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Writers Featured Along Oregon Coast in June |
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Covering 180 miles of Oregon coast travel: Astoria, Seaside, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Nehalem, Wheeler, Rockaway, Garibaldi, Tillamook, Oceanside, Pacific City, Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Newport, Waldport, Yachats & Florence.
06/05/08
Secrets of the Season |
Writers Featured Along Oregon Coast in June
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| Author Jennie Shortridge |
(Manzanita, Oregon) - Two different areas of the Oregon coast will feature writers on June 21. The Hoffman Center in Manzanita, on the north coast, presents Seattle author Jennie Shortridge. Down on the central coast, Newport hosts Oregon writer Jan Baross on that day.
The Hoffman Center kicks off a new program in Manzanita, Oregon, on June 21, 2008. The Manzanita Writers' Series will feature a regional published author every month to read from his or her latest work. After the reading, there will be a brief question and answer period and then local and emerging writers can participate in an Open Mic session.
"Our goal is to connect and foster the local writing community here on the north coast," says Vera Wildauer, a fiction writer and one of the series' founders. "We want to bring in well-known authors who will appeal to the coastal reading public, including the local population and many weekend visitors." The coordinators also see this as an evening of entertainment in a café-type environment.
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| The beaches of Manzanita are among the most beautiful on the coast |
"A second goal of our series is to promote the area’s literacy and writing programs, since both of these life skills are essential to success in and enjoyment of life,” said organizer Gail Balden. Balden is a local columnist and popular writing workshop leader and is also one of the series’ founders.
The event kicks off at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 21, 2008 at the Hoffman Annex building at 594 Laneda Avenue, across from the Manzanita Library. Jennie Shortridge of Seattle will read from her third novel, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe.
The Open Mic portion will be on a "first to sign up at the door, first to read" basis, allowing seven writers seven minutes each to read from their original work. Writers who read may also sell their books at the program if they have books.
For information, contact Kathie Hightower at 503-368-8161 or Kathie@jumpintolife.net or Vera Wildauer at 971-344-5691 or vwildauer@gmail.com. Those interested in helping out with the series in any way can contact organizers.
In Newport, the Nye Beach Writers' Series will feature Jan Baross, author of "Jose Builds A Woman," on Saturday, June 21. The event begins at 7 p.m. in the Newport Visual Arts Center in Nye Beach, 777 Beach Drive. Admission is $5. Tickets are free to students. An open mike follows.
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| Author Jan Baross |
The Nye Beach Writers' Series, a program of Writers On The Edge, is pure entertainment and showcases authors of diverse types of writing including fiction, nonfiction, plays, songs, Oregon history, memoir, poetry, essays, and investigative journalism. Almost 300 authors have been featured since its monthly literary events began in 1997. Readings and performances are appropriate for anyone who appreciates good writing and diversity of thought.
"This is the best novel I've ever read," said Carla Perry, Writers On The Edge founder. "It is a luscious, magical story where the main character is named Tortugina ("Little Turtle"). She has green eyes and a terrible overbite and lives in the town of El Pulpa ("Octopus"), which is how the village survives economically. Tortugina loves the handsome Gabito, and Gabito, who wears his good luck yellow shorts when he dives, loves Tortugina back, but they are too young to do anything about it. Their lives are plagued by shortcomings, failures and misfortune, but their love is so true and steady, it can't be bound by life or death. In fact, Jose, Tortuguina's son, is conceived by the jealous Gabito after he drowns, and she has married a stranger passing through town. The stranger, Miguel Svendik, arrived on his camel, Lucinda, an animal that "sounds like a horse with a cold - a long-legged cow with a sloppy face."
"Mexico has a magical draw that I can't explain any more than how the mother and son saga in ‘Jose Builds A Woman’ began flowing out of me one rainy day," said Baross. "Being in Mexico inspired the kind of writing I didn't know I could do. It is very Latin." The book won First Place for Fiction at the national Kay Snow Awards. The book's vibrant front cover is from a painting by Baross.
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| Newport's Nye Beach area |
Jan Baross grew up in Bakersfield, CA, received a BA in art and teaching credentials from San Francisco State University, and a masters in communication from Oregon State. She is also a filmmaker, having produced 40 documentaries, several animated films, numerous Public Service announcements for television, a few music videos, and six feature films. Early in her career she was a TV-film stringer for NBC and CBS. As a playwright, Baross has written fifteen plays, some of which have been produced Off Off Broadway, in the US and Mexico. She was commissioned to turn her play, "Mata Hari," into the libretto for opera, which premiered in Dallas, Texas, and won an award. She is also a cartoonist, film critic, and travel and feature contributor for several newspapers and magazines. Her photographs have been published widely and exhibited in several galleries. She's taught filmmaking at Oregon State University, Seattle University's Upward Bound, and for Portland Artists in the Schools; and art in pre-schools in Seattle and San Francisco.
Jan Baross is the owner of Mpolo Press, which has published Baross' illustrated travel guides, "Ms. Baross Goes to Paris" and "Ms. Baross Goes To Mexico." She has served on the board of directors for Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland for 20 years. Each year Baross creates a series of paintings based on the theme of one of the plays. This year her series, "Short History of Boys," was created for exhibit during the run of the play, "History of Boys" in May and early June. She is currently working on her second novel, an historical saga that takes place in Oregon in 1906.
Copies of "Jose Builds A Woman" will be available for purchase and autographing courtesy of Ulrike Bremer of Nye Beach Books. Following a brief intermission and book signing, the Nye Beach Writers Series' open mike will take place. The first ten people who sign up can read their original work for up to five minutes. Open mike readers are welcome to display and sell copies of their own books and CDs. Light refreshments, wine, and coffee will be available.
Future featured authors include Derrick Jensen, Donna Henderson, Sharon Wood-Wortman, Carlos Reyes, Claudia Handler and Spike Walker. Writers On The Edge is also offering a summer writing workshop in August for youth aged 7 to 10. Pre-registration is required; class is limited to 12 students. All participants receive full scholarships. Workshop students will be the featured authors at the August 16 Nye Beach Writers Series. Workshop and future schedule details are available at www.writersontheedge.org. To receive email notification of upcoming events contact Carla Perry at 541-574-7708, or send an email to info@writersontheedge.org.
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