Tag Archives: NW Book Fair

New York City Blog from Portland July 19 – July 25

July 25 was the NW Book Fair in Pioneer Square. Pioneer Square is Portland’s living room. Last week we attended the annual Sand Castles Competition. It was blisteringly hot and so bright my eyes hurt. This week my friend helped me haul copies of The Lemrow Mystery and totes to the fair. You can’t win them all. It rained. It poured. The tent I shared

A Perfect Portand Party
A Perfect Portand Party

with four other women, all delightful, was like a wet handkerchief after ten minutes. I hung in there until one p.m and then grabbed my gear and left. There were no customers but I exchanged copes of my book with others and we all swore fervently to read and review. Met lots of great Oregonians.

Went to a wonderful party after the rain had stopped.
My friend arranged for me to cat-

Big Eaters
Big Eaters

sit in a Portland floating home in the Jantzen suburb.The houses are licensed under the title floating homes/houseboats. Years ago, it was considered very economical to live on the Columbia Channel. Now, it’s desirable. The houses are built very closely together. There’s a central narrow board walk and many signs about various regulations: animals have to stay on their own property, no loud noise. The cats I baby – sat are called raggedy dolls. That means they have lots of hair and appear bigger than they really are. They shed copiously and eat like dogs. None of this nonsense about inner control. They figured out where some hidden nibbles were, climbed onto the counter and managed to knock the package to the floor and gobble up oodles of them, twice. Friends (not feline) came to dinner and afterwards we sat on the front porch which is on the river.

The floating home front porch

 

New York City Blog from Portland July 12 – July 18

I asked the UPS store manager to reproduce The Lemrow Mystery cover 2′ x 2′ to be used as a table covering at the NW Book Fair on July 25. Here is the work of art. Move over, Leonardo.

The Lemrow Mystery tablecloth
The Lemrow Mystery tablecloth

I went to the Tualatin public library in a Portland suburb to the NW Writers and Publishers Association to network and to meet other writers presenting at the Book Fair. R. H. Sheldon gave a very interesting and illuminating talk about writers who ignored writing taboos and produced great literature. Two examples were Alice Munro’s use of the passive voice and Mark Twain writing in dialect and about the poor. The library is enchanting, packed with books rather than computers, although those are well represented. There are cozy nooks and corners for people of all ages to curl up with a book or to daydream.

Tualatin Public Library
Tualatin Public Library

Powell’s City of Books has many talks about…books! On July 13, a native Oregonian, Dawson Barrett, talked about Becoming Oregon, his book about Oregon between 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition and 1905, the exposition, or World’s Fair held in Portland. He explored Oregon as a territory and then as a state (1859) through newspapers ( the NY Times thought Oregon state hood was a bad idea), magazines, engravings, pictures and maps. Amusing anecdotes accompanied the U. S. and England’s fascinated ignorance about the northwest.

I made my annual pilgrimage to a friend’s elegant garden.Once again, she patiently identified flowers and shrubs for my ignorant eye. In addition to roses in the city of roses, there are many other varieties. It’s heartening to see and hear the bees.

A Bee Hut
A Bee Hut