August 2, 2018

Dog Sanctuary Ruminations

I dropped off some choice goods for the upcoming rummage sale to benefit the senior dog sanctuary. They set a record for proceeds last year and I want to do my part again to help raise funds for this special place and the remarkable woman who runs it.

As I write this in a notebook, I sit in the sanctuary’s back yard, surrounded by little dogs and a new resident named Short Stuff, a sweet old pit bull mix. Bonnie put in appearance for treats and a few rubs, but then retired inside the house.

Clyde on the mind. Clyde always on my mind here, alongside the river. So much happened to me with him and Bonnie on our countless walks. Everything started getting better for me after I met these dogs.

I donated some new power tools to the sanctuary to better attack the blackberries. I supposed I donated them to myself because I’ll be the one using them in the August counterattack.

The river is very low and I notice gravel bars. Here comes the sanctuary cat. He handles the canines with aplomb.

A breeze blows through the yard. Swallows dart around. There is nothing but the sound of the country.

I want to walk to my familiar spot on the river but Bonnie can’t make it that far anymore. After I write this, I will take that walk, alone, and see if anything new has sprung to life. Maybe I will write a bit the way I used to with Bonnie and Clyde by my side. I almost believe I learned to write a different way near the river, with them.

My mind returns to my river walks with the dogs. I wrote a 50,000-word book about them and wrote it on pure instinct, without any thought to form or marketability. Does anyone really care about this story? Am I deluded to think there is an interest in what happened to me and how I reanimated after an extinction? Who knows? All you can do is put the story out there and see where it drifts and perhaps lands.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing a NSP book.)

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The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

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Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

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In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.