central Library, Multnomah County Library, U.S. Bank Room
Note: Space is limited. Free tickets for seating will be available 30 minutes prior to the program.
Summary: Joe Sacco’s most recent book is Footnotes in Gaza. The event will be a lecture with a reading and discussion.

An Evening with Poet Ger Killeen and Author Brian Doyle
When: February 22, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Streff Gallery in the Shoen Library at Marylhurst University, 17600 Pacific Hwy # 43
Summary: Poet and Gaelic teacher Ger Killeen joins Mink River author Brian Doyle for an evening of reading from their works.

NW Author Series: The Essential Elements of Storytelling with Bill Johnson
When: Sunday, February 26, 3:30-5:30pm
Where: Oak Room – Wilsonville Public Library, 8200 SW Wilsonville Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070
Fee: $5 dollars at the door
Summary: In this presentation, Bill Johnson will discuss the essential elements of storytelling.

NW Author Series: How to Write Biography with Pamela Smith Hill
When: Sunday, March 18, 3:30-5:30pm
Where: Oak Room – Wilsonville Public Library, 8200 SW Wilsonville Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070
Fee: $5 dollars at the door
Summary: Biographer Pamela Smith Hill will discuss practical tips for writing biographies and share ideas to help you research fiction or nonfiction and write with confidence.

And please don’t forget Powell’s monthly author readings, book groups, and literary events.

Congratulations to 2012 PNBA Award winner Lidia Yuknavitch!

Congratulations to Lidia Yuknavitch for winning the 2012 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for her gritty memoir The Chronology of Water! Composed of independent bookstores throughout the Pacific Northwest, The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association has recognized great writing in the Northwest since 1965. The award committee considered more than 200 published works before awarding Lidia Yuknavtich and five other Northwest authors with this prestigious honor. Previous recipients of the award include Chuck Palahniuk, Sherman Alexie, John Krakauer and Ivan Doig.

Yuknavitch is also nominated for the 2012 Oregon Book Award for The Chronology of Water. Her memoir has also been cited by many as one of the best books of 2011, including HTML Giant, Flavorwire, The Rumpus and Powell’s Books.

But here at Hawthorne Books, many of our authors have received awards and commendations for their brilliant works. Here’s a quick look at what some of the Hawthorne Books authors have accomplished:

Peter Donahue, the author of Madison House: A Novel, won the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction in 2005.

As the author of many books, including Clown Girl, Monica Drake has received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Award, The Alligator Juniper Prize in Fiction, a Millay Colony Fellowship and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship at the Sewanee Writers Workshop.

Peter H. Fogtdal has garnered The Francophonian Literature Prize (Le Prix Litteraire de la Francophonie) for the novel Le Front Chantilly. He is also the author of The Tsar’s Dwarf.

Gregory Martin earned the Washington State Book Award for his memoir Mountain City. His book Stories for Boys: A Memoir is due out in October of 2012.

Marc Mordue won the Australian Pascall Prize for Critical Writing in 2010. He is also the author of Dastgah: A Headtrip.

Scott Nadelson’s The Cantor’s Daughter won The Samuel Goldberg & Sons Prize for Emerging Jewish Writers and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize. Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories was the winner of the Oregon Book Award for Short Fiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in 2006.

Toby Olson won the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Most Distinguished Work of American Fiction for his novel Seaview in 1983.

Loretta Stinson has received the 2007 Doug Fir Fiction Prize and the 2008 Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship in Fiction. She has written one novel, entitled Little Green.

Richard Wiley received the 1987 PEN/Faulkner Award for Best American Fiction for his first novel, Soldiers in Hiding.

Congratulations once again to Lidia Yuknavitch and all the writers at Hawthorne Books who have accomplished so much!

Hawthorne fall 2011 intern Olivia Croom's iPad.

