wordstock » 2010

Guest post by: Benjamin Percy

Author of The Wilding, Benjamin Percy appears at the Wordstock festival on Saturday, October 9th from 12:00-1:15pm for a writer’s workshop in room B119, as well as October 9th at 2:00pm on the Columbia Stage and 4:00pm on the Wieden + Kennedy Stage.

Oregon will eat you. That’s what I told the filmmaker James Ponsoldt (whose excellent Off the Black starred Nick Nolte and Timothy Hutton) before we scouted locations in Central Oregon for the adaptation of my story “Refresh, Refresh.” Every year Mt. Hood crushes people in avalanches, swallows them in snowstorms. Every year hikers vanish in the woods. Every year the riptide sucks swimmers out into the ocean and fills their lungs with water. A wrong step takes someone tumbles off a cliff in the gorge. A wrong turn sends someone down a logging road from which they will never return. I went to school with a girl who skied into a tree and died. I went to school with a boy who snow-mobiled into a tree and died. In Central Oregon, where I grew up, turkey vultures turn in lazy circles, coyotes gnaw on bones, black widows scuttle under porches, and scorpions burrow under rocks.

How and Why I Wrote Little Green

Guest post by Loretta Stinson

Author of Little Green, Loretta Stinson appears at the festival on Saturday October 9^th at 4pm.

If you could have told my fourteen-year old self that one day I would hold two Masters degrees and have a published novel to my name I would have said you were crazy. Things like that don’t happen to girls like the me I used to be.

I ran away from home when I was fourteen and didn’t go back to school for real until I was in my early thirties—that was after the restraining order, the divorce, and the year of hiding out that I did to stay safe from the man I was married to. His addiction and the resulting violence that accompanied it were my reasons for leaving but it took me almost sixteen years before I walked out for good. I left just about everything I owned—house, car, pets, that summer afternoon in 1991. I started over from square one, and one of the things I started over was my education. I’d always been a big reader but I regretted not having a diploma, just a GED.

Barry Smith’s new novel Only Milo continues this week as the title antihero broods over his alter ego’s success and visits the dark side for a solution to his problem.

.……………………..………………...

24
Margaret was glowing.
I don’t think she noticed.
No mention of Milo.
None.
NOT
ONE
WORD.

25
When the next segment began, the first novel was
discussed.

Set outside Mexico City. Young police officer hero in a rural village terrorized by a serial killing priest. Innocent children, including the police officer as a young boy, initially received love and comfort from the priest, protection from a world of poverty, hunger and fright.

Sexual molestation.

Serial killings.

Long, hushed pause.

As a boy, José had sought solace from a harsh and
unfair world. The church was his sanctuary, the
priest his surrogate father, the weekly homilies the
inspiration for his poetry, his fiction, his life.
Sexually molested by his priest.
Writing about the abuse. Catharsis.
Finally moving forward.

Long, hushed pause.

Oprah was concerned.

Writing Process/Writing Practice

Guest post by Loretta Stinson

Author of Little Green, Loretta Stinson appears at the festival on Saturday October 9^th at 4pm.

Writing is just writing—a practice, if you like, a discipline, an art, a craft. It’s not a mystery. If you write a page a day for a year you will have a first draft of a novel or several short stories or whatever it is you want to write. We sit down with our tools of choice—pad and pencil, laptop, typewriter and become still enough to hear the story that’s ours to tell. It whispers itself to us. It’s a very quiet little voice and if you’re too busy, too loud, too distracted you might not hear it. We practice coaxing the words out by writing so often and with such regularity that we become good friends with the process. We quiet the mind and simply start regardless of how we feel about it. There is no good or bad, there is only you showing up with attention to listen to the story you need to tell. Later there will be revision of the story and time to shape and fix, but not at first. At first there is only sitting still and listening with openness.

Q&A With Loretta Stinson

Author of Little Green, Loretta Stinson appears at the festival on Saturday October 9^th at 4pm.

What are you reading now?

Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan

Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Who is your favorite new author?

Right now I’m smitten with Julie Orringer, Gina Ochsner, and Amy Hempel.

Gabrielle Burton and Tamsen Donner

Guest post by Gabrielle Burton

Author of Impatient with Desire, Gabrielle Burton appears on Sunday, October 10^th at 12pm and again at 3pm on the OEA Stage

These days I get two questions a lot.

