Listed in Reading Order
Patricia Dove Miller: Bamboo Secrets
While living in Japan in 1993, Patricia Dove Miller’s dream of a year of exploration and personal growth is shattered when her husband is detained on drug charges. Miller struggles with a sense of betrayal upon learning her husband’s secrets and yet she stands by him, fighting to save both him and their marriage in the face of the terrifying uncertainties now confronting them.
To save herself, she seeks refuge in two Japanese traditional arts—ikebana and shakuhachi (bamboo flute)—which not only nourish and strengthen her,
but also lead her to finally discover, at age fifty-two, her life’s passion: to become a writer.
Bamboo Secrets: One Woman’s Quest through the Shadows of Japan weaves together four strands: a mature woman in search of herself, a marriage in trouble, the dark side of Japan, and the beauty of Japanese art and culture.
Chris Hall: Poetry Chris was transplanted from the Bitterroot Valley of Montana to the Yuba-Sierra bioregion in 1977. He was raised in Nevada County and educated at Sierra College and at Humboldt State University where he majored in creative writing and teaching of writing. After learning and teaching in Humboldt County for nearly a decade, he returned to Nevada County and currently teaches English and creative writing at Sierra College.
His most noteworthy publication credit to date is a work of reflective environmental writing published in The Pacific Crest Trailside Reader (2011). He has published several poems in such markets as Toyon, Inscape, and the Sierra Journal. He has also published genre fiction.
Tonight, Chris will read two short poems in honor of his departed parents and a brief prose poem in the traditional Japanese Haibun form in reverence for our fallen animal kin, whom we seldom honor. The latter is forthcoming in the Sierra Journal. He sincerely hopes his writing will help others find hope in the midst of the planet’s sixth mass extinction.
Patricia Minch:The Luckiest Guerrilla, A True Tale of Love, War and the Army
“Surrender? Damned if I will!” Art Murphy not only survived three years behind Japanese lines in the mountainous headhunter country of North Luzon during World War II, he helped create a guerrilla army that killed 50,000 of the enemy and aided General Douglas MacArthur in retaking the Philippines.
Kenneth Harris: Malakoff School (With Feather Pens and Berry Juice)
In the fall of 1982 Ken Harris found himself in the living room of an abandoned ranger station near North Bloomfield, California. He was teaching fourth- through eighth-grades. There were six students. After that, things got a little weird. He has written this book this year and the five years following.
Shelley Buck: India Bound: The Making of a Woman Journalist
In 1972, Shelley Buck left California alone to travel across Asia by land to India and Nepal. This first journey led to a second. Follow Shelley in India Bound as she sets off from Europe to cross Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan on her way to India. She carries camera, lenses, and a blue-green Olivetti typewriter in her backpack, for she is determined to become a journalist.
Hock Tjoa: The Chinese Spymaster
Hock has written adaptions of a couple of classics (The Battle of Chibi, Agamemnon Must Die) and some contemporary fiction. He will read two 'fight scenes' from his spy novel, The Chinese Spymaster.
