Peter Donahue, author of Clara and Merritt, was recently interviewed for KUOW Preseents by Seattle’s Dave Beck. You can listen to the interview at: http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=21032

from Louise Hawker, Watermark Communications

Garrison Keillor, host of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac on public radio, will read Ellen Waterston’s poem, “Designed to Fly” on June 26, 2010 on The Writer’s Almanac. The poem was selected from Waterston’s poetry collection, Between Desert Seasons, which won the prestigious 2009 WILLA Award in Poetry. The Writer’s Almanac is a daily radio program produced by American Public Media (APM). In each program Mr. Keillor presents a list of cultural events and anniversaries, many associated with literary figures, then ends with the poetry reading. APM currently distributes The Writer’s Almanac for broadcast to about 320 non-commercial public radio stations around the country. The program audio is also streamed and podcast from and archived on the APM website at http://www.writersalmanac.publicradio.org and may be streamed, archived on carrying station websites as well.

John Griswold’s historical novel, A Democracy of Ghosts, based on the Herrin Massacre, has won the 2010 Eric Hoffer Award in the Micropress category. A micropress is a press that publishes fewer than 24 books annually. Previoius winners in this category include 2007 winner, Thomas E. Kennedy, for Greene’s Summer, published by Wynkin de Worde (and newly released in March by Bloomsbury Books with the new title of In The Company of Angels). 2008 winner was Clown Girl by Monica Drake, published by Hawthorne Books of Portland, Oregon.

http://www.hofferaward.com/HAbookwinners.html#micro

“Where the Yellow Brick Road Turns West,” David Memmott’s long narrative poem published in GIVING IT AWAY, has been selected as a finalist for the Western Writers of America 2010 Spur Award in the Western poem category. The WWA has been presenting Spur Awards for the best Western writing since 1953. For more information, check their website at: http://www.WesternWriters.org  If you’d like to read Memmott’s poem, it has been published as an e-book at: http://chapbooks.webdelsol.com/worldvoices/memmott/memmott.html

World Voices is edited by Walter Cummins and Thomas E. Kennedy.

Below are links for reviews of Thomas E. Kenney’s novel, In the Company of Angels, released in March from Bloomsbury Books (both USA and UK).

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/brieflynoted/2010/03/22/100322crbn_brieflynoted2

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031901397.html

Wordcraft of Oregon recently sent 25 copies of Alex Kuo’s story collection, White Jade to Hong Kong for the author’s appearance at the Man International Literary Festival in Hong Kong and at the Wormwood Bookstore in Beijing. All copies were sold. In a Q & A session at Man, someone asked what could be done to sell more copies of White Jade and Kuo suggested maybe a dildo could be included with it (referring to the first story in the collection, “10,000 Dildos.” Though such an ingenius marketing scheme might be profitable in the long run, a limited budget relegated this idea to Kuo’s own imaginative package shown on his website:

http://www.alexkuo.org

In her recent annual address to the Western History Association, President Sherry Smith cited Soldier to Advocate by George Venn twice: beginning paragraph and ending. Should you be curious about that speech, “Reconiliation and Restitution in the American West,” the address of the published text from The Western Historical Quarterly, as reprinted on The History Cooperative website can be found at:

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whq/41.1/smith.html

Soldier to Advocate has also been cited in The Nez Perces in the Indian Territory: Nimipuu Survival by J. Diane Pearson, and The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story by Elliott West.

John Griswold’s first novel, A Democracy of Ghosts, has been selected as a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s 2009 Book of the Year Award in historical fiction.

The finalists, representing 360 publishers, were selected from 1,400 entries in 60 categories. These books are examples of independent publishing at its best.

For a full list of the finalists searchable by category, publisher, title, and author, visit www.bookoftheyearawards.com.

The winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers selected from our readership. Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, as well as Editor’s Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction will be announced at a special program at BookExpo America in New York City on May 25. The winners of the two Editor’s Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each. The ceremony is open to all BEA attendees.

ForeWord’s Book of the Year Awards program was designed to discover distinctive books from independent publishers across a number of genres. The Awards program often serves to provide these worthy projects with a second wind of publicity.

Salon.com has a great review of Thomas E. Kennedy’s recently released novel, IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS, by Laura Miller. Check it out, then order your own copy.

http://www.salon.com/books/what_to_read/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2010/03/14/in_the_company_of_angels

The March/April issue of THE WRITER’S CHRONICLE, a publication of AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs), features interviews with two Wordcraft of Oregon authors, Thomas E. Kennedy and Linda Lappin.

Joyce J. Townsend interviews Kennedy, whose novel, IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS, is scheduled for simultaneous spring release from Bloomsbury USA and Bloomsbury UK.

Originally published as GREENE’S SUMMER (the third novel of the COPENHAGEN QUARTET) by Wynkin DeWorde of Ireland, IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS is “a powerful epic novel that maps the trajectory of half-a-dozen lives as they move through the rainy days and white nights of Copenhagen summer and the passion, danger, fear, yearning, and hope at the intersection of their fates: Bernardo Greene, a Chliean torture survivor gravitating toward the beauty he glimpses in the eyes of a young Danish woman, Michela, herself the survivor of a violent marriage trying to find her own strength; Voss Andersen, a young Danish lawyer in the grip of a vandalous passion; Thorkild Kristensen, an idealistic psychiatrist struggling against despair at the ugliness of the experiences he works to help Bernardo transcend; Mikhail Ibsen, fighting for a last understanding of his life before it is lost to disease, and his wife, Lise, wandering alone in a psychological twilight of memory.”

Kennedy is the author of four Wordcraft of Oregon books, the story collection, UNREAL CITY, the novels, THE BOOK OF ANGELS and A PASSION IN THE DESERT (a finalist for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year in fiction), and a collection of essays, REALISM AND OTHER ILLUSIONS: ESSAYS ON THE CRAFT OF FICTION.

Sandy Sims interviews Linda Lappin, whose novel, KATHERINE’S WISH (an Ippy Award winner for historical fiction, an honorable mention for the Eric Hoffer Award in general fiction and a finalist for the ForeWord Magazine Book of Year in fiction), was published by Wordcraft of Oregon, and is excerpted at the end of the interview. KATHERINE’S WISH is based on the final years in the life of Katherine Mansfield.