Part of the problem, in terms of format glitches within e-books, is that designing them requires some knowledge of HTML and CSS, which few people have the inclination or patience to learn. The normal business model for converting e-books goes something like this: the publisher hires a company to convert their books to e-books; the company runs the files through a program that spits out an EPUB file (or whatever e-book format has been requested), and if the “book” loads on an e-reader, they consider their job done. There’s no proofing, no checking for formatting errors by a human.

If a publisher finds mistakes, or gets enough complaints from customers about mistakes, the converting company charges the publisher $50 to go back through and fix any garbled text or anything totally unreadable. This does not include formatting like, say, starting chapters on a new page or differentiating chapter titles from the body text. That will cost publishers an additional $100 in most cases. In a business where the profit margin is already small, this puts small and medium sized publishers at a disadvantage.

Conversion companies like Digital Bindery are trying to fill in this hole in the market by charging more upfront to convert book to e-books, but the products are beautiful, designed and proofed (by a human) for readability. Chapters start on fresh pages, titles are formatted to stand out from the body text, and there are even drop caps available.

The e-book has already changed the publishing industry, and as design starts to catch up with the hardware, the word “e-book” could come to mean something that’s completely detached from what most people think of as a book. Cookbooks, textbooks, and children’s books are already on their way to being more like applications with interactive elements and tools that go beyond e-books and don’t even resemble printed books. The publishers than make attractive digital design can command a better price and survive to see the full impact e-books will have on the publishing world.

Further reading:

Comics Lead Top Grossing iPad Book Apps List

eBook Newsletter

How Should Publishers Respond to eBook Errors?

Joshua Tallent, eBook Architect founder, on e-readers versus tablets

Kindle Has Best Black Friday for Kindle Sales

Kindle Fire Revealed as Loss-Leader

Seven Gadgets That Won’t be Around in 2020

When eBooks Attack, Mass Paperbacks Die

Another intern -- Emily Shannon -- preparing reader gift packs for a book club that's reading The Luminist.

Here at Hawthorne Books, we love our readers and want to provide them with a reading experience that is engaging and interactive. One of the best ways to do this is to reach out to book clubs, which is what we’ve been doing lately.

There are tons of book clubs out there, and if you look hard enough, you will most likely find one that fits your needs, as specific as they are. Actually, as I was researching book clubs for one of my projects at Hawthorne Books, I came across a broad range of clubs, from those dealing with existentialism to those encouraging women to share the thrilling experience of reading naked. Since the weather’s getting colder, I’ll understand if you want to keep your clothes on for now; however, this won’t change anything to the fact that it’s always a pleasure to discuss how you relate to a book and to hear other people’s opinions about it.

Here at Hawthorne Books, we are excited to introduce the works of new authors to the public. We believe that the books we publish have great potential to generate intriguing conversations. Indeed, if you’re fascinated by the human condition and the intricacies of relationships, then Scott Nadelson’s short stories are for you. If your book club is attracted to raw and honest literature, you might want to consider reading Lidia Yuknavitch (wait, I hear the people at Hawthorne Books are going to publish another novel by Yuknavitch next spring).

The novel I’ve been assigned for my book club project, The Luminist, will satisfy different kinds of literature lovers, from historical fiction addicts to those who like a book with a strong female lead. It will also appeal to those interested in the beginnings of photography, not to mention those who, like the members of the International Book Group in Utah, “read to learn about other countries, customs, and cultures.” Depending on how you look at it, The Luminist will reveal its various facets, and as interesting as they are on their own, they make an even better whole. If that is not the definition of a great book club contender, then I’m not sure what is.

But there is more: David Rocklin, author of The Luminist, is excited to take an active part in book clubs that discuss his novel. He was happy to write a reader’s guide with pertinent questions that readers will definitely find useful to start a conversation or a debate. He also agreed to participate in book club discussions via Skype, which will definitely spice things up because it’s always a great opportunity to be able to talk to the author directly—those of you who have seen Rocklin at one of his readings certainly remember that he enjoys sharing stories that make for good discussion material.

