Nestucca Spit Press Meditations – A Blog by Matt Love

will

December 12, 2025

Probate Meditations

morgan

December 10, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Coos at Noon

tree

December 8, 2025

Empire Christmas Tree Lighting

crow

December 5, 2025

Early Christmas Present: Mark Gets an Apartment!

clearcut

December 4, 2025

Homeless Christmas Tree No More

December 1, 2025

A Crow Rips Apart a Wounded Sandpiper

art

November 29, 2025

Burn Barrel Thanksgiving Breakfast

iphonesonny 013

November 26, 2025

Husky Magic

firewood

November 25, 2025

The Firewood Arrangement

clover

November 20, 2025

Crimson and Clover

rainbow

November 17, 2025

Rainbow at Sunrise for Dad’s Birthday

bear

November 12, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: A Poem

magicover

November 10, 2025

New Book Released! Gift of the Oregon Magi & Other Christmas Tales of Homelessness

johnson

November 6, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Daytime Halloween

potpie

November 3, 2025

“The Free Walking Chili Pie Dinner”

lantern

October 31, 2025

Empire Homeless Halloween

babyruth

October 27, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Turds

elmersteakblog

October 20, 2025

A Favor for Elmer

metallica

October 16, 2025

Recent Scenes of Homelessness Around Coos Bay

elmercontemplationn

October 13, 2025

Contemplations of a Dog

preindoor

October 8, 2025

Prefontaine Memorial Fun Run

rydercup

October 6, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Ryder Cup

sabbath

October 1, 2025

First Day of School

groovy

September 29, 2025

The Fishmonger’s Ensemble

crab

September 22, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Crabs

postcard

September 18, 2025

Back into the Breach

elmerwiz

September 15, 2025

Coos County Images

tape

September 8, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Miscellaneous

couch

September 4, 2025

Furniture and Annihilation

roberts

September 1, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Fog

ciarn

August 30, 2025

Cairns

tablets

August 27, 2025

Kenny’s Lost Writing

marines

August 25, 2025

Final Meditations on Dad’s Death

moon

August 22, 2025

Full Charleston Moon

burg

August 18, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Roseburg Camping Bitches

havel

August 13, 2025

A Creative Crisis and Thoughts on Hope

fence

August 11, 2025

Building my Fence

cbay

August 6, 2025

Inaction

chairs

August 4, 2025

Oregon Tavern Age: Lawn Chair

osp

July 28, 2025

Talking to Ed

NEVER STOP PRE

The Enduring Inspiration of America's Greatest Sports Legend

Buy the Book: Print $21.99 + $5 shipping

"Never stop Pre. When he's no longer relevant in Oregon, Oregon is dead."

On May 31, 1975, Coos Bay, Oregon native Steve Prefontaine died in an automobile accident. At the time of his death, he held 14 American records in distance running.

Pre was 24 years old and already a legend in Oregon and the world of track of field.

Read More - Click here to buy the ePub or Kindle Editions

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The Old Crow

Book Club

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.

$15.99 + $4 Shipping

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

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.

$22.99 + $3 Shipping

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.

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.

$19.99 + $3 Shipping

Sonny the husky discovers a homeless encampment destroying a creek in a Portland city park. She alerts her owner and a park ranger and inspires a community clean-up of the damaged riparian area. Neighborhood citizens and residents of the encampment join Sonny to restore a tiny part of a watershed and later celebrate their collaboration.

Buy Bundle Direct From Author (PDF & ePub Download)

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