Author and translator Bill Porter presents work from his newest book, Guide To Capturing a Plum Blossom, due to be published shortly by Copper Canyon.  He'll be joined for this evening by Eric Paul Shaffer, a resident of Hawaii, who will read from Lahaina Noon and other books of poetry.

In 1972, Bill Porter left America and moved to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. After more than three years with the monks and nuns, he struck out on his own and supported himself by teaching English and later by working as a journalist at English-language radio stations in Taiwan and Hong Kong. During this time, he married a Chinese woman, with whom he has two children, and he began working on translations of Chinese poetry and Buddhist texts. In 1993, he returned to America so that his children could learn English, and he has lived ever since in Port Townsend, Washington. Produced under the pseudonym 'Red Pine,' his translations have been honored with a number of awards, including two NEA translation fellowships, a PEN translation award, the inaugural Asian Literature Award of the American Literary Translators Association, and more recently a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he received to fund a project entitled Mountains and Rivers of Chinese Poetry, which he calls the poetry version of his book Zen Baggage, which recounts a pilgrimage to sites in China associated with the beginning of Zen Buddhism.

Eric Paul Shaffer is author of five books of poetry, including Lāhaina Noon; Living at the Monastery, working in the Kitchen; and Portable Planet. His poetry appears in North American Review, Slate, Ploughshares, and The Sun Magazine, Australia’s Island and Quadrant, Canada’s CV2, Dalhousie Review, Event, and Fiddlehead, Éire’s Poetry Ireland Review and Southword Journal, England’s Stand and Magma, and New Zealand’s Poetry NZ and Takahe. Shaffer received the 2002 Elliot Cades Award for Literature, a 2006 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Book Award for Lāhaina Noon, and the 2009 James M. Vaughan Award for Poetry. He lives on O‘ahu and teaches at Honolulu Community College.

Isabel is a single, twentysomething thrift-store shopper and collector of remnants, things cast off or left behind by others. Glaciers fo llows Isabel through a day in her life in which work with damaged books in the basement of a library, unrequited love for the former soldier who fixes her computer, and dreams of the perfect vintage dress move over a backdrop of deteriorating urban architecture and the imminent loss of the glaciers she knew as a young girl in Alaska.

Glaciers unfolds internally, the action shaped by Isabel’s sense of history, memory, and place, recalling the work of writers such as Jean Rhys, Marguerite Duras, and Virginia Woolf. For Isabel, the fleeting moments of one day can reveal an entire life. While she contemplates loss and the intricate fissures it creates in our lives, she accumulates the stories—the remnants—of those around her and she begins to tell her own story.

"Smith’s debut unspools in delicate links of linear thought...." --Publishers' Weekly

Alexis M. Smith grew up in Soldotna, Alaska, and Seattle, Washington. She received an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. She has written for Tarpaulin Sky and powells.com. She has a son and two cats, and they all live together in a little apartment in Portland, Oregon.

This event will be held at the ST. JOHNS COMMUNITY CENTER, 8427 N. CENTRAL ST.  Tickets are required for this event. 

Tickets available at St. Johns Booksellers, 8622 N Lombard St.
Price of admission includes a copy of A Pictorial History of St. Johns
(Your purchase of a ticket reserves one copy of the book from the first printing--you may pre-order additional copies)
$20 in advance/$25 at the door
Light refreshments will be served

St. Johns Booksellers will host a book launch event for A Pictorial History of St. Johns, a new collection of historic photographs of St. Johns, Portland's own small town in the city. Author Don Nelson will give a visual presentation, discuss the process of selecting images for the book, and answer questions from neighbors. This event will take place at the St. Johns Community Center Auditorium. Light refreshments will be served. Tickets to the event include a copy of A Pictorial History of St. Johns, and may be purchased at St. Johns Booksellers.

Many Oregon history books include images of the St. Johns Bridge, North Portland's iconic and beautiful river crossing. Few explore the St. Johns neighborhood's rich history before and after the building of the bridge. For the first time, Don Nelson presents a visual history covering over 125 years of the life of our town. Besides James John, the Ohio-born settler who platted the township in the 1850s, you'll get to know Wan Jower, a Chinese immigrant whose workingman's supply store remained in operation for 100 years; Dr. Luzana Graves, who graduated medical school in 1908 and practiced in St. Johns for over 50 years; shipbuilders and coopers and many others who built the town that today is one of Portland's most attractive and close-knit historic neighborhoods.

Neighborhood bookseller Nena Rawdah notes that St. Johns neighbors are a mix of longtime residents and recent arrivals. Folks who grew up in the area often visit Rawdah's bookstore, St. Johns Booksellers, hoping to find new resources to share with friends and family. New neighbors come in to learn more about their adopted home. And visitors hope for something attractive to take with them when they leave. The neighborhood heritage society's last illustrated publication appeared fourteen years ago. Recent books by a local history columnist are mainly prose. Rawdah observed a lack of current pictorial materials that would satisfy neighbors' and visitors' curiosity. She urged experienced Portland historian Don Nelson to take on the task of gathering images and information for a book that would fill this niche.

Don Nelson is the author of several previous illustrated history books about Portland and its neighborhoods. In addition to drawing on public and museum archives, Nelson gathered photographs and ephemera from the private collections of history enthusiasts and St. Johns neighbors. Interviews with members of long-established St. Johns families provided the context and detail that enrich the captions and text of A Pictorial History of St. Johns. Nelson also shot photographs of present-day buildings and businesses.

