As we wrap up a day in which the main mantra was “shop local,” here are four reasons to “read local” – four books we’ve recently heard about, all the work of West Seattle writers and/or illustrators:

‘POETRY FOR PUPS’: By author Susan Seah and illustrator Morgan Boyle, this book is already an award-winner (Gold Medal from Literary Titan), and a reading for people AND dogs is planned next weekend, 3-5 pm Sunday, December 3, at Realfine Coffee (4480 Fauntleroy Way SW). The author, who plans to bring her “beagle muse” Koa to the reading, writes from this viewpoint: “Embracing the joys of being a dog mom for over two decades, her journey has been enriched with adventures, inspiration, and the unwavering devotion of her fur babies. Beyond her canine companions, Susan wears the hat of a corporate and technology lawyer, a vocation that stands alongside her dedication to empower women as the CEO and Founder of The Koa Club.” Copies of “Poetry for Pups“ will be available for purchase at next weekend’s event.

‘IT’S NOT (ALL) YOUR FAULT’: West Seattle author Sharon Podobnik recently launched her first book, described as …

… a deeply personal nonfiction exposé on the self-help industry from an insider’s perspective. Rather than being a self-help book in the traditional sense, it is a self-conscious self-help book that reveals the tactics that the industry uses while demonstrating exactly how they work. The book is incredibly approachable, while proving that well-being depends on solidarity, not self-optimization.

Sharon is the founder of The Center for Conscious Leadership, “which seeks to co-create a more peaceful, just, and equitable world.” She recently read from “It’s Not (All) Your Fault“ at C & P Coffee (WSB sponsor).

‘BROOMS’: The illustrator of this graphic novel, written by Jasmine Walls, is Teo Duvall, a member of the team at Highland Park Corner Store, which held a launch party earlier this fall. Teo explains that “Brooms“ is about “six young witches of color in an alternate history 1930s Mississippi. In order to raise money for better lives, they participate in illegal backwoods broom racing. It’s a story about friendship, magic and overcoming the odds with lots of joy and love.” You can see an excerpt here. “Brooms” has been acclaimed for a variety of reasons including its inclusion of people living with disabilities.

To buy “Brooms” locally, check Pegasus Book Exchange and (of course) Highland Park Corner Store.

“ALWAYS CARRY YOUR SCYTHE”:
Pip Paisley recently published Always Carry Your Scythe, describing the book as “a humorous, contemporary fantasy set in Seattle (that) features a diverse cast of living and alternative-living beings in all shapes, sizes, colors and orientations.” Pip has been leaving copies of “Always Carry Your Scythe” in (Little) Free Libraries around West Seattle, and whether you encounter the book that way or by buying it, Pip has an offer: “If anyone reads the book and leaves a review on Amazon, drop me a note at pippaisley@gmail.com and I’ll happily send over a Always Carry Your Scythe mug.”

Among the new books released today is a rock ‘n’ roll memoir co-authored by a West Seattle writer who sent us this announcement:

Writer Adem Tepedelen has co-authored a grunge memoir with Mudhoney guitarist Steve Turner. Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion is being released today in North America via Chronicle Prism.

Mud Ride is a down-and-dirty account that chronicles the birth and evolution of the Seattle grunge scene. It features a foreword by Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard and more than 100 illustrations and photographs, many that have never been seen before. Tepedelen — a highly respected music magazine journalist, author and former editor of Seattle’s iconic The Rocket — collaborated with Turner to tell the story of grunge’s underground origins in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when Turner and his friends — Seattle skate punks, hardcore kids and assorted misfits — started forming bands in each other’s basements and accidentally created a unique sound that spread far beyond their once-sleepy city. 

Mud Ride offers an inside look at the tight-knit grunge scene, the musical influences and experiments that shaped the grunge sound, and the story of Turner’s bands, Green River and Mudhoney, which went from underground flophouse shows to selling out stadiums with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Including stories about the key moments, musicians, and albums from grunge’s beginnings to its come-down from the highs of global success and stardom, this is the first account of the musical phenomenon that took over the world – from someone who was there for it all.