So, if your book club is interested in reading either The Luminist or any of Hawthorne’s books, do not hesitate to contact us (you’ll even get 30% off list price on books!). Happy reading!

All Hawthorne Books titles

Hawthorne Books publisher Rhonda Hughes with a literary gift that keeps on giving at this year's Small Press Love Fest downtown at Portland's Central Library.

Although we may have been hearing jingly pop renditions of “The Little Drummer Boy” for at least a month already, the final countdown to the holidays is officially here now that we’ve hit December.

So if you’re still struggling to find those unique gifts that don’t involve a dreaded trip to the mall, might we suggest some literary themed presents that nurture the mind and soul and—even better—support small retailers, independent publishers and local authors. Rejoice in presents of the mind!

Books, Books and More Books!

Whether grabbing Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot at your neighborhood independent bookstore or looking for a local author’s debut foray into publishing, options abound in Portland. Here at Hawthorne, our fall titles continue to fascinate and garner praise. David Rocklin’s The Luminist explores the early stages of photography in a haunting historical novel set in 19th century India. Scott Nadelson’s new collection of short stories, Aftermath, explores the space in between loss and acceptance with both humor and heartbreaking reality.

Over at Tin House, our fellow Portland publisher, grab something truly different with their new release Moby Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page by Matt Kish. The gorgeous and mind-bendingly creative work offers a completely new approach, with images crafted from torn pages, pen and ink, marker, crayon and watercolor—one for each page of the 552-page classic. Or, offer inspiration to the aspiring writer on your list with Tin House’s writer series gift pack, including four books covering topics like plot, crafting essays and insights from other authors.

If you’re unsure about what the discriminating reader in your life might enjoy, there’s always the fail-safe option of a gift certificate to one of Portland’s many independent bookstores. Here’s just a few to check out:

Annie Bloom’s Books
7834 SW Capitol Hwy
Portland, OR 97219
503-246-0053

Broadway Books
1714 NE Broadway
Portland, OR 97232
503-284-1726

In Other Words
14 NE Killingsworth
Portland, OR 97211
503-232-6003

A Children’s Place Bookstore
4807 NE Fremont St.
Portland, OR 97213
503-284-8294

Murder by the Book
3210 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, Oregon 97214
503-232-9995

Powell’s
1005 W Burnside St.
Portland, OR 97209
503-228-4651

St. John’s Booksellers
8622 N Lombard St.
Portland, OR 97203
503-283-0032

The Gift of Inspiration

For the spouse who’s longing to write a novel but doesn’t know how to get started, or the blogging best friend who’s stuck in a rut, the gift of a writing workshop could provide the perfect support and inspiration. A wealth of local groups and organizations offer writing assistance, from one-day workshops to multi-week classes. Check out groups like PDX Writers, the Attic Institute, Write Around Portland, and the Writers’ Dojo.

For a regular dose of literary stimulation that arrives conveniently in the mail, give a subscription to a literary publication. From the most well known magazines like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Ploughshares and Harper’s to local editions like The Portland Review and The Grove Review, nothing delights the reader and inspires the inner author like truly phenomenal writing.

Dinner and a Show

Alright, so the dinner part is optional, but for the best in local literary events, check out the Portland Arts and Lectures series. Sold by subscription only, the lecture series features some of the world’s most influential and celebrated modern authors, historians and journalists. Presented so far this season have been Pulitzer Prize-winners Annie Proulx and Stacy Schiff, with upcoming lectures by journalist and filmmaker Sebastian Junger, best-selling author Abraham Vergese and MacArthur genius grant-winner Chimamanda Adichie. Subscription levels vary, so check out the Web site for dates and prices. Have a very merry (and literary) holiday season!

Hawthorne intern Olivia Croom using her iPad at the office.

