Library presents a fine selection
Traditionally, Ken Hobson casts a wide net throughout the state when choosing authors for Driftwood Public Library’s annual Oregon Legacy Literary Series. This year, he’s sticking to the coast for the four fiction and nonfiction authors who will appear each Sunday throughout February.
The longest-running literary series on the Central Oregon Coast will stream on the Library’s YouTube Channel and Facebook page.
The guest list includes Keith Rosson, who has worked as a graphic designer and ’zine creator for years. After putting out a punk ’zine called Avowfor many years, he finally made the plunge into writing fiction. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for the New American Fiction Prize and the Birdwhistle Prize for Short Fiction.
“He’s been here for our Dark and Stormy nights series and he was so entertaining,” Hobson said. “I highly recommend his first book, “Mercy of the Tide:” it’s incredible. It’s super creepy and unsettling because it’s alternative history but some is true so locals are like, ‘wait if that part’s true then...’”
Rosson’s first published novel, “The Mercy of the Tide” is the fourth book he has written and is set on the Oregon Coast in 1983. Exactly where? In fictional Riptide, but all you have to do is look at the map at the beginning of the book to figure out which town Riptide stands in for.
“Though he doesn’t call the town Newport, for anyone that knows the area, it’s clearly Newport,” Hobson said.
It is a novel about grief and guilt and the Cold War, with a sense of time and place not frequently achieved by even veteran writers. In a review of the novel, NPR called it “a beautifully gloomy meditation on how lives tangle around each other, then tighten in the face of terror — and how modern destructive evils displace the ancient ones embedded in our bones.” Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, wrote “Rosson has a real gift for vivid description and for creating anguished characters who deserve a faint glimmer of hope.”
Rosson lives in Portland with his partner, Robin, and when he’s not writing fiction, he writes about music for Razorcake and Rebel Noise. His most recently published novel is “Road Seven,” and his latest work, “Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons” is expected out this month.
“The goal was to have all coastal authors this time,” Hobson said. “Though Rosson isn’t currently local, he grew up in Newport and I just really think people will enjoy him.”
Kicking off the series is Deborah Reed, the author of seven novels, most recently “Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan,” and “The Days When Birds Come Back.” She has taught novel writing at the Hellenic American University in Greece, the UCLA extension program and was previously the co-director of the Black Forest Writing Seminars at Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany. She now lives in Manzanita and is the owner of the independent Cloud & Leaf Bookstore.
Next up on the roster is Paul Haeder, a Newport based writer, journalist, educator, activist and social services provider. His work has been published widely, including Dissident Voice, LA Progressive and Cirque Journal.
The final presenter, Lori Tobias, recently published a work of nonfiction, “Storm Beat: A Journalist Reports from the Oregon Coast.” The stories are the result of her years as the coastal reporter for the Oregonian and includes many gripping tales she hadn’t yet told. Tobias freelances for local and national outlets, including the New York Times, Seattle Times, Denver Post and 1859 Magazine. Her novel “Wander” won the Nancy Pearl Book Award for Best Book of Fiction from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.
Oregon Legacy Literary Series presentations, which are free and open to all, start at 3 pm each Sunday, beginning on Sunday, Feb. 7. For details, go to www.driftwoodlib.org.