Charles Yu, rendered by John Sperry
Where I’ll be this weekend: Wordstock 2011. Actually the Festival has already had its soft opening, with events like Literal Fun and the annual Text Ball behind us. But this weekend is the Wordstock’s frothy climax, which — in addition to Live Wire’s special Wordstock edition and NW Film Center’s screening of The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg — includes the Wordstock Book Fair. This two-day event (October 8-9) boasts of nine author stages, over 125 exhibitors, a special children’s activity area and a children’s literature stage. It’s the largest celebration of literature and literacy in the Pacific Northwest, and is one of the largest festivals of its kind in the nation.
For me, working for the Festival as an author coordinator (I get to weigh in on which writers are asked to come and then facilitate the logistical details of those invites, along with four comrades, not too shabby), I’ve been astonished that each year has surpassed the one before in terms of size and scope and popularity. 2011 looks well on track to repeat that magic.
Apparently the printed work is far from defunct.
Here’s just a few of the authors I’m especially excited to meet this year.
Vanessa Vaselka is not only a disturbingly original writer, she’s Portlandian. Her debut novel Zazen is a laugh-out-loud, upsetting and visionary work of fiction about a United States of the near future where uprisings are not only constants, they’re à la mode. Months ago when I first read this, I envisioned an America a year or two away from now. As of this writing, Vanessa’s bleak future looks more like cinema verité.
She will read from Zazen along with another genre-buster, Charles Yu (that’s his portrait above, by Jon Sperry). Charles is the author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, one of the wilder books for sale this year at Wordstock. And Charles and Vanessa are in good company this year for fellow trailblazers; Jennifer Egan will be here with her Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Visit from the Goon Squad, and Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis will read from Wildwood, their marvelous book for young readers about the Impassable Wilderness (aka Forest Park).
Among a wide-ranging slate of intriguing conversations this year, my personal favorite is “How to Win Over Agents and Editors,” moderated by Mandy Hubbard, which includes three prominent and local publisher/agents — Rhonda Hughes, Victoria Blake, and newcomer Betsy Amster — in addition to New Yorker David Forrer.
And if international literati are more to your taste, there is Irish author Anne Enright, who won the Booker Prize not long ago, and Michael Ondaatje, also with a Booker Prize to his credit among many, many other distinctions.
You can browse the schedule here. Check out also Alison Hallett’s equally idiosyncratic picks at the Portland Mercury.
Say hello when you come. I’ll be the nervous guy in the black t-shirt, nervously wringing his hands in the back of the smaller stages. And loving every minute of this weekend.
