Submitted by: Village Books
Tuesday, April 2, 7:00 p.m.
Anders Carlson-Wee, The Low Passions
Join us as we kick off Poetry Month with this great event.
In a knockout debut collection haunted by shame, violence, and the darkest of our human origins, Anders Carlson-Wee mines nourishment and holiness from our depths.
Explosive and incantatory, The Low Passions traces the fringes of the American experiment through the eyes of a young drifter. Pathologically frugal, reckless, and vulnerable, the narrator of these viscerally compelling poems hops freight trains, hitchhikes, dumpster dives, and sleeps in the homes of total strangers, scavenging forgotten and hardscrabble places for tangible forms of faith. A range of strong-willed characters takes shape, amplified by a chorus of monologues from the strangers who shelter him and the family he’s left behind—each made manifest by the poet’s devoted ear and sensitive eye.
Anders Carlson-Wee’s work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, The Nation, Poetry Daily, The Sun, Best New Poets, and The Best American Non-Required Reading. The recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and winner of the 2017 Poetry International Prize, he lives in Minneapolis.
Wednesday April 3, 4:00 p.m.
VB Reads…Regional Cookbook & Cooking Lit Book Group
Hosted by Caprice Teske and Mary Vermillion, this group meets
4:00 to 5:00 p.m. the first Wednesday of most months on the mezzanine level
of Village Books in Fairhaven to discuss a featured cookbook or cooking
literature. Special guests such as local farmers, chefs, and authors often
attend. Members are welcome to purchase food and beverages from Evolve
Chocolate + Cafe.
Home Cooking with Kate McDermott by Kate McDermott
When she isn’t making pie, Kate McDermott has people to feed. From roasted chicken and veggies for Sunday supper to batches of hearty soup to reheat when there’s no time to cook, this practical cookbook focuses on staple recipes for people who aren’t looking for a part-time job in the kitchen. Using ingredients that can be found in any supermarket and techniques that every home cook needs, McDermott shares tasty and repeatable meals for friends and family. Like those in Art of the Pie, these recipes are accompanied by moving stories–from anecdotes of single motherhood to building a home in the foothills of the Olympic mountains. Andrew Scrivani’s stunning photographs appear throughout.
Wednesday, April 3, 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Kate McDermott Cooking Double-Header
Home Cooking With Kate McDermott
We are so pleased to bring back the author of The Art of Pie for TWO appearances! First, she will be our honored guest at our Regional Cookbook and Cooking Lit book group that meets at 4:00 p.m. Then, she’ll be back at 7:00 p.m. for a special ticketed event on the mezzanine level of the store in Evolve Chocolate + Cafe where we’ll sample delicious dishes from her cookbook, Home Cooking with Kate McDermott.
When she isn’t making pie, Kate McDermott has people to feed. From roasted chicken and veggies for Sunday supper to batches of hearty soup to reheat when there’s no time to cook, Home Cooking with Kate McDermott focuses on staple recipes for people who aren’t looking for a part-time job in the kitchen. Using ingredients that can be found in any supermarket and techniques that every home cook needs, McDermott shares tasty and repeatable meals for friends and family.
James Beard Nominee, Kate McDermott has been named “Food Rock Star” and “Pie Whisperer”, and has received high praise for her work from Dorie Greenspan, Ruth Reichl, Ken Haedrich, David Leite, and many others. Kate lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, where she writes, tends her gardens, cooks, and bakes.
For details about tickets, please visit www.villagebooks.com.
Friday, April 5, 7pm
Molly Hite, Class Porn
When Class Porn was first published in 1986, it gained a cult following among women – and some men – who had experienced the unequal power relations making it impossible for an employee or student who is being harassed by an authority figure to “just tell him off,” “just slap his face” or even “just fill out a complaint”–responses likely to lead to the loss of reputation or a job and the closing off of any future career prospects. When the #MeToo movement arose almost thirty years later, directly addressing these power issues and the cluelessness of the “why don’t they just” objections, Hite was inspired to reissue Class Porn as a #MeToo book. Set in the mid-1960s, Eleanor Nyland struggles against forces and attitudes she cannot even name, but her sense of humor and, finally, of her own worth help her puncture the inflated egos of her senior colleagues and avoid the worst of the consequences. As the Village Voice review put it, “This is a novel of the turning worm.”
