FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ellen Waterston, Director
The Nature of Words
Phone: 541.330.4381
Email: info@thenatureofwords.org
Website: www.thenatureofwords.org
Editors: Author Photos Available Upon Request
The Nature of Words Announces 2009 Guest Authors
Bend, Oregon. July 1, 2009. If you like a good read, and enjoy discovering new-to-you writers, it's the time of year to compile your reading list and crack the books written by The Nature of Words 2009 guest authors. The annual celebration is scheduled for November 4-8, 2009 in Bend, Oregon. In its fifth year, Central Oregon's premier literary event will present a diverse roster of authors in fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry. In honor of Oregon's sesquicentennial, the 2009 lineup includes four Oregon-based authors, each with a unique voice and perspective.
To date, the lineup includes a sometimes-controversial author who draws on his experiences as a Native American, an historical novelist whose body of work will be recognized with a special award, a young rising star of the poetry genre, a genuinely funny woman who writes both fiction and nonfiction, an emerging writer and native Alaskan whose work reflects his love of that frontier, and an essayist and poet whose family is legendary in Oregon literature. Additional authors will be announced soon.
The 2009 guest author roster includes these acclaimed authors:
Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian who grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation, is a prolific writer and poet, as well as an entertaining and thought-provoking speaker. His first collection of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, was published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1993. For this story collection he received a PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction, and was awarded a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. In March 2005, Grove Atlantic Press reissued the collection with the addition of two new stories. Alexie won the National Book Award in 2007 for his young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. A new collection of poetry, Face, was released in March 2009. Alexie has won numerous literary awards and honors, including the Pushcart Prize, the Odyssey Award and inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2004 and The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005. A new book of short stories, War Dances, will be released in October 2009. The Nature of Words has a new collaboration with the Nancy Chandler Visiting Scholar Program, which has been instrumental in bringing together several Central Oregon Community College departments to help sponsor Alexie's appearance on the campus.
Jane Kirkpatrick, an historical novelist, speaker and teacher who makes her home in Moro, Oregon, will receive the 2009 Caldera Special Recognition Award, funded by Dan and Bonnie Wieden, for her body of work. She has written 14 novels and three non-fiction books. Her titles have been finalists for the Oregon Book Award, the Spur Award from Western Writers, and Reader's Choice. In 2008, A Tendering in the Storm won the WILLA Literary Award for best original paperback novel. A Sweetness to the Soul won the Wrangler Award for outstanding Western novel of 1995. Her award-winning essays, articles, and humor have appeared in over fifty publications. Kirkpatrick's latest novel, A Flickering Light, was published in April 2009.
Matthew Dickman, a rising young poet from Portland, Oregon is the author of All-American Poem, which won the 2008 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, the May Sarton poetry prize from the American Academy of Arts and Science, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His poems, which reflect his affinity for Portland, Oregon and the Lent district where he grew up, have appeared in a wide range of publications, including The New Yorker and Tin House. He has received several fellowships for his work; Dickman has been profiled in Poets & Writers and the New Yorker with his twin brother, poet Michael Dickman.
Seth Kantner is a writer and photographer who was born and raised in northern Alaska in the bush 200 miles from the nearest village of any significant size. He grew up white in an environment that is almost totally Native Alaskan. His photography and writing reflect his love for the land, and the animals that live on it and his belief in the importance of wildness left wild. Kantner's 2004 debut novel, Ordinary Wolves, was released to acclaim. The novel won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and Kantner received a Whiting Award naming him one of the nation's top ten emerging writers. His second book, Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska, was published in April 2009.
Karen Karbo is the author of three novels --Trespassers Welcome Here, The Diamond Lane and Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me -- all of which were named New York Times Notable Books. Her latest nonfiction book is How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great. In the words of her publisher, "The book teases some unexpected lessons from the life of a woman whose freewheeling, pants-wearing determination redefined the image of the independent woman while eventually endearing her to the world." The Stuff of Life, about caring for her father during the last year of his life, was a People Magazine Critic's Choice, a selection of the Satellite Sisters Radio Book Club, a winner of the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, and also a Times Notable Book. Karbo lives in Portland, Oregon.
Kim Stafford, a poet and essayist, is the son of iconic Oregon poet William Stafford. He grew up in Oregon, Iowa, Indiana, California, and Alaska, following his parents as they taught and traveled through the West. He has taught at Lewis & Clark College since 1979, where he directs the Northwest Writing Institute, and teaches writing. He is also the Literary Executor of the William Stafford Archive. His work, Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford, won the 2003 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. Other titles include The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft and A Thousand Friends of Rain: New & Selected Poems. He is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and numerous awards.
The Nature of Words includes two nights of author readings in Bend's Tower Theatre, two days of writing workshops, presentations and lectures conducted by the guest authors at Central Oregon Community College and the OSU-Cascades Campuses, a dinner and panel discussion, and the Rising Star Creative Writing Competition awards for young writers.
About Our Sponsors
The Nature of Words is made possible thanks to the generous support of Central Oregon Community College, Oregon State University-Cascades Campus, The Old Mill District, Starview Foundation in support of the Deschutes Land Trust, Writing Ranch, and an anonymous donor. Additional support is provided by Caldera, Cascades East and Cascade Publications, Central Oregon Community College's Office of Student Life, Diversity Committee and Native American Program, Julia Kennedy Cochran, Clear 101.7 FM, Devore's Good Food, Emily Bonavia, Mike & Sue Hollern, The Kinsman Foundation, KOHD News, The Maybelle Clark MacDonald Foundation, Craig & Linda Moore, Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Bend, Ray Lansing & Angelina Montoya, Oregon Arts Commission, Phoenix Inn Suites, Karen Poulsen/Bella Moda, Jim & Becky Powell, Samuel S. Johnson Foundation, Sally Russell, S. Park Shaw Fund, Shelk Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation, William Smith Properties, Sun Forest Construction, The Bulletin, The Roundhouse Foundation, Sun Forest Construction, The Source Weekly, Umpqua Bank and Dan Wieden.
For more information, visit www.thenatureofwords.org, email info@thenatureofwords.org or call 541.330.4381.