Taking the literary world by storm
Caitlin Starling • Photo by Beth Olson Creative 2017
Dim the lights and tell Alexa to play the sounds of wolf calls, creaking stairs or a thunder storm. You might even tell your significant other to pop up behind you when you least expect it. No matter how you set the mood, you can make the venue as creepy as you want for Driftwood Public Library’s 18th annual Dark and Stormy Nights series, as this year’s mystery writers will be presenting virtually.
A different writer will present via Zoom each Thursday afternoon throughout October, beginning Oct. 7. Most presentations will also be recorded for later viewing.
Started as a way to bring Northwest mystery writers to the Oregon Coast, the series has expanded to include writers from other genres, including science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Caitlin Starling, who closed the series in 2019, will be returning to open this year’s series. She is releasing her newest novel, “The Death of Jane Lawrence” just two days before her presentation.
The novel is an updating of the classic haunted house tale, and was described by Publisher’s Weekly as “intricately plotted [and] deliciously bonkers.”
The series continues on Oct. 14 with a visit from Karen Thompson Walker. A former editor at Simon & Schuster, Walker was born in San Diego, earned a degree in English and creative writing at UCLA and is currently an assistant professor at the University of Oregon in the Creative Writing department.
Walker’s debut novel, “The Age of Miracles” chronicles the fictional phenomenon of “slowing," in which one Earth day begins to stretch out and takes longer and longer to complete. Her most recent book, “The Dreamers” is a science-fiction novel that details an ominous sleeping virus that sweeps over the fictional town of Santa Lora.
Walker was awarded a Best Fiction prize from BOMB magazine and a Sirenland Fellowship.
Comic book authors Matt Fraction and Sue Deconnick are set to share the virtual stage on Oct. 21. Both have written extensively for the Marvel comics universe and for DC, Image and Dark Horse comics.
Both have also been nominated for or won multiple awards including the Eisner, the Inkpot and the Hugo. They are married with two children and together run the production company Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Inc., home to comic series such as Bitch Planet, Casanova and Pretty Deadly.
Gabriel Urza will close the series on Oct. 28. Urza’s family is from the Basque region of Spain, where he lived for several years. He has written for publications including The New York Times, the Guardian, Politico and Guernica and is the author of two books. “All That Followed” is a psychologically twisting novel about a politically-charged act of violence that echoes through a small Spanish town. The New York Times Book Review called the novel "a triumph."
In 2019 Urza published “The White Death: An Illusion,” a novella about an illusionist who dies under mysterious circumstances at the height of his career and whose brief life is chronicled by an unnamed narrator who encountered Vaughan as a boy.
Urza currently teaches fiction at Portland State University.
All presentations begin at 4 pm. For more information, go to driftwoodlib.org or call 541-996-2277.