Tepedelen says you should be able to get the book through West Seattle’s independent bookstores Paper Boat Booksellers and Pegasus. Turner, meantime, has a promotional appearance at 7 pm tomorrow (Wednesday, June 14th) at Elliott Bay Books on Capitol Hill.

West Seattle author Ari B. Cofer is publishing a new collection of poetry and prose, “Unfold,” on Tuesday (February 7th). Her book is described as “a poetic, aching, and hopeful retelling of realizations made while on the journey to healing from both loss of love and loss of self. Through poetry and short essays, ‘Unfold’ shows that true growth comes from being unafraid to face what’s hidden inside, to be vulnerable, and to be unashamed of what we find when we finally open up.” Cofer shares more about it here. Her previous book, also a collection of poetry and prose, is last year’s “Paper Girl and the Knives That Made Her.” Her new book is available through Central Avenue Publishing, and you are also invited to the “Unfold” launch event – it’s happening next Friday (February 10th) at Elliott Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill, starting at 7 pm.

They call themselves the Silent Book Club – but they’re a roaring success. Last month almost 200 readers gathered in five West Seattle locations on Silent Book Club night – just to sit and read for an hour, followed by an optional chat time if you want to. “The ideal introvert happy hour” is how organizers describe it. Tomorrow’s the next Silent Book Club West Seattle night, and this time they’re meeting in six locations:

The Nook (2206 California SW)
Otter on the Rocks (4210 SW Admiral Way)
Good Society Brewing (California/Lander)
Easy Street Records (California/Alaska)
C & P Coffee (5612 California SW)
Beveridge Place Pub (6413 California SW)

As noted in our calendar listing, you can show up as early as 7, read from 7:30 to 8:30, then chat if you feel like it (or keep reading).

On a soggy day like today, in a usually damp city like ours, it may be hard to imagine a world without water. But that’s what West Seattle author Susan Whiting Kemp did for her new novel “The Climate Machine.” Pre-orders are being accepted now for the e-book, officially publishing February 4th. Her announcement says the movel is about “a botched effort to combat climate change.” Here’s the synopsis:

No one seems to know why the waters are vanishing from the Northwestern United States. In the greater Seattle area — an area of over three million people — crime and chaos reign as society collapses.

Marella Wells, a young employee at a worldwide chemical company, thinks she may have discovered what is happening to the water. But there is no way to alert authorities and no time to spare.

With her mentor-boss and a displaced college student, Marella travels through the depleted regions of the Pacific Ocean to stop the run-away Climate Machine.

Along the way, the small band of unlikely warriors must battle for survival through unprecedented droughts, storms, and fires. To make matters worse, a violent religious doomsday cult is at their heels. If Marella and her companions fail in their mission, all life on Earth will perish.

This is the author’s first novel; she is one of three short-story writers who contributed to “We Grew Tales,” published in paperback and e-book formats. Options for “The Climate Machine” pre-orders can be found here and here.

(WSB photo: L-R, Katy E. Ellis and Susan Rich)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Like to read? Like to eat pie? There’s one place to be this Wednesday night, when the trio of writers who long produced the WordsWest Literary Series “re-reunite” to celebrate the newest books by two of them.

Katy E. Ellis is launching her first full-length prose-poetry novel “Home Water, Home Land.” Susan Rich recently published “Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems,” her fifth poetry collection. They’ll be joined Wednesday by their longtime WordsWest collaborator Harold Taw, who’s currently co-writing a “steampunk musical.” The event starts at 7 pm Wednesday (September 28th) at WordsWest’s longtime hub for happenings, C & P Coffee (5612 California SW; WSB sponsor).

That’s where we sat down with Ellis and Rich recently to talk about their books and the challenges of being a writer at this moment in time:

Read More

Not watching the Seahawks-Broncos game? Here’s an option – award-winning West Seattle authors Lyanda Lynn Haupt (seated) and Donna Sandstrom are reading and signing their books at C & P Coffee Company (5612 California SW; WSB sponsor) right now, until about 8:30 pm. It’s in celebration of both having been chosen as finalists for this year’s Washington State Book Awards, as noted in the event announcement. This is the first of three author events in West Seattle this week, as previewed here.

