November 17, 2017

Things to Know About Coastal Oregon

I recently found a tiny pamphlet printed in a tiny font about ferns titled Ferns to Know in Oregon that was written in the mid 1950s by an unnamed Oregon State University Extension agent and ardent fernologist. It contains some of the most delightful and knowledgeable nature writing about Oregon I have ever read. I had no idea ferns were part of such magical historical and literary lore! I had no idea that American POWs in the Korean War were fed ferns. I knew nothing of spores! I couldn’t name a single fern and now I can name seven. I even identified a fern (licorice) growing from the side of a 40-year old RV. This tiny pamphlet opened my eyes to the larger world of something beautiful and ubiquitous around me. It also has inspired me to produce a similar pamphlet of design and tone called Things to Know About Coastal Oregon that I will distribute free around Coastal Oregon in the usual and unlikeliest of fern and non-fern places and classify it as Nestucca Spit Press’ next publication. Yes, the reader may have to use a magnifying glass to read the text and consider the illustrations I will include, but that makes it all the more fun. I will begin brainstorming my list of Things to Know About Coastal Oregon here:

Things to Know About Coastal Oregon:

Clearcuts

Nestucca Spit

Ferns

Mushrooms

Rain

Sometimes a Great Notion

Conde McCullough’s Bridges

Zane Gray on the Rogue River

Clark Gable on the Oregon Coast

Oregon Tavern Age Country

Tom McCall

Heckletooth 3

Brownsmead

Seal Rock

Coffee Girl

Bastendorf Beach

RV Parks

South Jetty on the Columbia River

Camp Angel

Animal Welfare Thrift Stores

Rock Haus

Port Orford Radio Station

Saddle Mountain

Matt Kramer Memorial

Highway 420

Mt. Hebo

Godfather’s Books

Keyhole Limpets

Driftwood Forts

Slab Creek Road

Carpenterville Road

Jack London in Port Orford

WPA Guide to Oregon

Steve Prefontaine Memorial Museum

Support Meditations Blog

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.