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April 3, 2018

Bonnie and Clyde Files 45 (Book Launch Week!)

(Friends: this week marks the launch for the sale of my forthcoming book, The Bonnie and Clyde Files: How Two Senior Saved a Middle Aged Man. Only 300 copies will be sold and it won’t be available in book stores. For more information and how to order, got to nestuccaspitpress.com or order here from the blog. Half of the profits are earmarked for the Angels for Sara Sanctuary to continue their excellent work. Please support me in this new editorial endeavor as I get back in the game of life, literature and service.)

As we headed back to the house, Jacque told me the story of how Bonnie and Clyde came to the sanctuary.

Bonnie and Clyde arrived at the sanctuary in June 2014. Clyde was then 12 or 13 and Bonnie 10 or 11. Their elderly owner had passed away and none of his family members wanted to keep the dogs. They had remained together at the Clatsop County Animal Shelter for almost a year, sharing the same small kennel. Clyde suffered from an old leg injury that had never properly healed and was overweight. Bonnie was overweight and suffered from hair loss. No one wanted to adopt them since they were older and had health issues. They were also a bonded pair that suffered extreme anxiety when separated. Jacque met Bonnie and Clyde while volunteering at the animal shelter and knew they were perfect candidates for the sanctuary, which had just opened. She arranged for Bonnie and Clyde’s transfer and on the day of their departure from the shelter, they jumped (!) into the back seat of her truck and barked and howled with joy on the ride over. They found the river, they found love, and in short order, demonstrated a remarkable recovery of mind, body and spirit.

I asked Jacque how she managed it all. She said, “Whenever things start looking tight or I get overwhelmed, I talk to Sara (the prematurely euthanized Rottweiler that sanctuary is named after). She is my angel watching over the sanctuary, and every time I talk to her, things start to turn around and work out. She is always around. When we have to help a dog transition to their next journey, Sara is there to help them. She is taking care of the sanctuary and I am just holding on for the ride. I could not have done any of this without her.”

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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.