The line between e-readers and tablets is beginning to blur. The main difference between them is the screen display technology. Many e-readers, like the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook, use an e-ink display, which mimics the look of ink on paper. Tablet screens, like the Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab, are back-lit like computer screens. I think the move towards tablets is the first sign of the decline of strictly e-reader devices.

Main Street recently published an article that predicts e-readers will become extinct in the next eight years as manufacturers work on combining e-ink technology with current tablet screens. This way a user can have an “authentic” e-reading experience but still enjoy the capabilities of a tablet.

I own an iPad, almost two years old now, the kind that can access WiFi but does not have a cellular signal, and I hate reading on it. However, I do just about everything else on it. I check Facebook and Twitter, take notes for class with an application that syncs them to my phone and laptop, use iMessage, and shop online with my iPad. All that said, I still haven’t opened my Kindle app, which allows me to read e-books.

I did read two books on it when I first got it. They were riddled with formatting mistakes — text jumped strangely from page to page and chapter titles got mixed up in the body. This is a common problem with e-books; they aren’t given the strict design standards of print books, maybe because they don’t feel as “real” as a printed book or maybe because they’re still evolving.

Amazon should be especially concerned about e-book readability and design. The Amazon Kindle Fire sells for $3 less than it costs to make. According to CEO Jeff Bezos, “‘We want the hardware device to be profitable and the content to be profitable,’ he said. ‘We really don’t want to subsidize one with the other.’” Still, Amazon depends on content sales for profit, not the sale of Kindle Fire’s themselves.

Genre fiction, especially romance, sells especially well in e-book format since fans tend to read these stories quickly and many are only .99 cents in the Kindle store. Author Amanda Hocking made her career selling her fantasy novels for .99 cents in the Kindle Store. This makes incidents like the release of Neal Stephenon’s Reamde especially embarrassing for publishers and Amazon. Reamde sold for $16.99 as an e-book, a high price for a digital copy, and it was so riddled with mistakes and link errors that Amazon had to yank it from the store and reload a clean copy. One customer demanded 75% of her money back. If a potential bestseller from a well-known author is subject to gross digital design mistakes, anybody’s e-book is.

To be continued…

Over the years we’ve had a lot of Hawthorne Books folks featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Art Beat. Here are some of our favorite Art Beat episodes featuring Monica Drake, Kassten Alonso, Michael Strelow, Tom Spanbauer, Adam McIsaac. Please let me know if I’ve left anyone out and I’ll add a link. Enjoy!

Oregon Public Broadcasting
Art Beat

In late October, Random Order Coffeehouse & Bakery hosted a release party for a newcomer to the Portland literary scene: Cavalcade Literary Magazine. Comprised of fiction, poetry, and photography, the magazine hosts an eclectic mix of voices. It’s powerful, quirky, and poignant.

Putting together a journal has been Cutter Williams’ dream for quite some time. While working part-time at Random Order, sitting on his English degree for a while, Cutter decided to make that dream a reality. He wanted to publish a literary journal, but he didn’t want it to be just a few copies hastily thrown together. He wanted his journal to stand out and he wanted the work to be of literary merit.

Cutter took a self-publishing class at the Independent Publishing Resource Center, taught by Michael D’Alessandro to learn about lit. journal production. He says that Michael was instrumental and that, “The journal should be a testament to that.”

Cutter also had a great deal of help from his friend and co-worker, Jacob Sexton. A graduate student in the Book Publishing Program at PSU, Jacob offered to help edit Cavalcade. Cutter sought advice from Jacob with the layout, asking him questions about InDesign. They spent enough time together working on the journal that eventually Cutter realized he had a partner. “He is essentially half of the publication, in that he helped out immensely with the design and editing.”

Cutter Williams (left) and Jacob Sexton.

Cutter loves the word cavalcade and sees Cavalcade Literary Magazine as supporting a procession of literature in print, as opposed to electronic publishing. While many publishers offer their books in e-versions Cutter stands behind the printed form. He believes that printed books cannot be matched by e-books.

