Electrifying afternoons at the library
Dark and Stormy Night series returns to Lincoln City
Emmeline Duncan
Fall is here and there’s a chill in the air, even inside Lincoln City’s normally cozy Driftwood Public Library, where the Dark and Stormy Night author series has returned for more spine-tingling tales.
Started 21 years ago by the late Marcy Taylor, the series celebrates Oregon authors who specialize in genres such as mystery, horror, science fiction and fantasy.
The series opens on Thursday, Oct. 3, with an appearance from Emmeline Duncan, a mystery writer based out of Portland. Her novels include the Ground Rules series, starting in 2021 with “Fresh Brewed Murder” and followed by “Double Shot Death,” “Flat White Fatality” and “Death Unfiltered.” The first book in her new Halloween Bookshop Series, “Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop,” came out in July. Duncan also writes Young Adult novels under the name Kelly Garrett. Her debut YA, “The Last To Die,” was an Oregon Book Awards finalist and was re-issued by Sourcebooks Fire in November 2019.
Duncan grew up in Lincoln City, and remembers her childhood visits to Driftwood Public Library fondly.
She is a board member of the Columbia River Chapter of Sisters in Crime and a past board member of the Northwest Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. She also co-organizes Friends of Mystery’s Bloody Thursday lecture series.
The Dark and Stormy Night series continues on Thursday, Oct. 10, with a visit from Anita Kelly. Originally from a small town in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, Kelly now lives in the Pacific Northwest, working as an educator and writing romance that celebrates queer love in all its infinite possibilities. Whenever not reading or writing, Kelly is to be found drinking too much tea, taking pictures and dreaming of the next walk in the woods.
On Thursday, Oct. 17, the library will welcome Pamela Statz, author of Thorn City, a Portland tale of suspected murder, eclectic food trucks and artisanal cocaine.
Statz grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, the 12th of 13 children. She attended UW Madison earning degrees in Journalism and History. With four duffel bags and her goldfish, Lucrezia, swimming in a mason jar, she flew to the West Coast at the cusp of the dot-com boom and never left. She has worked in media and advertising in San Francisco and Portland for Lucasfilm, WIRED, Nike and Wieden+Kennedy. She currently splits her time between Portland and Manzanita with her husband, Justin Graham, and their giant dog, Hooper.
Claire Rudy Foster will return to the library on Thursday, Oct. 24. Foster is a queer, nonbinary, trans writer who lives in Portland. Together with recovery advocate Ryan Hampton, Foster has co-authored three books including the bestselling “Unsettled,” a shocking inside account of reckless capitalism and injustice in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case.
The pair’s most recent book is “Fentanyl Nation: Toxic Politics and America’s Failed War on Drugs.”
Foster’s debut novel, “The Rain Artist,” imagines a future without rain and exposes the links between billionaire depravity and climate destruction. The novel won comparisons to Margaret Atwood, Ursula LeGuin and Philip K. Dick.
Meanwhile, Foster’s short story collection, “Shine of the Ever,” was named by O: The Oprah Magazine as one of the best LGBTQ books of the year.
The series wraps up on Halloween, Thursday, Oct. 31, with a virtual visit from Alan Lastufka, a Hoffer Award-winning author and the owner of Shortwave, an independent small press. He writes horror, supernatural and magical realism stories. His debut novel, “Face the Night,” received a starred Kirkus review, was a finalist for Best New Horror Novel at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and won the 2022 Hoffer Award for Best Commercial Fiction. It was also listed as one of the 100 Best Indie Books of the Year by Kirkus.
When not writing or recording with his band, The Caulden Road, Lastufka enjoys walking through Oregon’s beautiful woods with his partner, Kris.
Lastufka will appear via Zoom and those interested in hearing him can either attend at the library or request the Zoom link and join in from home.
All events in the Dark & Stormy Night series start at 3 pm in the library, located on the second floor at 801 SW Hwy. 101.
For more information, contact Ken Hobson at 541-996-1242 or khobson@lincolncity.org.