Praise for Don Nelson's earlier book, Portland's Washington Park: A Pictorial History
"Don Nelson has accomplished the remarkable: He's taken a fresh look backwards. Nelson's gift for unearthing historical nuggets is enhanced by this book's brilliant photographs, many of which are previously unpublished...a welcome addition to coffee tables and research libraries." --Bart King, author of The Architectural Guide to Portland

We're delighted to welcome Randy Blazak with the print launch of his novel.  Light refreshments will be served.

A couple of hipsters, an opera singer, a homeless girl and a guy who may or may not be an alien navigate rainy Portland, Oregon in the year 2000. They each wrestle with the pressing question of the day; What is the point of hanging around when things seem so bleak? The answer comes from the joy of a great song and the rare glimpse of the sun. The novel is filled with sociological insights, inside references for music fans, snide humor, and good reasons not to spend too much time in a suicidal funk.

The Mission of the Sacred Heart is a rock novel loosely based on a 1976 Electric Light Orchestra record the author thought was a concept album when he was 12 years old. The novel was originally written in 1999 in Portlandia, while Blazak was loaded on Zoloft.

"Some of the book's best moments are the musical performances in the text. Blazak's descriptions of styles from opera to rock possess a reverence that borders on religious, and they color the relationship between Cozy and Lenny (Zak's musician friends) with a tenderness that floats off the page. But Zak's numerous missteps in his fool's quest to win back Petra--everything from post-breakup mixtapes to drunkenly contemplating the abyss below an ocean bluff--are similarly strong moments, even if only because most readers can identify, having themselves been guilty of similar folly at some point in their lives." - Josh Gross, Boise Weekly

Vegetarian Entrées That Won’t Leave You Hungry encompasses a wide range of ingredients—from pantry and refrigerator staples like grains, beans, noodles, eggs, and tofu—to an inspiring range of year-round and seasonal vegetables. Easy entrées like Summer Squash Gratin showcase seasonal produce, recipes for dumplings and curries draw on global cuisines; inventions like a Curried Potato Crepe Stack transform everyday ingredients into appealing new flavor combinations. Recipes for flavor enhancers and finishing touches—croutons, toasted bread crumbs, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, pestos, kimchi, and more—as well as informative and wide-ranging “Vegetarian Kitchen Essentials” features (including Five Appetizers, Five Easy Desserts, Cooking for One, and Hosting a Dinner Party) contribute to making this new cookbook one that home cooks will want to turn to again and again.

Author Lukas Volger will discuss

● Fresh ways to take advantage of seasonal ingredients and produce

● Making filling dishes without having always to resort to “fake” meat (tofu, seitan, tempeh)

● Making delicious vegetarian fare worthy of dinner parties and other meals to impress guests.

 Tasty samples will be available!

Gail Cavanaugh is eighteen when she unearths a long-held family secret. Haunted by
a persistent, ghostly voice inside her head, Gail is propelled west on a highway journey away from the father she’s always known. Guided by her ghost, searching for the truth about her origins, she lands broken-down in Sylver, a mountain town in Northwest Washington, half a continent away from home. Trapped and cashless, Gail is swept up in the lives of three people with their own tangled longings and imperfections. Their haunted yearning is a perfect match for Gail and her ghost. Amongst past and present secrets, Sylver becomes a place Gail can’t escape even years after she’s left for good.

Unapologetically nostalgic, A Long-Forgotten Truth is an engrossing, road-bound
literary novel, a startling debut, perfect for the wanderer in all of us. 

Rachel Ballard received her Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Her work has been published in Pass the Fire: Stories about Service in America, and Jeopardy Magazine. She lives in the company of wonderful friends in beautiful Bellingham, Washington. A Long-Forgotten Truth is her first novel, as well as the first publication from her publisher, Rozlyn Press.  We're delighted to host a new Northwest talent!

A Long-Forgotten Truth (Paperback)

By Rachel Ballard

$17.00

ISBN-13: 9780983326007
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Rozlyn Press, 8/2011

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NOW WE ARE SIX!

St. Johns Booksellers will celebrate another anniversary on Saturday, 6/25/2011.  This coincides rather neatly with the amazing performance programs of NOFest, our neighborhood's annual summer arts festival.  To celebrate the day, we have special programs throughout the afternoon, from Market Day Poetry to NOFest's spoken word artists to a cool, fun, quick fiction writing contest.

AND for the geeky we have a scavenger hunt.  Check our Facebook page for clues!

Click here to see a complete schedule for the bookstore's birthday.

It's back!  The 36-minute contest that shatters writers' block returns to St. Johns Booksellers for our 6th anniversary!

Created by Indigo Editing, sponsors of the annual 36-Hour Sledgehammer Writing Contest, the mini-Sledgehammer works on similar lines. 

Participants will be given 4 writing prompts: a character, a fragment of dialogue, an action, and a prop. A timer will be set for 36 minutes. Each participant will produce a new work of fiction on the spot, using the prompts provided, before the timer runs down. All work must be new, and produced especially for this contest. There is no minimum or maximum length. At the end of 36 minutes, participants will read their stories aloud for the audience and our panel of judges, which will include a representative of St. Johns Booksellers and a representative of Indigo Editing. Entries will be judged for completeness, overall quality of writing, and best use of all prompts. Judges’ decisions are final.  Prizes include a copy of Ink-Filled Page, Indigo Editing's yearbook of fine writing, and a St. Johns Booksellers gift certificate.

Participation is limited to 10 writers, on a first-come, first-served basis.  Signup opens at 6:30pm.

While you are welcome to bring any writing device you regularly use, all participants will receive a Moleskine pocket notebook.

Look!  Now at a new time!  Storytellers Sally Skelding and Lynette Godt present a half-hour of stories and songs for preschoolers and their families.