January 24, 2014 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Astoria Public Library
450 10th Street
Astoria,OR 97103
 

The Astoria Public Library and the Astor Library Friends Association present Library After Hours, a free series of author visits, community conversations, and musical performances that take place at the library, 450 10th Street, Astoria, after regular hours of operation.

On Friday, January 24, at 6 p.m., three authors representing independent Oregon presses–Matt Love, Nancy Slavin, and Stevan Allred–will read from their works and answer audience questions.

Love’s latest publication, Of Walking in Rain, is a 190-page work of creative nonfiction that assays the ubiquitous subject of rain in Oregon in as many ways as rain falls in Oregon.

Slavin’s novel, Moorings, follows twenty-three-year-old Anne Holloway as she journeys from the lower forty-eight to Alaska to find her biological father. While unraveling the violent truth about her family’s history, Anne’s presence precipitates break-ups, boat crashes, and unexpected storms.  Ultimately, she discovers that true identity can be found within.

In Allred’s debut, A Simplified Map of the Real World, fifteen linked stories chart a true course through the lives of families, farmers, loggers, former classmates, and the occasional stripper.  In the richly imagined town of Renata, Oregon, a man watches his neighbor’s big-screen TV through binoculars. An errant son paints himself silver.  Mysterious electrical noises emanate from an enormous barn. A secret abortion from three decades ago gets a public airing.  Intimate boundaries are loosened by divorce and death in a rural community where even an old pickle crock has an unsettling history—and high above the strife and the hope and the often hilarious, geese seek the perfect tailwind.