Molly Hite was for 32 years Professor of English Literature at Cornell University, where she taught and wrote about twentieth-century fiction, feminist theory, and creative writing. Class Porn, her first novel, was published to enthusiastic reviews from the Village Voice, Newsday, Kirkus Reviews, the New York Review of Books, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Molly Hite’s second novel, Breach of Immunity, is a gender-switching police procedural set in the midst of the AIDS epidemic and introducing a startling new murder weapon. Now retired, Molly lives in Bellingham, Washington, with a small dog and two very large cats. She is working on a novel about parents, children and the opioid crisis.
Saturday, April 6, 4pm
Carolyn Koehnline, Clearing Clutter as a Sacred Act
We are so excited to launch this long-awaited book from Carolyn Koehnline! Her book, Confronting Your Clutter has long been a popular one here at Village Books and we’re sure her new book will be a hit too.
When weeding out your clutter gets overwhelming, it helps to approach it with a mix of reverence and playful exploration. Carolyn Koehnline shares a warm and accessible gathering of essays, poems, and illustrations to deepen your understanding of the clutter-clearing process. The suggested practical actions and writing prompts gently support honoring past transitions, accessing clarity, releasing what has become excess, and making room for what matters to you most.
Carolyn Koehnline is a local Bellingham author, artist, psychotherapist and the creator of Gentle Approach Coaching. She specializes in supporting clutter clearing, transitions, and creative endeavors. Carolyn has two other books: Confronting Your Clutter and The Bear’s Gift.
Sunday, April 7, 4pm
Betty Scott, J.P. Falcon Grady and Rev. Tessie Mandeville,
Central Heating
Mix the poetry of Betty Scott with the soulful voice of J.P. Falcon Grady and soprano Tessie Mandeville and you have a great reason to join us in the Reading Gallery for selections from Central Heating: Poems that Celebrate Love, Loss and Planet Earth. As described by author Zach Savich: “Betty Scott’s poems … remind us that souls are found in the soil, as well as in the garden of her poetic forms that bring inventive music, history and ecology to readers.” Central Heating is published by Cave Moon Press in Yakima. A portion of every book sold supports Lummi Youth Academy.
Betty Scott is an award-winning poet whose poems have appeared in WA 129; Clover; Noisy Waters; Cirque Journal; Floating Bridge Press and other on-line publications and anthologies in Vancouver, Canada, and the Pacific Northwest. She is currently writing a third book of poems and a collection of short stories. Her website is https://bettyscottwriter.com.
J.P. Falcon Grady is a proud member of the Piikani (Blackfeet) tribe and is a self taught
singer/songwriter/guitarist who intertwines acoustic melodies and vocals, finding inspiration in Betty’s words.
Rev. Tessie Mandeville works as a chaplain at St. Joseph Peace Health Medical Center. She is an ordained minister with the Unitarian Universalist Association and with Metropolitan Community Churches. She serves as community minister at the Bellingham Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and before that was a pastor in California, Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee.
Thursday, April 11 at 7pm
Steve Hughes in Conversation with Maria McLeod, Stiff
With a hearty helping of Detroit grit, the stories in Stiff pay homage to a city turned upside down by economic abandonment. Steve Hughes pushes the boundaries of realism with characters that seem odd and otherworldly. In his Detroit, witches cast spells to improve their husbands, chickens grow from seeds, and lovers realize their sex organs have minds of their own. The characters in Stiff are all searching for something in each other—a certain wholeness or understanding, a place to rest and call home. In “Ripening,” a man and woman in an illicit affair witness their genitals leaving their bodies for a rendezvous. In “Dexter’s Song,” a drug-addicted saxophone player meets a bored suburban woman who gives him her ex-boyfriend’s sax, which unleashes a series of disasters but empowers him to play better than ever. Readers of contemporary fiction will enjoy this outrageous and evocative ensemble of stories.