You have four chances to celebrate local authors and booksellers in the next six days! In case you haven’t seen these already in the WSB West Seattle Event Calendar:

PAPER BOAT BOOKSELLERS ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND: Tomorrow and Sunday, the independent bookstore at 6040 California SW celebrates three years in business. On Saturday (open 10 am-6 pm), Paper Boat is having a sidewalk sale; on Sunday (open 11 am-5 pm), they’re celebrating with treats and drinks. Both days, you get 10% off your purchase (excluding gift cards and sale items).

BOOK AWARDS FINALISTS @ C & P: As noted here last month, West Seattle authors Lyanda Lynn Haupt and Donna Sandstrom have books on the finalist list for this year’s Washington State Book Awards. Monday (September 12th) they’ll both be at C & P Coffee Company (5612 California SW; WSB sponsor) to read from their acclaimed books (“Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit” by Haupt and “Orca Rescue! The true story of an orphaned orca named Springer” by Sandstrom), 6-8 pm. They’ll also be signing their books, which you can buy from Paper Boat while at the event.

‘AT HOME ON AN UNRULY PLANET’ AUTHOR @ C & P: The next night – Tuesday (September 13th) – West Seattle journalist and author Madeline Ostrander will be at C & P Coffee for a conversation about her new book “At Home on an Unruly Planet” with KNKX environment reporter Bellamy Pailthorp, 5:30-7 pm. (We featured Ostrander and her book in this recent story.)

‘RUN WITH IT’ AUTHOR @ WEST SEATTLE RUNNER: We’ve reported on Joe Drake, a local marathon runner living with Parkinson’s. He’s also now an author, and at 6 pm Thursday (September 15th) he’ll be at West Seattle Runner (2743 California SW; WSB sponsor) for a reading and signing of his book “Run With It: A True Story of Parkinson’s, Marathons, the Pandemic, and Love.” (He’ll be just back from his Blue Ridge Relay adventure by then.)

This year’s list of finalists for the Washington State Book Awards is out, and we recognize two West Seattle authors on the list. Lyanda Lynn Haupt is a finalist in Creative Nonfiction for “Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit,” which the author described to us last year as “a book about interconnection, healing, and creating a life of reciprocity with all beings.” She is a two-time WSBA winner already. Also making the finalist list, Donna Sandstrom – founder of The Whale Trail – in the Books for Young Readers category, for “Orca Rescue: The True Story of an Orphaned Orca Named Springer” (illustrated by Sarah Burwash). See the full list of finalists in all the categories here; winners – one per category – will be announced September 13th.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Madeline Ostrander wants you to know her newly published first book is not a work of “doom.”

If the subject of climate change makes you uncomfortable, that might be an important distinction.

Ostrander, a longtime science journalist, says “At Home on an Unruly Planet” is the result of about a decade of work – particularly the past three years, since she signed a contract for it. Now it’s in bookstores and online (as audio), and she’ll be talking about it at an event downtown tomorrow night (Friday, August 5). More on that later. First, about the book.

The second word in the title, “home,” is key. (Hers is on Pigeon Point, where she sets this scene: “In the distance, the groaning undersong of the highway and the port nearby and its sounds, a train whistle, metal shipping containers cracking loudly against one another in the distance, the moan of a cargo boat, the roar of a jet plane above.”) In her book, Ostrander tells the story of four communities facing change because of the climate crisis – again, not in the “impending doom” sense, but in what they’re doing, how they’re reacting, how they’re talking about it.

