High Contrast

A Story of Basketball, Race and Politics in Oregon 1972

By Andrew Kaza

On March 25th, 1972, the largest crowd to ever witness a live indoor sporting event in the state of Oregon crammed into Portland’s Memorial Coliseum. The occasion? The Oregon High School Boys Basketball Championship for large (AAA) high schools.

But this was not just another championship. It was the first to feature a team comprised entirely of African-American players – Portland’s Jefferson High Democrats – versus an “all white” collection of rural teenagers from a small, Eastern Oregon city – the Baker Bulldogs.

Set amidst the backdrop of racist history plus the political tumult of 1972, this was much more than a game. It seemed to be a battle for the soul of Oregon.

Through the prism of a high school season culminating on an early spring night in 1972, author Andrew Kaza tells the story of Oregon’s urban and rural divide, its winners and losers and whether lofty athletic achievement can ultimately translate into something much bigger.

Purchase Options

ALSO AVAILABLE AT THESE LOCAL BOOKSTORES:

• ANNIE BLOOM’S BOOKS (PORTLAND)
• BEACH BOOKS (SEASIDE)
• BETTY’S BOOKS (BAKER CITY)
• BROADWAY BOOKS (PORTLAND)
• CLOUD AND LEAF (MANZANITA)
• DUDLEY’S (BEND)
• HERRINGBONE (REDMOND)
• J MICHAELS BOOKS (EUGENE)
• MANZANITA NEWS & ESPRESSO (MANZANITA)
• PAULINA SPRINGS (SISTERS)

WANT TO STOCK HIGH CONTRAST IN YOUR BOOKSTORE? E-MAIL US AT HGPROJECT72@GMAIL.COM

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Watch the first half+ of the historic Jefferson-Baker Championship…order the book for the rest of the story!

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One Hundred Stingers

A Novel of the Air War Over The Ho Chi Minh Trail

by Peter Adams Young

Throughout most of the Vietnam War, a clandestine war raged in the flak-filled skies of neutral Laos as American airmen sought to cut off the flow of enemy combatants and war materiel headed for the battlefields of South Vietnam via the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail.

This debut novel by former US Navy bombardier Peter Adams Young relates untold stories of courage and sacrifice on both sides of this undisclosed conflict.

The book costs $24.99 ($5 for shipping). Special price for purchasing two author signed copies: $40 ($8 for shipping. Print and E-book editions are also available on Amazon.

Thank you for supporting an independent Oregon publisher and making literature more sustainable.

To read the full summary of the novel, click here.

To read an excerpt from One Hundred Stingers, click here.

To read the forward about the history of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, click here.

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Of Dogs and Meaning

by Matt Love

At last, a dog book where the dog doesn’t die. Finally, a dog book where all dogs live forever.

In Of Dogs and Meaning’s 100 pages, Oregon writer Matt Love let’s his creative mind off leash to explore everything real and metaphorically canine in our culture. During this wild, meandering romp accompanied by ink stamp illustrations, Love leaves his singular marks, call them intellectual whizzes, on a vast, eclectic and entertaining range of subjects connected to dogs.

Ever see a dog go nuts one when it visits the beach for the first time? Imagine an author with supreme doggedness doing exactly that with a subject and you have Of Dogs and Meaning running through material such as as: Rescue dogs. Trail of Tears. WC Fields. Grapes of Wrath. Human dog pounds. Barack Obama. Carlos Castaneda. Dorothy Parker. Orson Welles. Michael Vick. John Wick. Richard Nixon. Hitler. Dog funerals. Steve Martin. Shakespeare. Jennifer Beals. Lord Byron. Wendy and Lucy. Charles Bukowski. Isak Dinesen. Willy Vlautin. The Odyssey. Franz Kafka. The Underdog. Sirius. Rush. God.

Love, the author of over 20 books, merges multiple literary genres, including essay, meditation, fiction, commentary and memoir to create, well…a mutt of a book!

Thank you for supporting an independent Oregon publisher and making literature more sustainable.

A special limited print edition of 300 signed copies sold exclusively on this site and at select Oregon bookstores.

The book costs $20 (with $4 for shipping).

Special price for purchasing two copies: $30 (with $5 for shipping)

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The Bonnie & Clyde Files

How Two Senior Dogs Saved a Middle Aged Man

By Matt Love

Read a Chapter from The Bonnie & Clyde Files

A special limited print edition of 300 copies, signed by the author (and dogs), is now selling for $30 (plus shipping). A handmade bookmark will be included.

In 2017, at the age of 53, I experienced an extinction of self. For the first time in my life, I could not get a job, I was nearly broke, and I had no freedom of movement or conscience.

I was an American outcast trapped in a labyrinth known as probation, desperately engaged in the ultimate struggle to stave off marginalization.

There I was, lying on the couch, talking to my dead husky, words echoing through the house that was empty because I had performed terrible hospice care on myself and given away almost everything.

Then I found two senior dogs named Bonnie and Clyde, residents of Angels for Sarah Sancturary, a refuge along the Lewis and Clark River. There, walking two dogs, I resurrected as a human being. I read the river, tracked elk, watched birds, slayed blackberries, skipped rocks, cursed clearcuts, walked in rain and went deep into heretofore unknown areas of my creative mind. With Bonnie and Clyde at my side, I learned important lessons of faith, friendship, family, face-to-face encounters and the timeless remedy of nature, lessons I intuit can enlighten others who experience a cataclysmic personal event.

In The Bonnie and Clyde Files, I merge essay, cultural criticism, memoir, streams of consciousness and poetry to create a hybrid of a genre that is unlike any dog book I have ever read. I wrote on instinct, channeled Walt Whitman, and became a dog to better explore humanity, my country and the treatment of men and women at the hands of the state’s criminal justice system. I wrote to understand all the terrible, bizarre and wonderful things that were happening to me.

I invite you to support my latest literary endeavor by purchasing The Bonnie and Clyde Files direct from Nestucca Spit Press, scheduled for release in the fall of 2018. The book will be unavailable in stores. Half of the profits are earmarked for the Angels for Sarah Sancturary to continue their excellent work.

Customers can use Paypal or make other arrangements for payment by contacting me via email or through this web site. Barter is also accepted.