Steve Hughes is the writer and publisher of Detroit’s longest-running zine Stupor. His collection Stupor: A Treasury of True Stories was funded by a grant from the Kresge Foundation. He is the creator of The Good Tyme Writers Buffet, a literary series and potluck that is presented at Public Pool, a neighborhood art space in Hamtramck. His stories have appeared in Fence and A Detroit Anthology. Hughes lives in Hamtramck, where he continues to collect stories at local watering holes for forthcoming issues of Stupor.
Maria McLeod is a journalism professor at Western Washington University. She has worked extensively as an oral historian, journalist and public relations consultant. She also writes and publishes poetry, fiction, monologues, and interviews. In Bellingham, she is most known for producing works of documentary theatre, including: “Body Talk: Sexual Triumphs, Trials and Revelations,” and, for WWU, “First Person: Diverse Student Stories.” She has collaborated with Kuntz and Company Theatre Dance Troupe to create and record performances related to prisoners, people dealing with terminal illness and those suffering from loss.
Friday, April 12, 7pm
Koe Creation, This Heart Holds Many: My Life as the Nonbinary Millennial Child of a Polyamorous Family
Educator and activist Koe Creation revisits their rearing as the second-generation of a queer, polyamorous, sex-positive family. This Heart Holds Many is a testament of transformative, communal love told by an educator and lifelong learner who has dedicated their life to helping others grasp their own extraordinary love.
Koe Creation has one of the most unique life stories you’ve ever heard, guaranteed. Growing up in a sex-positive, polyamorous family in Seattle, Washington, Koe learned transparent, non-violent communication, age-appropriate discourse, and sex-positive empowerment at a young age. Teaching sex education and relationship skills across the USA since they were a teenager, Koe now has a decade of expertise at being a “professional pervert.” Koe is a frequent cohost of the Polyamory Weekly podcast and presents at conferences all over the country.
Saturday, April 13, 4pm
Knee Pain Workshop with Robin Robertson
Tired of living with knee pain? Want to get back to doing the things you love? Take simple action steps to protect your knees and reduce your pain!
- The secrets to reducing knee pain without surgery, injections, or big medical bills
- Knee Pain – where does it come from?
- Why motion is lotion (how to reduce knee pain and inflammation)
- What to do and the importance of doing it correctly with the right intensity
- Simple steps to get started
Functional Aging Specialist, ACE Personal Trainer, best selling author, and USA Cycling Coach Robin Robertson has owned and managed the Bellingham Training & Tennis Club since 2000. She well understands the challenges of staying fit while aging; with a total of 11 knee surgeries and plenty of challenges that could have blocked her way.
Robin has also authored two books: Healthy & Fit Body (2015) and international best seller Healthy Knees Cycling (2016) and is the founder of indoor cycle training programs “Cycle Moles” and “Healthy Knees Cycling” as well as the Healthy Knees Coach program.
Saturday, April 13, 7pm
J. A. Jance, The A List, An Ali Reynolds Mystery
J.A. Jance is back with another thrilling instalment of the Ali Reynolds mysteries!
The end of her high-profile broadcasting career came too soon for TV journalist, Alison Reynolds – bounced off the air by executives who wanted a “younger face”. Cut loose from her moorings, Ali is summoned back home to Sedona, Arizona, by the death of a childhood friend. Once there she seeks solace in the comforting rhythms of her parents’ diner, the Sugarloaf Café, and launches an on-line blog as therapy for others who have been similarly cut loose.But when threatening posts begin appearing, Ali finds out that running a blog is far more up-close and personal than sitting behind a news desk. And far more dangerous. Suddenly something dark and deadly is swirling around her life . . . and a killer may be hunting her next.
