Buy this bookstore….PLEASE!

We were very sad to see that Patti Pattee of Watermark Book Company in Anacortes is turning a final page on the bookselling business. But there’s still hope for the independent bookstore: YOU! If owning a bookstore is on your bucket list, this could be your chance. See Pattee’s letter on NW Book Lovers and visit Watermark online or, better yet, in person.

what’s selling?

The American Booksellers Association has posted their Indie Poetry Bestseller List, which reports the top 25 poetry titles based on sales at independent bookstores nationwide for the eight-week period ending April 30, 2017.

Reading!

Village Books (Bellingham) is pleased to present a National Poetry Month reading by Rick Hermann. He will read from his latest book, Nooksack: Poems & Prose, on Thursday, April 13, 2017, at 7:00pm in the Readings Gallery.

Nooksack is a River, a People, a Spirit of Place. It is shadow and cloud, glacier and bay. In this realm, even the stones have spirits. Bellingham author Rick Hermann employs close-listening and observation to shape a notably original perspective in this new book of poetry and prose. Evoking the un-knowable mysteries as well as discovering the apparent solidity of the sensate world, these writings come also from his own life experience, describing possible worlds accessible through these rabbit holes. As readers, we discover in each moment “an arid sense of optimism,” irony and humor, and an abiding predisposition to survive.

Rick Hermann is the author of two previous books: The Bright World of Dandelion Court and Parkinson’s Dreams About Me: My Dance With the Shaking Palsy. He moved to Whatcom County in 1987 with his wife Lee Willis, where they raised their son, Eli Hermann, in the city of subdued excitement.

knowing the poet

How much do we want to know about the poet? How will knowing more (or less) inform or influence our assumptions about the poems? Fans of Elizabeth Bishop now have the opportunity to delve into a trove of revelations in Megan Marshall’s new biography of the poet, Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). To learn more about the book, and about Bishop, read “Elizabeth Bishop’s Art of Losing” by Claudia Roth Pierpont in The New Yorker. Then read the book and decide for yourself.
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Reasons to go to… Chicago

The American Writers Museum will open in Chicago on Tuesday, May 16, 2017. The museum’s mission “is to engage the public in celebrating American writers and exploring their influence on our history, our identity, our culture, and our daily lives.”

The museum will have exhibits for adults and children, ongoing programs, classes, a word waterfall and more. The museum’s first online exhibit, Power Of the Word, is an interactive site in which leaders, readers and writers exchange ideas about valuable books.

See more on the American Writers Museum website, Facebook page, on Instagram and Twitter @AmerWriteMuseum.

books to watch for

While you’re plowing through the books on the best-of lists from 2016, there are already plenty of new books in the pipeline.

Beltway Poetry Quarterly offers a list of 2017 poetry titles, without comment.

The Guardian provides a month-by-month calendar of fiction, non-fiction and poetry for 2017, and Andy Croft replies in a letter to the editor, concerned about the dearth of poetry titles on the list.

Writer David Nilsen offers his own list of 2017 Poetry Books I’m Excited About.

For NPR, poet and poetry critic Craig Morgan Teicher lists Poetry To Pay Attention To: A Preview Of 2017’s Best Verse.

That oughta keep you busy for a while.

coming right up!

The 14th Annual Western Washington University (WWU) Children’s Literature Conference will be held on Saturday, February 25, 2017, 8:00am to 3:30pm on the WWU campus, Performing Arts Center. Registration is limited, but still open. The conference will feature four award-winning authors and illustrators as speakers: Laurie Halse Anderson, Matt Phelan, Christian Robinson, and Rita Williams-Garcia. For information on the conference, speakers, schedule and registration, visit the WWUCLC website and the event page on Facebook.