When Cutter began putting the journal together he quickly learned that many of his close friends were good writers. The dream was getting closer to reality. “In this first issue, I reached out to everyone, with a few exceptions. From that, all the work that was given to me was promised to me and not sent elsewhere.”

Most literary journals receive a considerable number of submissions on a daily basis, and Cutter is aware of how taxing it can be to sift through all of them. He is also aware of how easily a submission can be tossed aside. “A great piece of literature that has a couple of grammatical errors may be thrown out after someone reads the first paragraph, just because there is already noticeable editing to embark upon, and a thousand other stories and poems to read.” With the work from his friends, Cutter saw a quality that he felt needed to be published. It was says Cutter, “an opportunity to showcase the work of people closest to me, and they put faith in me to back it up with a well-designed book and exposure.”

The crowd that gathered at the Cavalcade reading was big. (I stood just inside the door of Random Order, leaning in to hear what I could of a few poets reading.) In attendance was a circle of people out to support a friend and his dream. It was a community.

Cutter plans to publish Cavalcade bi-annually. The next issue should be out in the early months of 2012. Keep an eye out for it and check out their website: www.cavalcadelitmag.com.

Real life doesn’t end when the credits roll or the last page turns. There is always the slow, quiet drive home from the movie theater as we try to realign our own expectations with the temporary thrill of a good story. We did not just save the world from aliens or overcome all odds to find our soul mate. Instead we are left lingering in the stillness of our own choices, the anticlimactic wake of reality.

It is in this space that author Scott Nadelson introduces us to the characters in his new collection of short stories, Aftermath. A man trying to rediscover who he is after calling off his engagement with a fiancé who cheated on him, a teenage boy coming to terms with the abandonment of his father, a married couple struggling through a trial separation—each trying to understand exactly where they are suppose to go from here.

But Nadelson finds the beauty in that struggle, that stillness. He infuses a seemingly mundane reality with such heartbreaking authenticity that the truths uncovered by his characters are both touching and discomfiting in their applicability to our own lives.

In the collection’s title story, Richard Weintraub and his wife Alana have separated after almost seven years, and the reader follows Richard between alternating desires for freedom and the comfortable life he has become accustomed to.

When he finally called to arrange a meeting, the day after he visited Dawn in Philadelphia, Alana sighed and said, “Okay. I guess so,” as if he were asking her to help with some tedious chore, taking plastic bottles to the recycling center or scrubbing mold from his shower wall. Our Versailles, he called the meeting as they were making arrangements, and instantly regretted it. It was a stupid comparison, making him the defeated German, ready to accept all blame, all responsibility. Why did he feel like the wrongdoer, the one who deserved punishment?

The lives of the characters in Nadelson’s book are not wrapped up in neat little packages. The answers do not come easy, if at all, because things just don’t happen that way. We are left to wonder, along with the characters, whether or not they have made the right decisions, not knowing what will happen next but hoping for the best.

Aftermath: Stories
by Scott Nadelson
www.scottnadelson.com
www.hawthornebooks.com

A room with a view...of books.

Yet another installment of the What We’re Reading series (here’s what we were reading in July) with all sorts of novels, cookbooks, story collections and more. Please chime in if you’ve read any of these books and also let us know what good books you’ve read lately…

Rhonda:
When I Forgot, Elina Hirvonen
The Twin, Gerbrand Bakker
The Lovers, Vendela Vida

Adam:
God is Dead, Ron Currie, Jr.
Along with many Hawthorne and freelance projects

Liz:
The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
Habibi, Craig Thompson
Tender, Nigel Slater
Blue Nights, Joan Didion

Olivia:
Wire to Wire, Scott Sparling
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead, Jody M. Roy and Frank Meeink

Sophie:
The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks
Tin House Magazine

Emily:
By the North Gate, Joyce Carol Oates
The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath

Penelope:
Tabloid City, Pete Hamill
Aftermath, Scott Nadelson
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood