joy

September 4, 2023

Joy Writing Workshop in Astoria October 14

Writers:

Albert Einstein once wrote, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

To that end, I am teaching a “Writing From a Place of Joy” workshop in Astoria on Saturday, October 14 and I hope you can join me and collaborate with an outstanding, inspiring group of writers.

A squirrel in the yard demanding peanuts. A bubbling lasagna pulled from the oven. A dog going nuts on the beach. An osprey diving into a river and emerging with an eel clutched in its beak. Finally reading War and Peace. Listening to a Billie Holiday record. Receiving a goofy post card from a friend. A7-iron that lands a golf ball inches from the hole. Standing in front of a 500-year old redwood. Reading Henny Youngman’s jokes at a dignified social gathering. Watching a sunset on a strain of sativa.

These are moments of immense joy for many of us. We all have our special secret list of what brings us joy and it is my strong belief that writers need to dive into these moments and write from a place of joy. Too often, we write only under pressure or gripped by angst. Why not examine and reflect upon the opposite of that in your life? A writer can never know where that process might lead.

In the workshop, I will run participants through a series of writing and conversation prompts related to the practice of discovering and cultivating joy. We’ll share some of our responses and conclude by writing a short piece about joy that will go out to the larger, often joyless world.

I hope you can join me and rejuvenate the League of Intertidal Writers, the organization sponsoring this event. It’s always so wonderful to bring a group of writers together in Astoria who support one another. It’s a unique community that provides immeasurable literary and psychic benefits.

The workshop will run from 10-12:30 pm and cost $50. Payment will be made at the workshop. It will be held in a private home. Weather permitting, the workshop will be held outdoors on a lawn of a private residence. In the case of inclement weather, the class will be moved indoors. The class is limited to 12 participants. To register, send me an email.

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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.