dickens

November 22, 2019

On Charles Dickens’ Storage Unit

A legal notice informs the public that a storage company in the middle of nowhere will auction the contents of several units with rents long, long overdue.

At the the top of the auction list is one Charles Dickens and his 6′ by 14′ unit. At an appointed time, the bay to the unit will be rolled up and thirty minutes later, after an inspection of the contents, the auction for the possessions of Charles Dickens will begin. The winner must claim and remove all contents from the unit or the sale is forfeit.

A writer reads the notice in a podunk paper over cheap coffee. It intrigues and gives him rich food for thought on a mediocre day of a a mediocre week. Think of that name! Why was he named Charles Dickens? Mom or Dad’s idea? Maybe where they coupling while watching the Christmas Carol. Did he actually read Dickens or at least see the movies? Is he dead or disappeared into the slums or factories? Are there Charles Dickens novels in the unit? A fancy hardback, embossed set with woodcut illustrations? Did he transport to the future to put his shit in storage for some unknown cosmic use, and somehow got stuck in time and couldn’t pay his fees?

The writer decides he will attend the auction for the sheer literary hell of it. He senses that the real Charles Dickens has something to do with it. The writer will bring cash. He’s never attended an auction. Anything could happen.

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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

$22.99 + $3 Shipping

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.

$19.99 + $3 Shipping

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.