The first: Do you think you’re Tamsen Donner reincarnated?

The long and the short answer to that is Nope.

Why such a curious question? Well, after writing off and on for over thirty-five years about Tamsen Donner, I won the writer’s lottery, publishing two books about her in one year: a novel, Impatient with Desire, and a memoir, Searching for Tamsen Donner.

Viva Las Vegas part 2: favorite things

Guest post by: Viva Las Vegas

Author of Magic Gardens: The Memoirs of Viva Las Vegas and The Gospel According to Viva Las Vegas: Best of the Exotic Years, Viva Las Vegas appears Saturday, October 9th at 3pm on the Wordstock stage, and Sunday, October 10th at 2pm on the Wordstock stage.

What are you reading now?

All Around the Town by Herbert Asbury. It’s a sequel (perhaps more rightly called outtakes) to Gangs of New York. I read almost exclusively nonfiction, and particularly like books that evoke places, especially NYC and the Midwest. Usually in the wintertime I hole up with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Who is your favorite new author?

I think Eckhart Tolle is a wonderful writer in that he’s able to make incredibly abstract concepts accessible—and useful—to laypeople. The Power of Now is a great gift to the world.

Viva Las Vegas part 1

Guest post by Viva Las Vegas

Author of Magic Gardens: The Memoirs of Viva Las Vegas and The Gospel According to Viva Las Vegas: Best of the Exotic Years, Viva Las Vegas appears Saturday, October 9th at 3pm on the Wordstock stage, and Sunday, October 10th at 2pm on the Wordstock stage.

From the moment I took the stage at Magic Gardens—a small dive strip club in Portland’s Chinatown—I knew I had to write about it.

I was a shy twenty-two year old tomboy with short dirty-blonde hair, dressed in a white satin slip and a pair of second-hand too-big rhinestone-covered ruby-red seven-inch heels. As I tottered around precariously on the Magic’s tiny wooden stage for the very first time, every step brought a new inspiration, a new revelation. I’d always been a writer (was first published at age seven in Highlights Magazine), and could hardly wait to pull on my blue jeans, scrub off the makeup, and process all that I’d seen over coffee and a notebook. And that, in a nutshell, is how I spent my twenties: dancing around in various states of undress before crowds of people, then chastely bundled in denim and cashmere writing for hours in solitary confinement.

Guest Post by: Kim Dower

Kim Dower, a publicist and poet/author of Air Kissing on Mars. She appears Saturday, October 9th at 3pm on the Mountain Writers Stage II and Sunday, October 10th at 12pm on the McMenamins Stage for a conversation with Karen Karbo “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Book Promotion But Were Afraid To Ask”

I must confess that I’ve never been to Portland. And I also must confess that just like the books we’re embarrassed to admit we haven’t read so we pretend we’ve read them, I’ve pretended (on occasion) to have been to Portland. How could I admit I’ve never been to one of the greatest literary cities in the country? How could I, a poet, a literary publicist, admit I’ve never been inside of Powell’s – probably the greatest bookstore imaginable? But, I’ll admit it now and I ask that you please not hold it against me: I’m on my way!

Heidi Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

Published by Algonquin Books

Heidi Durrow can be seen on Sunday, October 10, of the festival on the Columbia Sportswear Stage at 11am. Heidi Durrow, in addition to her individual appearance, is on a panel entitled “What Works for Me” on Sunday at 3pm on the McMenamins Stage; AND is teaching a Wordstock for Writers workshop:”Write Yourself into Fiction,” Saturday

9 – 10:15am Room B119.

Wordstock: What are you reading now? Who is your favorite new author? What is your favorite book of the year? Favorite book of all time?

Heidi Durrow: Right now I am reading a bunch of different novels that are inspired by real historical figures. I’m particularly enjoying Samantha Hunt’s The Invention of Everything Else. I’m not sure who counts as a “new” writer, but a new-to-me writer is Percival Everett. He’s written a ton of books and I’m just now reading him. But he’s awesome. I love love love Glyph—it’s smart and laugh-out-loud funny. My favorite book of the year? I’m not sure. My favorite book of all time? That’s like picking a favorite among your children—I love The Book Thief by Markus Zusak & Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I could read those books over and over again.