With more than 20 million copies of her books in print, J.A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ali Reynolds series, the J.P. Beaumont series, and the Joanna Brady series, as well as five interrelated Southwestern thrillers featuring the Walker family. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.
Sunday, April 14, 4pm
Paul Hunter, Clownery: In Lieu of a Life Spent in Harness
Clownery: In Lieu of a Life Spent in Harness is the autobiography of an artist and teacher resembling the author, in prose poetry, with some fictional and hypothetical pieces set off in italics. The clown grows and matures despite the buffeting of an often painful waking world, though he tumbles and soars in his dreams. The book follows his education, consciousness, work, play, dreams, humor, art, love, relationships, and the mysterious nature of a full life on this fragile planet.
For the past 22 years Paul Hunter has published fine letterpress poetry under the imprint of Wood Works, including 26 books and 66 broadsides. His poems have appeared in Alaska Fisherman’s Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bloomsbury Review, Clover, Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Raven Chronicles, The Small Farmer’s Journal, The Southern Review, Spoon River Poetry Review and Windfall, as well as in seven full-length books and three chapbooks.
His first collection of farming poems, Breaking Ground, 2004, from Silverfish Review Press, was reviewed in the New York Times, and received the 2004 Washington State Book Award. A second volume of farming poems, Ripening, was published in 2007, a third companion volume, Come the Harvest, appeared in 2008, and the fourth from the same publisher, Stubble Field, appeared in 2012.
He was recently a featured poet on The News Hour. He also has a prose book on small-scale, sustainable farming, One Seed to Another: The New Small Farming, published in 2010 by the Small Farmer’s Journal. He has taught at the University of Washington, the Overlake School, the Skagit River Poetry Festival, and the Oregon Poetry Society
Tuesday, April 16, 12pm
Free Workshop with Nathan Kottkamp, Having the Conversation: It Always Seems Too Early, Until It’s Too Late
The place to start the conversation about wishes for end-of-life care is at the kitchen table, not the ICU. Nathan Kottkamp visits Bellingham for National Healthcare Decisions Day because he’s impressed with our community’s progress on this topic. Nathan will share why he founded NHDD…and the impact it has had on our acceptance of mortality.
Nathan A. Kottkamp, founder & chair National Healthcare Decisions Day, is a partner of McGuireWoods LLP. He is a bioethicist, who concentrates in healthcare law, including patient rights, clinical ethics, HIPAA, and advance directives, among other healthcare legal matters. He has dedicated his career to helping clients navigate the complex healthcare legal environment and continues to lead the pro bono NHDD initiative, which he views as a public health issue. He lives in Richmond, VA.
Tuesday, April 16, 7pm
Excellence NW Workshop with Dawn Harju, Boundaries
Setting boundaries on where I end and you begin creates a safe space for both of us.
Dawn has a contagious way of inviting people to be their best self, and is committed to the fabric of world-wide goodwill. She volunteers with Excellence Northwest, a non-profit organization, and is dedicated to the success of Excellence Seminars International. She has a passion for children, animals, and the environment.
Thursday, April 18, 7pm (doors 6:30pm)
Chuckanut Radio Hour Featuring Laura Kalpakian @ WCC’s Heiner Theater
The Great Pretenders
Hollywood, 1953: From the beach at Malibu to leafy Laurel
Canyon, from the
sound-stages of Empire Pictures to jazz clubs on Central Avenue, Roxanne
Granville bravely defies the era she was born to. Enmeshed in a swirling
cauldron of blacklist politics, deceit and forbidden love, her many secrets
make her vulnerable to ruin. A novel about aspiration and desperation and
un-regretted folly.
Laura Kalpakian is the author of sixteen novels and four collections of short fiction
published in the US and the UK. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and nominated for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, her work has garnered acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.
A native Californian, Laura is a longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest where she was Theodore Roethke Writer in Residence at the University of Washington and taught memoir and fiction there. She also served on the Board of Humanities Washington. She is a co-founder of the Red Wheelbarrow Writers.
Our musical guest will be Tim Kraft performing classic Frank Sinatra tunes!
