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.

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!

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.

Hawthorne Books publisher Rhonda Hughes and author David Rocklin tabling at this year's Wordstock festival.

After the smashing success of Wordstock 2011, it’s hard not to feel inspired by the power of the written word. We start reaching for the laptop, journal, or even cocktail napkin to scribble down the ideas that abounded at the annual literary festival. Readers, writers, publishers and bibliophiles of all genres convened to celebrate the world of books through readings, panel discussions, workshops and book signings. Several of our own authors here at Hawthorne—including David Rocklin, Scott Nadelson, Lidia Yuknavitch, Peter H. Fogtdal, Monica Drake—made appearances to share excerpts from their books and participate in some thought-provoking discussions.

So if you’ve got the itch of inspiration but are still facing the white menace of the blank page, we thought we’d offer some local resources to help get the creative ball rolling…

The Attic Institute:
For more than 10 years,The Attic Institute has been offering a creative haven for writers with workshops, classes and consultation groups with a diverse staff of published writers, journalists and educators. Check out some of their upcoming classes covering everything from poetry and fairy tales to crafting dialogue and the details of getting published. Duration and fees vary. See www.atticwritersworkshop.com or call 503-236-0615.

Write Around Portland:
Write Around Portland strives to make writing a community activity through public readings, published anthologies and offering workshops free of charge to veterans, survivors of abuse, people living below the poverty line and other communities in need. Check out their upcoming spring workshops, or volunteer to help other aspiring writers. Call 503-796-9224 or see www.writearound.org.

PDX Writers and Portland Women Writers:
Unleash your inner author in a nurturing environment with a workshop at PDX Writers or the Portland Women Writers, which both offer workshops based on the Amherst Writers and Artists Method aiming to draw out each writer’s unique voice. Check out their workshops, one-day events and weekend retreats at www.pdxwriters.com or www.pdxwomenwriters.com.

Writers’ Dojo:
Looking for a relaxing space that’s more conducive to literary creation than your living room with squabbling children or equally obnoxious roommates? The Writers’ Dojo is a membership organization that offers writers of all sorts just such a sanctuary, along with group readings, special events and an online publication. Core membership is $120 per month. Get all the details at www.writersdojo.org.

Whether you’re a writing novice or a published author, everyone could use a little support and inspiration. So check out one of the local workshops to get started, have a little fun and maybe even uncover some deeper truths about yourself. As our author Scott Nadelson recently posted on our blog about his new short story collection Aftermath:

“Our resilience in the face of suffering, our stubbornness in the face of failure, our stupidity and blindness in the face of repeated mistakes: all of these things continue to amaze and baffle me, but in writing these stories I have come to see them not as an exception or aberration but as the essence of our being, our very lifeblood.”

The Wordstock hot seat from the 2010 festival.

Only a few weeks away!

We love Wordstock here at Hawthorne Books. We have all sorts of events slated for this year’s festival and I’ve laid them all out for you here. Every year we have a booth at the Book Fair in the main hall and that’s where you’ll find publisher Rhonda Hughes, senior editor Adam O’Connor Rodriguez and myself for a large part of the weekend. Hawthorne Books authors will also be joining us at different times on Saturday and Sunday to chat with folks and sign books too so please come by and say “hello.” See you at Wordstock!

Wordstock readings and workshops with Hawthorne Books authors:

David Rocklin — 2pm Sunday reading with Anna Solomon; 4:30pm Sunday writing workshop the How and Where: On Setting as Character in Fiction.
Scott Nadelson — 1pm Saturday reading with Rahul Mehta; 3pm Saturday workshop In the Beginning: Crafting Compelling Story Openings.
Lidia Yuknavitch — 12pm Saturday panel My Censor Myself with Ben Moorad, Kerry Cohen and Lynn Connor; 11am Sunday panel What’s with America’s Sexual/Literary Hang-up with Steve Almond, Cheryl Strayed and Viva Las Vegas; 4pm Sunday reading with Lisa Wells.
Monica Drake — 1pm Sunday screening and talk about Georgie’s Big Break with Andy Mingo, Brian Lindstrom.
&
Rhonda Hughes, Hawthorne Books publisher — 11am Saturday panel How to Win Over Agents and Editors.
Liz Crain, Hawthorne Books editor — 2pm Saturday panel Every Book is a Start Up.

Wordstock blog posts with Hawthorne Books authors:

Scott Nadelson’s guest blog post and Q&A.
David Rocklin’s guest blog post and Q&A.

Wordstock 2011
October 6-8 at the Oregon Convention Center
www.wordstockfestival.com

A Very Minor Prophet
by James Bernard Frost
pub. date April 1, 2012
www.jamesbernardfrost.com
www.hawthornebooks.com

Due out September 1, 2011!

