One of the most anticipated events at this year’s festival is the Wordstock Superstar Slam Poetry Competition, which will be at the Bagdad Theater on SE Hawthorne in Portland on Thursday, November 6. We’re kicking off the festival with these six outstanding performers — Anis Mojgani, Karen Finneyfrock, Derrick Brown, Jodie Knowles, Buddy Wakefield, and Tara Hardy — in a classic slam for a grand prize of $1,500. These folks are amazing, and they’re going to rock the house. And for a little taste of what’s ahead on the 6th, check out Buddy’s “The Information Man” right here. 

The verdict from the Swedes is in: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, a French novelist, children’s author and essayist, is this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Swedish academy called Le Clézio an

“author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization”.

Here’s what the International Herald Tribune has to say. The Nobel site has posted a bio and bibliography of Le Clézio. Yet to weigh in is the Albuquerque Journal. Seems Le Clézio and his wife have lived part time in that New Mexico city since the 1990s.

Sure, food tastes great on a plate. But food lovers should make sure to attend the “Serving Up Your Words” food writing panel at Wordstock, too.  Martha Holmberg, food editor for the Oregonian and editor of MIX magazine, will grill four Pacific Northwest culinary superstars turned food writers on what it takes to make a reader want to eat your words. Ivy Manning, author of The Farm to Table Cookbook is an expert on how to eat locally. Nancy Rommelmann’s book Everything You Pretend to Know About Food should be standard issue for the insecure foodies among us. Molly Wizenburg is the Seattle mastermind behind one of the most popular food blogs in the country, The Orangette. And Vitaly Paley, one of the region’s leading chefs and co-owner of the esteemed Paley’s Place (and co-author of the recently published The Paley’s Place Cookbook, with his wife Kimberly), will round out what promises to be a tasty discussion.

The 2008 Interactive Fiction Contest is looking for judges. The competition, which began in 1995, anoints the year’s best text-based, figure-out-the-adventure story, and has produced some very interesting winners. Go here to see the rules and get to the finalists. Make your way through at least five and you get to vote for a winner. So channel your inner geek and get down to some web-based investigative work. Looks like fun.

Speaking of competitions, we held one this year ourselves. We’ll be announcing the winner soon…

Don’t know if you saw this story last week about the statements Horace Engdahl, the chair of the committee that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, made about the state of literature in the US: 

“Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world . . . not the United States,” he said yesterday. “The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining.”

You can imagine the reaction on these shores, can’t you? The issue is sure to come up again later this week, when the prize is announced. 

Every year about this time, somewhere in the 30-60 days ahead of Wordstock, we start seeing book reviews of new work by authors who are joining us for the festival. Just this weekend a review of Kim Barnes‘ new novel appeared. There’s going to be more in the next few weeks — keep your eyes open for them. 

This year Wordstock is offering 28 unique writer’s workshops. We’ve truly got something for every writer. Learn how to be funny from Marc Acito, the author Time Out New York called “riotously funny.” Learn how to not be boring from Eric Nuzum, an author who chased vampires for his book The Dead Travel Fast. Have National Book Award Finalist Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog and The Garden of Last Days, show you how writing can be an act of discovery.

If you want your writing to have more humor, social impact, poetry, romance, mystery, thrill, fantasy or discovery…Wordstock has a workshop for that. Last year’s Wordstock for Writers workshops sold out quickly, so register today!

Wordstock, in our attempt to find new ways to connect book groups to Wordstock authors, has officially begun the Wordstock Book Club era. Every year at the festival, we’ll be choosing one contemporary author and featuring their newly released paperback book as our Book Club pick, and will arrange for that writer to join us at the festival. And we’re happy to announce the first Wordstock Book Club pick: Ann Packer’s Songs Without Words.

We’ll be blogging some more about Packer in the weeks ahead. Head for Powells.com to get your copy of the book now so you’re ready for the Q&A after her reading at the festival.

Heads up to all of you comics fans: You’re going to see a lot more of them this year at Wordstock. For starters, we’re partnering with the Stumptown Comics Fest, Portland’s own comics festival, to create a dedicated area on the floor of the festival devoted solely to comics. It’s going to feature publishers like Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, and Oni Press, as well as vendors like Cosmic Monkey. Look for the “Stumptown Comics Garden” when you arrive at Wordstock. 

We’re also featuring some top-flight creators: Mike Mignola, Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel, and Spain Rodriguez. Really. We’re not joking. All of them will be at Wordstock!