The Chuckanut Radio Hour, a recipient of Bellingham’s prestigious Mayor’s Arts Award, is a radio variety show that began in January 2007. Each Chuckanut Radio Hour includes guest authors, musicians, performance poet Kevin Murphy, and episodes of “As the Ham Turns” serial radio comedy, not to mention groaner jokes by hosts Paul Hanson, Kelly Evert, and announcer Rich Donnelly. The Chuckanut Radio Hour’s first guest was Erik Larson and has since included Alexander McCall Smith, Elizabeth George, Cheryl Strayed, Tom Robbins and Garrison Keillor, among many others. Tickets for the Chuckanut Radio Hour are $5 and are available at Village Books and BrownPaperTickets.com. Receive a free ticket with purchase of The Great Pretenders. The Radio Hour airs every Friday at 7am, Saturday evening at 7pm and Sunday at 9pm on KMRE 102.3FM. Co-sponsored by the Whatcom Community College Community and Continuing Education, 12th Street Shoes, and Westside Pizza.
Friday, April 19 at 7pm
Samuel Gailey, The Guilt We Carry
Since the tragic accident that brutally ended her childhood, Alice O’Farrell has been haunted by her past. After her complicity in her younger brother’s death, Alice runs away from home and lives on the streets. Everything changes when she discovers a duffel bag containing ninety-one thousand dollars. However, Alice quickly finds herself having to escape circumstances far more harrowing than her own past. When the lives of those closest to her are threatened, Alice is faced with her day of reckoning. In the end, The Guilt We Carry is a story about redemption and forgiveness, but at what cost?
Samuel Gailey was raised in a small town in northeast Pennsylvania (population 379) and now resides on Orcas Island with his wife, author Ayn Gailey, and daughter. The Guilt We Carry is his second novel, following the critically acclaimed Deep Winter. Gailey’s novels are intriguing studies of human nature and portray how the simplest act of fate can alter and shatter lives. Before writing novels, he worked as a screenwriter, writing and developing shows for Showtime
and Fox. Samuel is a founding board member of the Orcas Island Literary Festival.
Saturday, April 20, 4pm
R. A. Cook, Calvin Splinter & His Splendid Splinter Ideas
After a terrible storm in the Kingdom of Lumaria, with the help of a butterfly named Howie, a caterpillar named Woolie, and using his splendid splinter ideas, Calvin Splinter, a forest nymph, ‘calls’ all the other splinters by humming a catchy tune entitled The Humming Song. Working together, they rebuild the Great Forest.
Calvin Splinter & His Splendid Splinter Ideas is a story of hope and renewal. Geared to 4-9 year-olds, this environmental story is one every child will delight in and dovetails with such themes as intuitive ideas, relationship building and working together for a common goal. It’s a colorful story sure to capture young and old alike.
Saturday, April 20 at 7pm
David Vann, Halibut on the Moon
Award-winning writer David Vann’s intimate new novel Halibut on the Moon is narrated from the perspective of a man in the final days of his life, tracing the roots of his mental illness as he attempts to anchor himself to the places and people that once shaped his sense of identity.
With the intensity of Greek tragedy, the characters in David
Vann’s fiction are often found “hurtling irretrievably toward a dark outcome,
and while putting the book down might save you from it, you can’t stop reading,
just as you can’t unlearn its truths” (Los Angeles Times). A winner of 14 major
literary prizes and an internationally bestselling New York Times Notable
author, Vann’s dark and intimate new novel is narrated from the perspective of
a man in the final days of his life, tracing the roots of his mental illness as
he attempts to anchor himself to the places and people that once shaped his
sense of identity.
Though it stands on its own, this novel marks a return after twenty years to
the subject matter of Vann’s prize-winning debut collection, Legend of a
Suicide, which portrayed a boy’s difficult relationship with his suicidal
father. Halibut on the Moon is a searing exploration of a man held
captive by the dark logic of depression and struggling mightily to wrench
himself free. In vivid and haunting prose, Vann offers us an aching portrait of
a mind in peril, searching desperately for some hope of redemption.