We know that some of you are chomping at the bit to get Scott Nadelson’s new collection of short stories — Aftermath — due out on September 1st, 2011. We’re pretty excited too so we’re giving you just a taste to whet your appetite. Without further ado here is the story Oslo from Nadelson’s forthcoming collection Aftermath…

Oslo

Jerusalem—August, 1995

The orange soda was too gassy for Joel to gulp. He’d wanted orange juice but had made the mistake of letting his grandfather order for him. His grandmother had made the same mistake, and now the waitress brought out coffee in tiny ceramic cups. His grandfather took one sip, said, “Awful,” and pushed the entire saucer away.

His grandmother winced but managed to swallow. “It’s Turkish,” she said. “If we want regular, I think we have to order ‘filtered.’”

“Awful,” his grandfather repeated. His white hair stuck up an inch from his scalp all around, so thick it was hard to see how a brush could make its way through. His skin seemed thick, too, but darker and leathery from the Florida sun, the wrinkles circling his eyes like cracks in a punctured windshield. Joel knew something about windshield cracks, having shot a BB at his mother’s boyfriend’s Mustang a week before they’d left on this trip. His grandfather wore a white golf shirt, white linen slacks, white socks and tennis shoes, and in his back pocket was a white cloth hat he’d put on when he started to overheat. He flipped through the guidebook he hadn’t let go of once in the last two days, holding it at arm’s length to read. “The tour starts at ten-thirty.”

“You told us already,” Joel said. “You told us yesterday.”

“Why don’t you put your glasses on,” his grandmother said. “You’ll strain your eyes.”

“We should get going,” his grandfather said.

“We’ve got half an hour,” his grandmother said.

“We’re always early,” Joel said.

His grandmother lifted her cup to her lips, balancing it between both thumbs and forefingers. “I’d like to finish my coffee. It’s lovely once you get used to the grit.”

The café was on Ben Yehuda Street, their table so far out into the pedestrian lane that twice now, a passing tourist had bumped Joel’s arm. “Good for people watching,” his grandmother had said, but Joel watched only his fingers in the mesh of the wrought iron table top, his pinkie able to wriggle through one of the holes. He was thirteen, three months past his bar mitzvah, a sunken-chested boy with long twig arms that suggested he might, one day, grow taller than his grandfather, who claimed to be five-foot-nine but couldn’t have been more than five-seven, Joel was sure. Joel’s father was five-nine, but since Joel hadn’t seen him since his bar mitzvah reception three months ago, it was hard to remember exactly how tall that looked. His mother’s boyfriend was six-three, too tall for his mother, Joel thought. Too loud for his mother, too, with a booming voice that bubbled up from his round belly. His mother had been going out with Dennis for nearly a year now, her soft words drowned out by Dennis’s constant yammering, his snorting laugh. Dennis knew something about everything and didn’t let anyone else talk, ever. You could say, “I ate a yeti for lunch today,” and Dennis would twist the end of his mustache and answer, “Funny story about yetis. When I was backpacking through Nepal and Pakistan—” And then he’d be off, talking for an hour straight about climbing to base camp at K2, about how he thought his ear was frostbitten and ready to fall off, about his friend who went snowblind and nearly dropped into a crevasse, but not another word about yetis.

It was impossible not to hate him, and all summer Joel had tried to make Dennis hate him back. He’d hidden his wallet for a whole week, returning it only when Dennis said, “Look, pal, I’m about to run out of gas. You let me have my Visa, I’ll buy you a guitar. I started playing when I was about your age. First guitar I had was a beat-up Les Paul—” Then he was off again, talking about his band, the time he’d gotten thrown off the stage at the Fillmore, and to shut him up, Joel brought him his wallet. Later, he let the air out of all the Mustang’s tires. After his mother lectured him for half an hour, Joel shook Dennis’s hand and muttered an apology. “A truce, huh?” Dennis said. “Just like Grant and Lee at Appomattox. ‘The Gentlemen’s Agreement.’ Most people think that was the end of the war, but it wasn’t. Did you know the last Confederate general to surrender was the Cherokee Stand White—”

Truces were made to be broken, though he knew the BB had been going too far. He’d borrowed the gun from a neighbor kid and then swore he’d had nothing to do with the hole in the windshield. His mother had promised to punish him as soon as she had enough evidence. It was only a matter of time before she found out where he’d gotten the gun, one of the few things that made him thankful to be spending the next three weeks halfway around the world. The windshield would be fixed by the time he got home, the whole thing, with luck, forgotten.

This trip was his bar mitzvah present from his grandparents, though he’d asked for a computer or cash. His grandmother had kept it secret until after the reception, when only a few family members were left at his mother’s house. Joel had already been in a lousy mood by then, because his father had just left, on his way back to Seattle, where he sold medical equipment and lived in a converted warehouse. Joel hadn’t been out to see him yet, and could only imagine him walking around in an open, echoing space, cardboard boxes stacked in one corner, a forklift in another. Before he drove to the airport, his father had clapped him on the back and said, “Way to go, kiddo. You really nailed that haftarah.” But Dennis had been close by, and though he wasn’t even Jewish, started talking about the origins of the Kabbalah. Joel wanted to pull his father away, talk to him in private, ask him about the warehouse and when he might visit, but his father seemed interested in what Dennis was saying, nodding often and encouraging him with a mumbled, “Is that so?” and “I had no idea.” Didn’t he know better than to humor the guy? Didn’t he want to knock him on his ass for the nerve of dating his ex-wife? Soon his father checked his watch and said, “I’d love to hear more, but it’ll have to wait till next time. Come give me a hug, JoJo. Have fun opening your presents.”

