It’s official: another Wordstock has come and gone. As all of us here at Wordstock HQ nurse our body aches and try to recover from the lack of sleep these last two weeks, we hope you’re thinking the same things that we’re thinking as we reflect on the 2009 festival.

Phenomenal lineup of writers.

Outstanding publicity.

The best corps of volunteers ever.

An army of literary exhibitors.

Incredible community support and partnerships.

Yep — we think we knocked this one out of the park, people. From our point of view, the 2009 festival was the best Wordstock yet.

But let us know what YOU think. Leave a comment and tell us what you liked (and didn’t — we need to know that, too). Please!

The Photo Contest is done and the winners are below. Thanks to everyone who found one of our Red Chairs and took some photos of themselves in it. We got some creative entries. Next year we will give all you creative types a little more time to get around and take some fun shots in the Red Chair. 

Winner Numero Uno: Flavia Arsenault

The Red Chair Standout!

Winner Nombre Deux: Gailmarie West

Sail Away with a good Book!

Congratulations Flavia and Gailmarie! You have won a Night at the Benson this weekend and free admission to both days of the festival. Have a fun Wordstock filled weekend! We’ll see you there.

Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of Picking Bones from Ash, appears at Wordstock on Saturday, October 10, at 11 a.m. on the Powell’s Books Stage; she will also participate in the panel discussion “My First Book,” on Sunday, October 11 at 3 p.m. on the Columbia Sportswear Stage.

In the opening chapter of my novel, young Satomi recounts the story of the Moon Princess, who was discovered inside a bamboo shoot. The Moon Princess, or Kaguyahime, is a classic Japanese fairy tale that most school children learn. It’s so popular, even Hello Kitty has done her time posing inside a bamboo stalk.

I’ve always loved this story–it’s beautiful, haunting and like all Japanese fairy tales, a little bit sad at the very end. It’s difficult for me to go to Japan and look at a bamboo forest and not see it as a potential hiding space for an adventure or a story. Look, for example, at this photo of a bamboo forest that I snapped one fall. To me, this looked like the entryway to a secret world.

Now imagine that you grew up in a little town like this, nestled in a small valley. The dark patches of green are pine, the lighter patches bamboo. If you were an adventurous, imaginative kid, well . . . aren’t all kids? It’d be hard not to explore your surroundings.

You may read Marie’s full post on her own blog by clicking on this link.

Doug Whippo from 2nd Story on Vimeo.

Tomorrow night, we plan to do just that, with the help of an amazing live storytelling company from Chicago, 2nd Story. With its roots in the Chicago theater community, 2nd Story combines high-energy performance storytelling with live music and delicious wine. Sound good so far?

2nd Story also manages to do something more. They bring an intimacy to their performances that makes you feel like you are sitting at the back table of your favorite corner bar, with a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. As you listen, you find yourself leaning forward. Read more »

Well, after a week-and-a-half-long process, we have the winners for the Wordstock Haiku Twitter Contest. That’s right, the ten best Haikus have garnered votes and they can claim their tickets. Now, before we get into the list of winners and the winning Haikus, I’d like to take a minute to let the winners know what to do to claim their Free Day Admission Tickets.

If your Twitter handle and Haiku are listed below, please contact me, Spencer, your social media chatter bug with your Full Name and Email Address at Spencer@wordstockfestival.com.  I will put you on the Admission List and when you arrive at the Oregon Convention Center to attend the wondrous event we like to call Wordstock simply proceed to the Wordstock Booth outside of the main hall and give them your full name. They will stamp your hand and you are off to the races. Or at least the books…

Winners!:

1^st – @amybaskin – “Coffee or a brew/ A book and a red chair, too./ Portland in autumn. (Winnings: Two One-Day Tickets)

2^nd – @MBHern – “Put your stock in words./ An investment sure to pay./ It’s Wordstock weekend!” (Two One-Day Tickets)

3^rd -@mightytoycannon – “Bookapalooza./ A bibliophile’s wet dream./ Wordstock, I Love You.” (One One-Day Ticket)

4^th – @trishamead – “The lush feel of pulp/ The crackle of prose on paper/ The scent of wordstock.” (One One-Day Ticket)

5^th – @caraholman – “Twas the week before/ Wordstock, excitement ran high/ All those books waiting.” (One One-Day Ticket)

6^th – @sarahgilbert – “sunflowers graying/ tomatoes give last red shout/ tidings of wordstock.” (One One-Day Ticket)

7^th – @dijeratic – “There’s words aplenty/ and more than words after that/ Wordstock will find you.” (One One-Day Ticket)

8^th – @sarahgilbert – “Read through the weather/ in rain or @portlandfog/ wordstock warms my brain.” (One One-Day Ticket – Yes you won twice!)

9^th – @Aprovecho – “Expand Open Mind/ Literary Omnivores/ Cross-Polination.” (One One-Day Ticket)

10^th – @Tortoogal – “ ‘Frog ‘n’ her throat’ hangs/ Green-Towel Frog ‘round my neck:/ ‘Figures of Speech” ball” (One One-Day Ticket)

Congratulations! – Winners please email me with your full name and email address at Spencer@wordstockfestival.com

Emily Harris, the host of the OPB show “Think Out Loud”, will be moderating the “My First Book Panel” on Sunday October 11th at 3 P.M. on the Columbia Sportswear Stage. 

