About Reading Frenzy

An Independent Press Emporium

Recent posts

• Follow Following 1

  Who are some Portland authors worth reading?

  1 0 Well, I made the mistake of looking at the other responses AFTER I wrote mine so you're going to get a lot of duplication. Hopefully that will just serve to reinforce the recommendations... Where to start?! Portland is home to so many excellent writers from obscure self-publishers to literary luminaries such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Chuck Palahniuk. Here are a couple handfuls to get you rolling: FICTION Lean on Pete (Harper Perennial, 2010) by Willy Vlautin. A tough luck story of a hapless 15-yer-old kid set right here in Portland. Vlautin just took home the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and the Oregonian/Literary Arts Peoples’ Choice Award. Clown Girl (Hawthorne Books, 2007) by Monica Drake . This darkly funny tale came out a few years ago on a local press just got a second wind when it was optioned by Kristen Wiig! Geek Love (Random House, 1989) by Katherine Dunn. Perhaps this should be required reading for all Portlanders. Also not to be missed, her ode to Portland past published by Smithsonian Magazine last year. Also: Cheryl Strayed, Jon Raymond, Emily Chenowith, Tom Spanbauer NON-FICTION The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown 2010) by Rebecca Skloot. A narrative science writer, Skloot devoted more than a decade to researching and writing this truly riveting story of race, medical research and bioethics. Footnotes in Gaza (Metropolitan Books, 2010) by Joe Sacco. Joe Sacco is one of the preeminent journalists of our time who happens to also be a cartoonist. He's able to convey so much more information through the combination of words and pictures than he could through writing alone. Footnotes tells the story of an almost forgotten event tht took place over fifty years ago that still reverberates today. Anything by Paul Collins. Mr. Collins edits The Collins Library for McSweeney's a reprint series of rare and out-of-print books and he's written several of his own books including Banvard's Folly, Not Even Wrong: A Father's Journey into the Lost History of Autism, and most recently The Murder of the Century. He's also an assistant professor of English at PSU. Also: Anything put out by the Dill Pickle Club MEMOIRS The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books, 2011) by Lidia Yuknavitch.  What could I possibly say that would be any more persuasive than this endorsement by Chuck Palahniuk? "I've read this book cover to cover a dozen times. I am still reading it. And will, most likely, return to it for inspiration and ideas, and out of sheer admiration, for the rest of my life."      A Common Pornography (Harper Perennial, 2010) by Kevin Sampsell. Local writer/small press impresario Kevin Sampsell's memoir is told in fragments making some hard to take aspects of his family life a lot easier to swallow. Also, it's hilarious! Also: Jason Breedlove Disclosure: I am either friends, acquaintances, or colleagues, have hosted events for, or in the case of Rebecca Skloot, went to high school with almost all of these authors!   Reading Frenzy answered in Books 12 months ago Answer, comment & read 10 more answers »

• See all of my 0 Questions , 1 Answer and 0 Comments