Then his grandmother came to him with an envelope, smiling in a tense, close-lipped way that tried to hide her excitement but couldn’t. She looked much younger than his grandfather, partly because she dyed her hair a reddish brown and kept it up in a wispy sort of perm, partly because her skin, though slack over cheeks and chin, was the softest he’d ever felt. When she kissed him he smelled baby oil. The envelope wasn’t heavy, which meant most likely there was a check inside, not cash. A check would go straight into his bank account, not to be seen again until college, but he’d already pocketed three hundred-dollar bills his Uncle Ron, a dentist, had slipped him on the sly. But now, instead of a check, he pulled out a plane ticket. Seattle, he thought, and got ready to hug his grandmother. But then he saw the airline: El Al. “We leave on August first!” his grandmother squealed, and his grandfather said to people around him, “It nearly killed the woman to keep a secret this long. It’s all I’ve heard about for six months.” Joel missed his father already and wanted to cry, but his grandmother was smiling so brightly, the relatives saying what a wonderful gift it was, especially now with all the recent developments, peace finally within reach, that he did hug her and said thanks to his grandfather, who took the ticket from him, saying he’d keep it safe until they left. “The thing about Israel,” Dennis said. “It’s not just the history that’s complicated, or the politics, but the people who live there—”

And that’s when Joel had had it, heading up to his room, leaving the rest of his presents for another day.

Now he finished his orange soda and tried to belch, but the gas just rattled around his chest and leaked out silently. His grandmother smiled at him, black grounds caught between her front teeth, top and bottom. It was still morning and already too hot, hotter even than Fort Lauderdale, where his grandparents lived between a golf course and a pond shared by exotic birds and an alligator. Already his grandfather had the scowling, impatient look that for the past three days hadn’t shown up until afternoon. All around them were air-conditioned buildings, but here they were, sitting under the broiling sun like morons. Across the street was McDavid’s, a name Joel found less funny than curious, wondering what the Jewish version of the Big Mac would taste like, whether there was a Ronald McDavid with a beard and sidelocks. Twice so far he’d asked if they could eat there, but his grandfather said fast food would clog your arteries whether it was kosher or not.

Joel had never thought much about coming to Israel, though his Hebrew school teacher, Mrs. Nachman, had talked about it constantly, closing her eyes and saying wistfully, “Next year in Jerusalem,” even when it was six months until Passover. The walls of her classrooms were covered in maps made between 1967 and 1978, none with the Green Line printed in, just a solid mass from the Golan to Sinai. “If we give up land for peace, the six million die in vain,” she told the class. “When the next Holocaust comes, you’ll be glad there’s enough room for all of us.” Another time she said, “The Arabs, they breed like vermin. That’s why you have to have as many children as you can.” She called Rabin a traitor, Clinton a fool, Arafat the spawn of demons. Joel didn’t question what she said, didn’t care one way or another, until she started talking about intermarriage. “If you want to get divorced, go ahead, marry a gentile. If you want to destroy three thousand years of history. If you want to spit on the graves of the six million.” The Jewish girls Joel knew were all flat-chested and loudmouthed, and he had no intention of marrying any of them. At his bar mitzvah he’d danced with three girls from his middle school, all blonde, all Christian, all giggling at the blessings over the wine and bread. Afterward, Dennis said, “You’ve got an eye for the shiksas, huh, pal? You know about Portnoy’s complaint?” Before he could go on, Joel said, “I’m not complaining,” and all the adults around him laughed.

He knew he should be grateful to his grandparents for bringing him here, knew he should feel a connection to the land Mrs. Nachman called his birthright. But all they did was take tours of one part of the city or another, and it was like being around Dennis for hours on end, getting piled with dates and details when all he wanted was to let his head be empty for a change. It was a hundred degrees and he had to wear long pants everywhere or else get turned away from the churches and synagogues and mosques. They had three weeks of tours planned, to the Galilee, to the Negev, to the Mediterranean coast, and he thought he’d go crazy. The only place he wanted to go was the Dead Sea, to find out if he really could float because of all the salt, but that trip wasn’t planned until their last week, and by then he’d just want to stay at the hotel, floating in the pool.

All he liked so far were the shops, the ones here on Ben Yehuda Street with silver and ceramic menorahs, the ones in the Arab bazaar that sold spices and pungent meat and strangely shaped pipes. He’d already gotten his grandfather to buy him a pair of sandals and a T-shirt: The Grateful Dead play the Dead Sea. He wore the shirt now. Last summer he’d had a camp counselor who’d worn Grateful Dead T-shirts every day, and though he’d never heard the music, Joel mimicked the lazy way the counselor had walked, swinging his arms loosely from the shoulders. He liked the picture on the front, a skeleton wrapped in robes, riding a camel. His grandfather hadn’t wanted to buy it and peered at it disdainfully now. “You look like the Grim Reaper,” he said.

