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 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

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…

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.

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

Lots of mss getting printed these days at Hawthorne for forthcoming titles!

Yet another installment of the What We’re Reading series (here’s what we were reading in the winter) with some nice summer reads. Please chime in if you’ve read any of these books and also let us know what pages you’ve been turning lately…

Rhonda:
The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitte
Balthus: A Biography, Nicholas Fox Weber
The New Yorker
2012 and 2013 Hawthorne Books titles

Adam:
Deliverance, James Dickey
Drift and Swerve, Samuel Ligon
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver
Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms
Dora: A Head Case, Lidia Yuknavitch (forthcoming summer 2012)

Liz:
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
Lean on Pete, Willy Vlautin
Spoon Fed, Kim Severson
Lucky Peach, McSweeney’s new quarterly food journal

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!

So many books, so little time...

As a Hawthorne Books intern, a hopeful future book editor, a person with an English degree, and a self-proclaimed bibliophile, it is embarrassing for me to admit, but I don’t always have time for books. Don’t get me wrong, I always have time for books as an idea, as a conversation topic, as a table decoration, but between my busy work schedule, my social life, and my attempts to go to the gym, I don’t always have time to read them.

I am not proud of this. In fact, more times than I can count, I have been poised with the question ‘what book are you reading?’ and have had to stammer my way through some excuse or lie, while the person opposite of me (who will undoubtedly tell me that they were able to get through five Bible-sized books within the last month) looks at me with contempt. I am one of those people, they think. I can’t quote Joyce, I don’t know Russian literature, and I am currently- gasp!- reading nothing.

I am, on paper, a horrible book-lover.

So a few of months ago when a friend of mine invited me to join a book club she had recently started, I said yes, thinking this would be a great way to force myself into being a better reader. If the pressure of a looming weekly discussion weighed over me, I figured, my sheer desire to seem somewhat intellectual would force the pages to turn. And I was right– for book one. But then book two was slow, and book three was boring, and the author of book four seemed like a jerk…and there I was again, not making time for books. And truth be told, I thought about quitting. I thought, maybe I should just stop going; tell them I am too busy for books.

Give it once last chance, my friend pleaded with me (club attendance was dropping dangerously low, turns out a lot of people don’t have time for books), read at your own pace; don’t worry so much about keeping up. Stop, she told me, making reading a chore.

A chore? A chore?! Had I made reading a chore? Yes. I realized I had. I had made reading (before, and during the book club) into this large looming task. READ SOMETHING, I would demand of myself, in the same way I told myself to clean the kitchen and start doing daily sit-ups. I had started to put pressure on myself to be well-read, and in the meantime, forgotten how much I truly enjoyed reading.

And so I took her advice. I stuck with the club. And guess what? I hated book five. I got half way through it and gave up. But that’s OK, my friend told me. Reading, she reminded me, is not about the end goal it is about the process.

And she was right. We started the sixth book, Lit by Marry Karr, last week and though I am still horribly behind everyone else in the club and I still can’t quote Joyce, I am starting to remember why I used to make time for reading, why I chose a life and career that involves literature. And this week’s book club was the best yet, I admitted to everyone I am a S-L-O-W reader, I stopped trying to pretend I was full of insight about every passage, and I just let myself enjoy the story, the company, and the wine, without pretense. So what if only can squeeze in a few pages per night while others can down 300? Who cares if I get bored, or distracted, or put it down and never pick it up again? There is no reading police, and there is no such thing as too busy for something you love. Because when I stopped making reading a to-do, it became enjoyable again.

For more on book clubs in Portland, check out this February Oregonian article.

Let’s face it: we’re lucky to live here. It seems that Portland’s enormously rich literary landscape just keeps expanding, and the latest addition to a long list of amazing industry resources is a brand new community center for the arts. Crow Arts Manor, located in NoPo’s Milepost 5 art community, opened its doors this April 10th.

A non-profit in the tradition of LA’s Beyond Baroque and Seattle’s Richard Hugo House, Crow Arts Manor seeks to promote literary arts, fine and graphic art, and music.

Classes begin this June—college level workshops in writing, fine and graphic arts, comics, and bookmaking. In addition to classes, Crow Arts will host reading and music performances, and is in the process of building “one of the country’s largest collections of literary journals and books from independent presses,” with the goal to have the space open thirty hours a week for the public to come and read. The manor will also feature a gallery space and invite local artists to hang their work.

Sid Miller, the founder and editor of The Burnside Review, serves as the director of Crow Arts Manor. The board of advisors includes many notable Portland literary and artistic figures, including Kevin Sampsell, Paulann Peterson, Paul Collins, and Michele Glazer. Hawthorne connect: instructors include Hawthorne Books authors Monica Drake and Lidia Yuknavitch (hooray!) among many other terrific writers and artists.

Crow Arts Manor believes that on-going arts education should be accessible and that’s why each six-week course is offered at the reasonable cost of $95. As of now, classes are scheduled through the summer, offering unique and often specific curriculum such as Zachary Schomburg’s course, “The Narrative Prose Poem.” You can check out the classes online.

GO CROW ARTS!

Crow Arts Manor
850 NE 81st Ave., #114
Portland, Oregon
www.crowartsmanor.org
info@crowmanor.com

Lidia Yuknavitch with KLCC's Laura McCandlish after a recent recorded interview about The Chronology of Water.

Thursday, 05 May 2011 :: 7.00 pm
Elliott Bay Book Company | 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122. T: (206) 624-6600 :: Lidia Yuknavitch reads from The Chronology of Water.

Monday, 09 May 2011 :: 7.00 pm
The Rumpus :: Lidia Yuknavitch and Cheryl Strayed to read from their work for The Rumpus Monthly Reading Series.

Thursday, 02 June 2011 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Broadway Books | 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR 97232 T: 503-284-1726. :: Lidia Yuknavitch reads from her memoir, The Chronology of Water.

Thursday, 09 June 2011 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Richard Hugo House | 1634 11th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122-2419 T: (206) 322-7030 :: Lidia Yuknavitch, Rebecca Brown and Stacey Levine read together. Not to be missed!

Tuesday, 21 June 2011 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
St. Helens Book Shop | 2149 Columbia Blvd, St Helens, Oregon – (503) 397-4917 :: Lidia Yuknavitch reads from her memoir, The Chronology of Water.

Wednesday, 21 September 2011 :: 7.30 – 8.30 pm
The Press Club | 2621 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202. T: (503) 233-5656. :: Mountain Writers Series at The Press Club. Scott Nadelson and Lidia Yuknavitch read from their work.