Nestucca Spit Press Meditations – Page 3 – A Blog by Matt Love

star

February 19, 2025

The Starbucks Shakes

elmer25snow

February 17, 2025

Snow, E.B. White and a Bloody Mary

elmerbeachfeb25

February 11, 2025

Frosty Dawn at the Beach

cap

February 7, 2025

Stocking Cap

donuts

February 5, 2025

Eating Powdered Donuts on a Bicycle

gb6Xk

February 3, 2025

Nine Herons in a Row

elmerriver

January 29, 2025

Sauvie’s Island Sustenance

peanutbutter

January 27, 2025

Miguel

rickshaw

January 22, 2025

Not Finishing Novels

gizzards

January 20, 2025

The Quest for Gizzards

croissant

January 15, 2025

January Meditations

jimeventimage

January 13, 2025

What I Carry Show about Homelessness in Portland

cove

January 8, 2025

Scratch Off Winners

forks

January 6, 2025

Onward to 2025

jamieflute

January 3, 2025

Jamie, Rallying

emersteak2

December 30, 2024

One Year With Elmer

magi3

December 20, 2024

Gift of the Oregon Homeless Magi (Part 3)

magi2

December 18, 2024

Gift of the Oregon Homeless Magi (Part 2)

magi1

December 16, 2024

Gift of the Oregon Homeless Magi (Part 1)

sartre

December 12, 2024

An Update to Sartre

eggs

December 9, 2024

The Gigging Life: Deviled Eggs!

IMG_20241201_071526113

December 4, 2024

Orange Contrails

lightwindow

December 2, 2024

The Pizza Box Manger: A Christmas Tale

vegan

November 27, 2024

Abandoned Belongings

finaloldcrowcover - Copy

November 25, 2024

Back to the Gigging Life!

November 20, 2024

82nd Avenue Hope

dervish

November 18, 2024

Recent Neighborhood Scenes of Homelessness

YN-Masthead-desktop2

November 13, 2024

Some Good News From Yachats

dancing

November 11, 2024

Being Incurious

cruz

November 7, 2024

Morning After the Election

ecotopia

November 4, 2024

Last Minute Election Thoughts

church

November 1, 2024

Some Political Thoughts on Homelessness

moon

October 30, 2024

Hunter’s Moon Walk

elmerfort

October 28, 2024

Some Thoughts On My Current Writing Life

lit

October 23, 2024

Sobbing

library

October 21, 2024

Loreena the Homeless Grant Writer

October 16, 2024

Fall Ruminations

IMG_20241009_160823935

October 14, 2024

A JV Football Game

dusty

October 9, 2024

Dusty in Coos Bay

preexceprt2

October 7, 2024

Another Excerpt from Never Stop Pre

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

Support Meditations Blog

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)

Buy eBook on Amazon