“The Grim Reaper doesn’t ride a camel,” Joel said.

“How do you know? Ever seen him?”

“He carries a scythe,” Joel said.

“Maybe he’s got it hidden under his robes,” his grandfather said.

“I think it’s an interesting shirt,” his grandmother said. Now, along with coffee grounds, lipstick had smeared on her teeth. “It’s clever.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” his grandfather said. “Why would a dead person be grateful?”

“How would you know?” Joel asked. “Ever met one?”

“Drink up already,” his grandfather said. “It’s time to go.”

A group of soldiers was passing as they stood, his grandfather puzzling over the bill, holding each coin up to one eye before laying it on the tray. There were five of them, and two were girls. Joel’s grandfather had said he could never get used to seeing guns everywhere he turned, but Joel couldn’t get over the sight of girls carrying them, the rifles almost half their size, their green uniforms calling attention to tan skin and big dark eyes. If he lived here, he thought, maybe he’d change his mind about intermarriage. His grandmother turned her smile on them, and Joel flinched at the sight of her stained teeth. She held up her camera and said, “Would you mind?” They gathered together and grinned patiently, one of the boys making a face, another holding two fingers over one of the girls’ heads.

“No, no,” his grandmother said. “Be serious. I want you to look like soldiers.”

The tallest of the boys winked at Joel and said, “Yes, yes, be serious. No time for jokes.” He called out a command in Hebrew, and all of them stood at attention.

“Couldn’t one of you hold your gun in front?” his grandmother asked. The two girls unslung their rifles, gripping black metal in tiny brown hands.
“Joel, go stand with them.” He shook his head. “Go on.”

“Yes, come,” one of the girls said.

The tall boy said, “Come, Mr. Grateful Dead. We’ll make a soldier of you.” His face burned. His grandmother’s teeth were repulsive, her eyebrows arched over the top of the camera. His grandfather was looking at his watch. One of the girls put a hand on his shoulder, and he tried to smile.

“You couldn’t give him a gun to hold, could you?” his grandmother asked.

“No, of course not. Just another second. Okay. Now smile. Wait, no, don’t smile. Be serious.”

“Just take it already,” Joel said. The camera snapped while his mouth was open.

One of the girls squeezed his chin between two fingers, the other tugged his ear. “Have a nice day, Captain Groovy,” the darker of the two said.

“Watch out for the brown acid.”

“A souvenir,” the prettier one said, and handed him a golden rifle shell, the length and width of his forefinger.

“Let’s go,” his grandfather said. “If we’re late, I’m not talking to either of you for the rest of the day.”

Yesterday’s tour had been called “Archaeological Wonders of the Old City.” Today’s was “Religious Communities of Jerusalem,” and they looked at the same stone walls, the same churches and synagogues and mosques. But Joel liked today’s tour guide better than yesterday’s, a mumbly woman with a thick accent he could hardly understand. Today’s guide was Lou, a man as old as his grandfather, only taller, almost as tall as Dennis, with a limp and a nasal voice like that of Joel’s Uncle Ron, who lived in the Bronx. “I came over in ’48,” Lou said. “Wanted to be a big-shot hero.” He patted his thigh. “Careful what you ask for.”

Lou asked Joel his name, and for the rest of the tour called him, “Mr. Schreiber.” He talked about history, and just as Joel’s head began to swim with facts, with images of Dennis’s mustache, of the Mustang and the hole in its windshield, said, “It’s not boring at all, is it, Mr. Schreiber. It’s the reason you’re here.” And Joel nodded.

Half the people on the tour were European, and they squinted and strained to understand what Lou was saying. Three young men from Nicaragua fingered crucifixes hanging around their necks and asked every few minutes, “Via Dolorosa?”

“Not yet,” Lou said. “First, we’re going to visit—” He lowered his voice and finished dramatically, “The Armenian Quarter!” The Nicaraguans shrugged and shuffled their feet. Lou pointed out bullet holes above the Zion Gate—some as wide around as Joel’s wrist and deep enough for him to put his whole fist in—and said, “The last ones we’ll ever have here, right, Mr. Schreiber?”

“How come you didn’t come over in ’48?” Joel asked his grandfather. “Didn’t you want to be a hero?”

His grandfather forced his hat down over his springy hair. “I had a family to take care of.”

“Big deal,” Joel said.

“I’m not like some people—”

“Charlie,” his grandmother said, and his grandfather shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away.

At the Western Wall, Joel thought about sticking a note between the cracks as he saw others doing, something like “Get rid of Dennis,” but he knew God didn’t make things so easy. If anything He’d make Joel suffer through another year of Dennis just for asking. Instead he tried to measure how big each stone block was—his whole arm span, plus half another. He spent some time staring up at pigeons roosting on the stones above, and wondered whether it would be a secret blessing or an omen of disaster to get crapped on at the holiest place in the world. When he rejoined the group, Lou said, “You’re quite the mystic, huh, Mr. Schreiber?” Joel didn’t know how to answer, so he shrugged. “I know what you mean,” Lou said. “I don’t have a religious bone in my body, but when I saw that wall for the first time in ’67, man, I fell down on my knees and cried. Okay, everybody. Now we’re about to enter—” Again the pause, the lowering of his voice. “The Muslim Quarter!”