One of those communities – Richmond, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area – is seen in the context of conversations about how to evolve from being a community built around an oil refinery. Talking to environmental-justice activists there gave her the idea for the book. The other three communities span the country from Alaska to Florida. The sense of “home” she addresses isn’t simply about geography, but about the way you feel when and where you’re at home. – and the way you feel when things change, things out of your control. It’s addressed in “At Home on an Unruly Planet” as “solastalgia,” which Ostrander observes is evoked by this: “Even if we stay, we experience a kind of homesickness because (home) changes … (it) helps to name this kind of feeling. That can be really powerful, (such as) collective anger, like the BLM movement, struggle and loss and anger …. if people come together and talk about it.”

She hopes that she’s helping people talk about climate change in a fresh way. “The way it’s often talked about is not that empowering,” including “when we talk about, ‘what can you do’,” too often it’s just “push back against politicians.” Or else potential action is described at the “very micro-individual level,” recycle one more can, burn one less gallon of gas. “That’s still not very empowering” – it doesn’t get to the question of “how do we protect the places that we care about?” That’s something you can address on a neighborhood level, she says. “It just seemed much more real to me, a much more useful way of talking about climate change. It’s being talked about as this big global existential crisis – which it is – but talking about it in this way helps people feel” less hopeless.

That also brings inspiration for others. “Sometimes I feel like what I see in small communities (is that) the whole discussion isn’t so siloed off … that’s kind of powerful.” Big cities – ours included – have more money for adaptation; smaller communities have harder choices to make. “You can see it in the book when I compare St. Augustine, Florida … with centuries of history … they’re going to be more impacted … to Miami (where they have) a budget to lift streets.”

A different crisis presented a challenge after Ostrander got the contract to finish and publish her book: The pandemic. She had gone to Alaska in fall of 2019, but in 2020 and 2021, travel was not always an option. Ostrander said she managed to arrange a few trips “when it was possible to take enough safety precautions.” The featured community she mentions the most is St. Augustine, Florida, where “lessons from the past (frame its) longterm future … we need to think about that and not always look away.”

History is referenced elsewhere in her book, even the century-long history of her Pigeon Point home. The prologue and epilogue of “At Home on an Unruly Planet” reference her own home. She notes toward the end of the book, “And while many of the problems we face are global, some of the most imaginative, powerful, passionate solutions come from home.”

Ostrander doesn’t have any promotional events scheduled in West Seattle yet, but says she’s working on it. Meantime, if you happen to be – or can get to – downtown tomorrow, her book launch/signing event is at 7 pm, outdoors at The Collective (400 Dexter Ave. N.) with KUOW’s John Ryan, presented by the Northwest Science Writers Association. She also has an event 7 pm August 12 at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond, in conversation with former broadcast meteorologist Jeff Renner.

Besides looking for the book at your favorite local bookstore, it’s also available online as audio – go here. If you want to read an excerpt first, here’s one published by The Atlantic, and another published by High Country News.

(WSB photo, June 2019)

Three years ago, it was the end of a mini-era in West Seattle literary accomplishments when local writers Susan Rich, Harold Taw, and Katy E. Ellis closed the book on five years of WordsWest Literary Series, monthly readings they co-founded and coordinated. Tomorrow night, the three reunite – and hope to see you too – for a new celebration at WordsWest’s longtime hub, C & P Coffee Company (5612 California SW; WSB sponsor): Rich has just released her fifth poetry collection, “Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems,” described as follows:

A Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems collects the essential and award-winning poems from Susan Rich’s four books of poetry along with a generous selection of unpublished work. Rich’s poetry spans the last twenty years through a life engaged with human rights, compassion, and questions of travel. As a teacher, wanderer, and former journalist, Rich’s lyric poems work to amplify the beauty we overlook, the nature of home, and the liminal spaces between the personal and global.

The book isn’t the only reason to go to Wednesday night’s 7 pm event at C & P; the poet promises cake (just ordered from the Salvadorean Bakery!). And she says her WordsWest colleagues have new works on the way too – Ellis will release her first full-length prose poetry novel this fall, and Taw is developing a musical. As the event title declares, they’re ““Bringing the Band Back Together Again for a Book Launch” – and inviting you to join them. No admission charge; if you want to buy a book while you’re there, you’ll be able to do that.