fortscoutdog2

May 24, 2017

Ocean Writing Workshop in Astoria July 15

Dear Creative Types:

Singing to an ocean, I can hear the ocean’s roar. Play for free, play for me and play a whole lot more!

Led Zeppelin

Oceans are the most dynamic natural force on the planet. They feed us, determine our weather, and provide an endless source of mystery and mysticism. Oceans also offer many people, including writers, inspiration for their creative lives.

Join me in Astoria Saturday, July 15 for a unique half-day ocean-themed writing workshop in Astoria. In this creative thinking, visualization and writing workshop, I will assist participants to engage with the ocean with the intent of unlocking ways of enhancing the personal creative process. The workshop may also include a visit to the beach at Fort Stevens State Park, weather permitting. Forts will rise!

Whether you are a writer, musician, visual artist, photographer, woodworker, teacher, or some other kind of creative person, embracing the ocean as a source of inspiration could enliven your mind and take your creativity in new, unforeseen directions. It also might make you feel a whole lot better in a nation beset by political horror. Please join me and help create positive community.

The workshop runs from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in Astoria in a private home. The class costs $65 and will cap at 12 participants. Participants will pay at the beginning of the workshop and price includes a free gift of ocean magic. Scholarships are also available. To register, contact me through my web site or email address.

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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.