“I still can’t believe where we are,” his grandmother said for the third time today, and maybe the twentieth since their plane had landed.

“Believe it already,” his grandfather said. “Because there’s nowhere else we could possibly be.”

But Joel couldn’t, either. Even after three days, he couldn’t. In his mind he pictured a globe, the little strip of land no more than half the size of his thumbnail. He pictured his trajectory, from New Jersey to the JFK Airport, and then out over the ocean, but where did they go from there? Across Europe? Straight down the length of the Mediterranean? He pictured Mrs. Nachman’s maps, but in no way could he connect them with the crowded bazaar, the racks of rugs and leather purses, the strange smells of spices and rotting meat, the sound of a kitten crying soon drowned out by a boy shouting, “Alo, alo, alo!” before barreling past them with an oversized wheelbarrow. He had the same trouble when he located Seattle on the globe in his bedroom and tried to link the word with his father. He had to spread his thumb and forefinger as far apart as they would stretch to bridge the distance between them. The only time he ever listened to Dennis was when Dennis described Seattle, which of course he’d been to a dozen times. Occasionally Joel would even prompt him, asking how tall was the Space Needle, how far away was Mount Rainier. “Your dad picked one of the prettiest places in the world to live,” Dennis said, and for a minute Joel thought maybe he could actually like the man, that they could be something short of friends. But then Dennis went on, “When you go visit him, you’ll have to take the ferry to the San Juans. You might see some Orcas. Did you know that Orcas are probably the smartest animals in the world? Some people think dolphins are smarter, but—”

Joel had called his father the night before he’d left and asked if he could come visit when he got home. “Doesn’t school start right after?” his father asked.

“I don’t care,” Joel said.

“I’m sure your teachers care. We’ll get you out here sometime soon.”

“Thanksgiving?”

“Maybe,” his father said. “I’ll check out my schedule, and we’ll talk about it when you get back. I gotta go now, JoJo. You have a great time with all the zealots. Send me some postcards. And don’t let your grandparents drive you too nuts.”

That night at dinner he spilled a full glass of Coke on Dennis’s lap. His mother lectured him in the same tired voice she used to use with his father those late nights Joel stayed up listening at the door of his room, the words lost to him, the tone clear and hopeless. Her eyes were full of tears. He would have taken it back then if he could have. “It was an accident,” he said when she told him to apologize. He repeated it enough times that he began to believe it himself. Tears formed in his own eyes. “I swear.”

From the sink, where he was mopping up his crotch with a dishtowel, Dennis said, “If he says it was an accident, then I believe him.” His voice was softer than usual, almost as tired as Joel’s mother’s, with a little tremble to it that made Joel furious. The last thing in the world he wanted was to feel sorry for the man. Dennis kept his back to them, fanning the wet spot with a pot lid. “No need to apologize. We’ll just let it go, okay, pal?”

It was lunchtime now, and his grandmother handed him a pita stuffed with falafel. He’d eaten falafel three days in a row now and didn’t see how it was any better for his arteries than McDavid’s. This one tasted sour, maybe because he was eating it standing up, staring at a row of hanging goat heads, no skin but eyes intact. Beneath the sound of sizzling oil he heard the kitten still but couldn’t spot it. His own sweat stunk worse than the rotting meat, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to wear the Grateful Dead T-shirt again until after he’d gotten home and washed it, and then only when Dennis wasn’t around to see it and start in about rock concerts and the Fillmore. The soda can his grandmother handed him had a lemon on its side, but what came out of it tasted like licorice.

“It’s really remarkable,” his grandmother said. “Don’t you think? That they can all live together like this?”

“Anyone can live together when soldiers are walking around with machine guns,” his grandfather said. “I don’t see how you can trust these people. Doesn’t anyone remember the Olympics? The whole team, slaughtered.”

“These are our friends,” Lou said, and just then, as if to prove it, a shopkeeper stepped out of a stone alcove choked with shelves of silver trinkets, grabbed Lou’s hand, and pumped it vigorously.

“My friend!” the shopkeeper said. “My friend! It’s too long, too long. When are you coming to see us?” He was as short as Joel, mostly bald, with a patchy mustache that seemed to grow straight out of his wide nostrils. He turned to the group and said, “You like Mr. Lou’s tour? The best tour. The best man. Yes.”

“Get outta here,” Lou said, brushing away the compliment with a backhanded wave.