I just put up a post on Think Out Loud’s website about the show this Thursday with Sherman Alexie. He’s on for the hour – you can call in from 9 to 10 AM or post your questions now. This us your chance to connect with him before his Wordstock appearance Sunday. I am also prepping to moderate Sunday’s panel (see #9) with new novelists Patrick DeWitt, Naseem Rakha, and Marie Mutsuki Mockett telling their stories about becoming published writers.

I’ll be paying close attention! Even though daily deadlines force (or allow) me to stop researching, stop editing and to just put out what I’ve got, I have a book or three in the back of my mind. In fact, in a whirl of fantasy, I signed up for National Novel Writing Month after a recent TOL show on creativity under pressure. I don’t think I’m actually going to be able to produce 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30 (especially since none of the books in the back of my brain are novels) but what the heck, might be fun to try.

Luckily, Wordstock is in October. Naseem was on TOL recently so I already know her story includes mayonnaise. I’ll know more about Marie and Patrick and post tantalizing tidbits when I do. What do YOU want to know from these authors about their first books? Leave a comment or question here – and see you Sunday.

Peter Dexter appears at Wordstock on Sunday, October 11, at 3 PM on the Powell’s Books Stage.

 Pete Dexter’s eagerly anticipated new novel is out at last, and believe you me, Spooner has been worth the wait. If you’re a fan of Paris Trout and Mr. Dexter’s other novels, this new book will surprise you; the picaresque story tale may have the title character for its linchpin, but it’s his collateral damage that really interests the author.

Spooner the book teems with larger-than-life personalities, but part of Pete Dexter’s wizardry here is that Spooner the man is not one of them. A list of Spooner’s personality defects would be lengthy, and most of the people who surround him are equally fractured. In Mr. Dexter’s universe, however, this is fodder for comedy, not tragedy. For example:

Spooner’s mother lived her life with the certain knowledge that the whole thing—cradle to grave—was an ambush. Spooner didn’t necessarily disagree with that, but had never seen any reason to take it personally.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, Spooner’s stepfather, Calmer (Calmer!) makes it his lifelong mission to watch out for his prodigal stepson. And throughout the misadventures that make up a life, the two develop an abiding filial love – probably without ever really understanding one another.

The writing is breathtaking throughout, yet never showy; you get to take your time with the characters, and relish the black humor that buoys up our perspective on their lives. So well do you get to know them that you will be quietly touched toward the end of the story, when a shift in the book’s tone and emphasis alters the universe Pete Dexter has so carefully created for you.

Read this book.

Joni Sensel, author of The Farwalker’s Quest, appears twice at Wordstock, as described below.

Although I only live one state away, I’m looking forward to traveling to Portland for Wordstock. It’s not only that I enjoy road trips. Although I write mostly fantasy, travel is one of the key inspirations for most of my books. Perhaps this is because one of the books that made me a writer was Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, which, of course, is a fantasy road-trip taken by Milo in “a small electric automobile.” I wanted to go, too. So I do, regularly, even if my automobile still runs on gas.

 Oh, I don’t have many jaunts to other dimensions or planets (though I wouldn’t mind the opportunity). But something about being in a foreign land or an unfamiliar territory supercharges my imagination, and I draw ideas, setting details, cultural values, and historical details from reality to inform my fantasies and, I think, make them more concrete and believable. Read more »

Lisa Hamilton appears on the University of Oregon Nonfiction stage on Saturday October 10th at 5 P.M.

“You smell like Girl Scout cookies.” Those are the first words I wrote in the journal I kept while on the road writing Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness. Despite how it sounds, it wasn’t the “Dear Diary” kind of journal. (It wasn’t a traveling lover who spoke those tender first words to me, but rather a saleswoman at the camera store in St. Paul.)

No, my journals are the sort of thing that appears to belong to a crazy person: bulging and tattered, filled with scribbles and scraps of paper. They contain drawings of highway signs for BIG TOP BINGO and WORLD’S LARGEST BUFFALO, and the spaces between are filled with more drawings: of the whole pound of deep-fried wild Georgia shrimp I ate at B&J’s cafeteria, or the grasshoppers in the tall grass that morning. Across the middle of one page is a line of bottles commemorating the many beers drunk with two hunters from Shelby County, Tennessee. Beneath the bottles is a little square, into which I’ve copied what I can remember of the recipe they gave me for how to cook raccoon. (At the time, at least, it sounded delicious.)

Read more »

The Red Chair

We have placed several of the Red Wordstock Chairs around town. Find them at one of their locations (listed below) and take a picture of yourself in the chair reading a book and then send it to us at spencer@wordstockfestival.com (Please include contact info). We will collect all the entries and do a drawing next Tuesday 10/6 for two winners.

Each winner will win 1 Night Stay FREE at the Benson Hotel and 1 Free Weekend Admission Pass to the Wordstock Book Festival Oct. 10th and 11th. 

That’s right. All you have to do is go out this weekend, find one of our Red Chairs, take a picture of yourself in it, and send it to us at spencer@wordstockfestival.com.

You could come down to Wordstock on Saturday, stay the night at the Benson Hotel and then return for Sunday’s festivities. Don’t let this Photo Op pass you by. Find a Red Chair Today!

*Note – The Free Night stay at the Benson Hotel must be used during Wordstock Festival Weekend. And cannot be used at any other time.

Ace Hotel 1022 SW Stark St.

PSU Library 1875 SW Park Ave.

Crema 2728 SE Ankeny

Gold Rush 2601 NE M L King Blvd.

Stumptown 128 SW 3rd Ave