David Vann’s internationally-bestselling books have been published in 23 languages, won 14 prizes, and appeared on 83 Best Books of the Year lists in a dozen countries. A former Guggenheim fellow, he is currently a Professor at the University of Warwick in England and Honorary Professor at the University of Franche-Comté in France.
Thursday, April 25, 7pm
Janelle Bruland,The Success Lie: 5 Simple Truths to Overcome Overwhelm and Achieve Peace of Mind
Join us as we launch this brand-new book by local author Janelle Bruland!
We all want a life that matters and to reach our full potential. We often fail to recognize the gap between what is and what could be… life’s to-do’s and have to’s have sucked our energy and our dreams have been set aside and forgotten.
Are you looking to “take your life back?” You don’t need to be told to work harder as this comes naturally to you. You have had some success in areas and seasons of your life, perhaps times of major success but something is still missing. This book will help you close that gap and discover the truth that lies beyond achieving success. Implement a proven system to produce powerful and life-changing results to transform your career, your life, and your peace of mind.
Janelle Bruland is an entrepreneur, business leader, and high-performance coach who inspires others to live highly engaged, impactful, and successful lives.
Janelle is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MSNW, a facility management company which has grown under Janelle’s leadership into a successful regional enterprise, named one of the Fastest Growing Private Companies by both Inc. magazine and the Puget Sound Business Journal. Janelle has won numerous awards including SBA Washington Business Person of the Year and the Nellie Cashman Woman Business Owner of the Year.
Saturday, April 27, 4pm in Lynden
Candace Wellman, Interwoven Lives: Indigenous Mothers of Salish Coast Communities
We’re thrilled to welcome Candace Wellman back to Village Books as part of our Independent Bookstore Day festivities.
Companion volume to award-winning Peace Weavers, Wellman’s Interwoven Lives depicts the lives of four more19th century indigenous women who influenced Bellingham Bay area settlement—Jenny Wynn, Elizabeth Patterson, Mary Allen and Mrs. George Pickett. It reveals new details about the Northwest life of future Confederate brigadier general George E. Pickett.
Interwoven Lives (WSU Press, 2019) is Candace Wellman’s second book about cross-
cultural marriages in Northwestern Washington. The first, Peace Weavers (WSU Press, 2017) won a national WILLA literary award for nonfiction. Combining degrees in sociology and history with experience in genealogy and years of volunteerism in a regional archives, Wellman spent 21 years researching and writing the companion volumes.
Born and raised in Washington, the Bellingham resident is a local history consultant and speaks frequently about women’s history and regional settlement. She has already started work on a new book topic, while still paying attention to her husband, children, grandchildren and two cats.
Saturday, April 27, 7pm
Sierra Golden and Elaina Ellis, The Slow Art and Write About an Empty Birdcage
The robustly physical poems in Sierra Golden’s debut collection The Slow Art are bracingly honest about work and also contain magic. Golden’s frank, often humorous sensibility brings the men and women who fish, and those who don’t, vividly to life.
Sierra Golden won the 2018 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize for her book The Slow Art (Bear Star Press). Golden’s poems appear in literary journals such as Prairie Schooner, Permafrost, and Ploughshares. Although she calls Washington State home, Golden spent many summers in Alaska, working as a commercial fisherman.
In Write About an Empty Birdcage, Ellis sets out to trace the lineage of various personal disasters, including a break-up, an eating disorder, and a complex balance of identities. She writes about queerness, Jewish heritage, and embodied femininity, with a critique of power that blends humor, the mess of confession, and a reverence for tension.
Elaina Ellis lives in Bellingham, Washington. Her poems appear in Vinyl Poetry, Muzzle Magazine, The Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Horsethief, and elsewhere. She is Lambda Literary Fellow and author of the poetry collection Write About an Empty Birdcage from Write Bloody Publishing. She holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and works as an editor at Copper Canyon Press.