The shopkeeper’s smile, surprisingly white teeth fringed by the gray hairs of his mustache, turned toward Joel. “You are Jew?” he asked. Joel blinked. Was he supposed to answer? He glanced at Lou, at his grandparents, looking for a sign, but found none. He thought of Mrs. Nachman, who warned that anti-Semitism lurked around every corner, who told the class over and over, “Never apologize for who you are.” He nodded. The shopkeeper threw open his arms, hugged him, and said, “I am Arab! We are brothers!” Then he fixed a kufiya on Joel’s head, borrowed his grandmother’s camera, and took a picture of him standing next to Lou. Joel wondered what Mrs. Nachman would think when she saw it—spawn of demons!—and felt some kind of pleasure at the thought of her horror. When Joel tried to return the cloth, the shopkeeper shook his head. “For you, for you.” To Joel’s grandfather he said, “Twenty shekels.”

Lou herded them out of the bazaar and announced, finally, “Via Dolorosa!” The three Nicaraguans dropped to their knees and crawled. Lou greeted a monk in a brown robe and rope sandals, who was renting man-sized crosses for Christians to carry. Joel’s grandfather tugged on his hat and said, “I don’t trust any of them.”

“So?” Joel said. “Why didn’t you come do something about it in ’48?”

“I told you already,” his grandfather said. “I had a family to take care of.”

“Charlie,” his grandmother warned again, but this time his grandfather went on.

“I’m not like some people. Move to Seattle. Abandon their families. Try to forget they ever had kids. I always knew he was a louse, from the first time I met him.”

“Charlie, please,” his grandmother said.

“You think he paid a dime for that fancy reception of yours, for that awful D.J. with the music so loud?” His grandfather took off his hat and smacked it against a thigh. “You think he sends the checks for support like he’s required by law? If it weren’t for me and that big doofus who loves your mother so much you’d both be in the poorhouse. No grim reaper T-shirts or anything else to wear.”

Now it was Joel’s turn to shove his hands in his pockets. He fingered the bullet the girl soldier had given him, along with a pair of loose shekels. He tasted the sour falafel again, and his stomach gave a sudden roll. Above him was a stone arch bridging the street, a window in the middle from which tinny dance music trickled down, the beat unexpectedly in rhythm with the sound of a power drill he could hear but couldn’t see. He could already picture the hole the rifle cartridge would make in the Mustang’s windshield, gaping next to the BBs. There were no such things as truces. Lou said, “All right, folks. Now it’s on to—the Christian Quarter!”

The last stop on the tour was Mea She’arim. It was a relief to get out of the Old City, the dusty air held in by dusty walls, but outside Joel didn’t have any easier time breathing. His insides felt shaky, with anger, he guessed, though it bothered him that being angry made him want to cry. He hung back from the group, as far away from his grandfather as he could get. The Nicaraguans had stayed behind at the Holy Sepulchre, and somehow this, too, bothered him—everything, it seemed, was falling apart. Lou called,

“Mr. Schreiber, you’re missing out back there. I’ve got important stuff to tell you.”

His grandmother said, “Joel, honey, your grandfather didn’t mean it.”

“Let him pout,” his grandfather said.

They crossed a busy arterial clogged with traffic, drivers honking and shouting as Lou waved the group across. Out here he couldn’t tell Jews from Arabs—everyone looked dark and enraged, and without clothes to distinguish them they might as well have been the same people. “Better cover your shoulders before we go in,” Lou told a pair of European women, who draped themselves with silk scarves. “They take modesty pretty seriously.” He talked about the different sects of Haredim and pointed out more synagogues and yeshivas. Rickety balconies sagged from the back of a crumbling tenement. An ultra-Orthodox man in a long coat and wide felt hat saw them, turned, and hurried off in another direction. Mrs. Nachman didn’t think any better of these people than she did the Arabs. She called them “the black hats,” and said they were traitors for refusing to join the army. Some didn’t even believe in the state of Israel, she told the class, preferring instead to wait for the Messiah to come and give them their homeland. “They can wait all they want,” she said. “In the meantime, we have to defend ourselves against the next Hitler.”

In a courtyard strung with flapping laundry, a pair of women bald beneath headscarves shouted at them and made angry gestures. “They don’t approve of women wearing trousers,” Lou said. He tried to pacify them, but before long another tour group followed them in, blocking the way out. Pebbles rained down from a nearby rooftop. Joel had seen enough images on TV to think of them now, dirty children hurling fist-sized rocks and Molotov cocktails at soldiers who responded with rubber bullets and live rounds. His grandfather was right—they shouldn’t have trusted anyone. Shading his eyes he could see half a dozen boys on the roof, with wispy sidelocks and yarmulkes, wiping their dusty hands on white dress shirts, then picking up more pebbles and tossing. “Get back!” Lou cried, but with the other group behind them, there was nowhere to go. Several of the European women had taken refuge in a doorway, but Joel and his grandparents were left exposed against a bare wall. A few larger stones pinged against the roof of a parked car, its windshield clouding with chips.

“Animals,” Joel’s grandfather said.

“They’re Jewish!” his grandmother cried.

The pebbles kept coming. Two or three hit Lou around the face and neck. Joel’s grandfather tried to edge into the doorway behind the European women. His grandmother stood her ground, spreading her arms in front of Joel, her back to the falling stones. She whispered in a strange, exhilarated voice, “I can’t believe where we are!” The women in headscarves yelled louder. And Lou was yelling now, too, not at the boys on the roof but at the other tour guide, a bewildered looking woman Joel’s mother’s age, wearing a floppy yellow sun hat. “She should know better,” Lou said.

