In author news…
The Central Oregon Coast is home to a variety of accomplished authors with works that offer something for every reader: local color and history, fantasy, young adult novels, spiritual philosophy, ecological reality, poetry, mysteries, community organizing, song-writing essentials and memoirs of exceptional lives.
You can meet and talk with 12 of these writers when the Newport 60+ Activity Center hosts its Central Oregon Coast Author Fair on Saturday, March 18. Authors will be selling their books and there will be refreshments and door prizes.
Novels of local interest include Patsy Brookshire’s “Threads” and “Scandal at the Willamina Quilt Show;” Sue Fagalde Lick’s “Up Beaver Creek” and “Seal Rock Sound;” and Alexandra Mason’s “The Lighthouse Ghost of Yaquina Bay.”
Novels with other settings are the Logan McKenna mystery series by Valerie Davisson and the award-winning “Wander” by Lori Tobias. Leah Shrifter brings her two fantasy novels, “Seed of the Gods” and “The Sky Dwellers,” and Wallace Kaufman offers “The Search for FOXP5: A Genomic Mystery Novel.” Karen Keltz presents young adult readers her two adventures, “Sally Jo Survives Sixth Grade” and “Laurel Hedges and the Evil Lurker,” while Deborah Lincoln views American history through the eyes of her characters in well-awarded “Agnes Canon’s War” and “An Irish Wife.” Alexandra Mason imagines an attempt to clone the globe’s greatest writer from dubious DNA in “Shakespeare’s Pipe,” with unforeseen consequences.
Philosophical and spiritual self-help is well represented by several books by Ruth L. Miller, “The Science of Mental Healing” and “The Creative Power of Thought” among others; “A Handbook for Love” by Alexandra Mason; Rand Bishop’s “24 Reflections on Life’s Priorities” and “Trek: My Peace Pilgrimage in Search of a Kinder America.”
Neal Lemery extends this strand of thought into community action in “Be the Change,” “Mentoring Boys to Men,” and “Building Community: Rural Voices for Hope and Change, An Oregon Perspective” while Valerie Davisson proposes “Saturday Salon: Bringing Conversation and Community Back into Our Lives.”
Wallace Kaufman turns our attention to the ecology of place in “No Turning Back: Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking,” and “The Beaches are Moving: The Drowning of America’s Shoreline.”
Several of these authors share their unique life experiences in memoir form, Kaufman’s “Coming out of the Woods: The Solitary Life of an American Naturalist”; Bishop’s “Makin’ Stuff Up”; Patsy Brookshire’s “This is Now, That was Then”; and Neal Lemery’s “Finding my Muse on Main Street.”
And for lyric and poetry lovers, there are “Lost and Found” and “Poems Along the Way” by Alexandra Mason; Fagalde Lick’s “Widow at the Piano” and “Gravel Road Ahead;” and Bishop’s “The Absolute Essentials of Songwriting Success.”
The fair will be a browsing treasure trove of possibility for readers and an exciting gathering of our best creative literary artists.
The fair runs from 1 to 4 pm at the Newport 60+ Activity Center, located at 20 SE 2nd Street. For more information, go to newportoregon.gov/sc or call 541-265-9617.