“Bringing them in here wearing shorts and tank tops.”

Something ugly was happening in Joel’s stomach. He had the rifle cartridge out of his pocket, gripped in a fist, the metal slick in his sweaty palm. Why couldn’t he be in Seattle, or at home, or anywhere other than here? Why couldn’t there be a war, so he wouldn’t have had to come? He cursed the peace accords the way Mrs. Nachman did—to hell with Arafat and Rabin and Clinton, to hell with Dennis, his mother, his father. He was going to be sick. The falafel was poison. The shopkeeper’s grin, his patchy mustache, had hidden malicious intentions. The skeleton on his T-shirt was laughing.

Everyone hated him, Arabs, Jews, it didn’t matter. And his father hated him most. “As soon as I’m settled,” he’d told Joel the day he’d moved, and that night his mother had said in her tired, tear-filled voice, “Don’t hold your breath.” For his bar mitzvah present his father had given him a savings bond, a hundred dollars that wouldn’t mature until Joel was twenty-three. Everyone hated him except his grandmother, whose eyes were wild now as pebbles drummed her back, and Dennis, who’d given him the guitar he’d promised, a Les Paul like the one he’d played at the Fillmore. Joel would never forgive him for it. He dropped to his knees and heaved, splattering the cuffs of his grandfather’s pants and the thighs of his own.

“I think he’ll be all right now,” his grandmother said.

“Just make sure he gets lots of water,” Lou said, and ruffled Joel’s hair. They were back on Jaffa Street, the whizzing traffic making Joel dizzy. The sun reflecting from sand-colored buildings stung his eyes. His grandmother had a welt on her neck where a pebble had struck, but her face was shining, her teeth clean and bright now, free of coffee grounds and lipstick when she smiled. His grandfather looked stricken, gaze darting about the street, shoulders flinching at every sound, his cloth hat missing.

“Sorry about the ruckus,” Lou said and patted his bad leg. “I guess you got the full Israel experience.”

“It was the best tour I’ve ever been on,” Joel’s grandmother said.

“Get outta here,” Lou said, with another backhanded wave. “You take care of yourself, Mr. Schreiber. Stick with hamburgers for a while.”

The thought of hamburgers nearly made him retch again, but he managed to breathe and settle his guts. Lou hobbled onto a bus and disappeared. “I don’t see why anyone would want to come here,” his grandfather said hoarsely. “It’s a third-world country. They’re all barbarians.” It was strange to see him looking so jittery and embarrassed, his clothes so bright in the crowd of dark faces. That he was a coward wasn’t a surprise, but Joel didn’t feel up to reveling in it now. He’d lost the bullet the pretty soldier had given him. All that was left in his pockets were a pair of shekels and the kufiya from the bazaar, which he’d used to wipe vomit from his mouth and chin. He didn’t know if he would have come in ’48, either.

They were all the way back to Ben Yehuda Street before his stomach rebelled, and he had to run into the bathroom at McDavid’s. There was no bearded Ronald McDavid in here, nothing to distinguish the place from any fast-food joint at home. The air-conditioning and the familiar smell of burgers and fries calmed him, and he sat on the toilet looking at graffiti in three languages. He could read only two lines: “I like kosher meat,” in black print, and beneath, in slanting red cursive, “Jewish faggot.” The night before they’d left, Dennis had told him about the joys of traveling, the strange experiences that were what made life worth living. Joel had pretended to read a magazine, trying not to listen. “I’ve told you about that hike up K2,” Dennis said. “About halfway to base camp I got so cold I thought I was finished. But then I looked behind me, to see how far I’d come. Right then the fog lifted, and the whole range opened up. Mountains peaks in all directions, and I was higher than any of them. Suddenly I didn’t care anymore if I made it to the top. Didn’t care if I made it home. Didn’t care if I lived or died. That’s when I knew I’d done something worthwhile.”

“What’s taking so long?” his grandfather called from outside the stall.

“Are you sick?” Joel didn’t answer. As long as he didn’t move, he thought, his insides would keep from surging. Through his thin pants, the ceramic cooled his legs. The illegible writing on the door might have told important secrets if only he could read it. He could sound out some familiar letters but couldn’t put meaning to any of the words. He had the feeling that he shouldn’t leave until he knew what they said. His grandfather knocked. “Did you fall in or what?”

Aftermath: Stories
by Scott Nadelson
pub. date September 1, 2011
www.scottnadelson.com
www.hawthornebooks.com

In celebration of Hawthorne Books' tenth anniversary ALL Hawthorne titles are only $10 from now until August 1st!

A lot of you received our summer newsletter last week. (If you didn’t and want to receive future newsletters sign up here.) Those of you who got the newsletter already know about this great promotion that we’re doing in celebration of Hawthorne Books’ tenth anniversary — all books are just $10 until August 1st.

We’ve been busy bees getting summer reads packages together for this $10 promotion for the past several days and we’d love to keep the momentum up so if there’s a backlist Hawthorne title that you’ve always wanted to read or a newer Hawthorne Book that’s been on your mind — now’s the time!

Not only are ALL of our books only $10 until August 1st we’re taking care of shipping costs too. So if you pony up $50 you’ll get five new Hawthorne Books reads — no postage! Get them while they’re $10 and help us celebrate ten years of supporting literary arts and important writers, ten years of a vibrant Portland small press, ten years of Hawthorne Books!

Thank you for supporting Hawthorne Books! We couldn’t do it without you!

Intern appreciation lunch for our spring 2011 interns (Left to right: Adam O'Connor Rodriguez (senior editor), Irene Costello (intern), Rhonda Hughes (publisher), Stefanie Fisher (intern)

We get a lot of requests from local folks hoping to do an internship at Hawthorne Books — unfortunately way more than we can accommodate. Every spring, fall and winter (and sometimes summer) we have two, 10-week, unpaid interns and they help us out immensely. Lately we’ve been getting double and sometimes triple the amount of applicants so we thought we’d publish a roundup of Portland literary internships so we have somewhere to point folks beyond Hawthorne.

Internships are a great way to gain experience and build your resume while helping a business or non-profit out. This list is most likely missing folks so please let us know who we’ve left out…

Gobshite Quarterly
andreview
The Attic
Beyond Words Publishing
Reading Frenzy
Independent Publishing Resource Center
Willamette Week
Portland Mercury
Oregonian
Portland Tribune
The Bear Deluxe
Bitch Magazine
Calyx Literary Journal
Dark Horse Comics
The Grove Review
Ink & Paper Group
Ink-Filled Page
Raintown Press
Timber Press
Tin House Books
Tin House Magazine
Wordstock
Write Around Portland
Writer’s Dojo

Great interview with Lidia Yuknavitch over at Chuck Palahniuk's site The Cult.

Mid-April I posted a slew of reviews (that has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) for Lidia Yuknavitch’s hot-off-the-presses The Chronology of Water. It was impressive then with the likes of Bookslut, HTMLgiant, Bookslut, Shelf Awareness, The Oregonian, PNBA Northwest Book Lovers, Pank Magazine, Eugene Magazine, Portland Mercury, Brain Candy Reviews all loving the memoir.

In the past month since that post there have been a lot more fantastic reviews for the book. Here are some highlights…

Molly Labell, Bust Magazine, June/July 2011:
“She takes us on a journey through addiction, sexual exploration, and perhaps most intriguing of all, through creation: of literature, of memories, and of life. Her sharp prose—witty, jarring, worthy of dog-earing—alternates between gleeful postmodern exercise and wrenching elegy. So honest and unapologetic is her writing that you can practically hear her sigh in catharsis as you turn the pages.”

Alison Barker, Chicago Reader, May 2011:
“Lidia Yuknavitch is a self-proclaimed language bandit. Other writers purposely disturb their readers’ comprehension, because, well, they want to change language as we know it. Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water plays with language, but it also brings an extra dimension to the wordsmith memoir: it’s a sputteringly good read.”

Amy McDaniel, Paste Magazine, May 2011:
“Speaking of water…as its title suggests, Lidia Yuknavitch’s fierce new memoir, The Chronology of Water (blurbed by Shields, among several eminent authors) takes place entirely off-shore, metaphorically speaking. Nothing about her life has followed the map. Yuknavitch gives new, rich meaning to the by-now-familiar idea of a fluid sexuality.”

Jen Graves, The Stranger, April 2011:
“I love how physical the book is, both in its writing and in its point of view. Her body threatened to rise up from every single page I read. It’s war in there. I’m going back in.”

Richard Thomas, The Nervous Breakdown, April 2011:
“Lidia Yuknavitch is an inspiring woman. Her story brought me to tears several times. The abuse she survived, ingested, and spit out in order to transform herself into the swan that she is today…was indeed a life-changing upbringing. Her story is haunting, touching, and heart breaking.”

Publishers Weekly, May 2011:
“This isn’t a memoir ‘about’ addiction, abuse, or love: it’s a triumphantly unrelenting look at a life buoyed by the power of the written word.”

Vanessa Nix Anthony, Portland Woman Magazine, May 2011:
“The most compelling thing about this story is not its raw palpability, but rather the pure hope and unabashed joy infused in its last chapters. Chronology is about the resiliency of the human heart and its ability to piece itself back together, over and over.”

Portland Monthly, May 2011:
“Lidia Yuknavitch’s unsparing memoir The Chronology of Water includes tragedy, abuse, oceanic booze consumption, and rated-X sexiness. And Ken Kesey, of course.”

Renee E. D’Aoust, The Collagist, May 2011:
“It’s rather a relief that this is not an addiction memoir or a book about too much sex, although there’s lots of great randy sex on these pages. The Chronology of Water is simply an unapologetic story about life.”

KLCC interview with Laura McCandlish

The New Yorker Book Bench