Northwest Arts Review

With support from SAGA, Scablands Books will publish a graphic novel, Baby Speaks Salish, by local writer Emma Noyes. Proceeds will go to the Salish School of Spokane, which is dedicated to keeping the interior Salish languages alive in the face of ongoing colonialism.

Christopher Boucher is the author of the widely praised novels Golden Delicious and How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. Boucher teaches literature and writing at Boston college and is editor the literary magazine Post Road. He was in Spokane as part of Eastern Washington University Visiting Writers Series.

November is National Native American Heritage Month, and the downtown branch of the Spokane Public Library is featuring an exhibit by local photographer Robert Charloe which showcases decades of his work exploring the experience of American Indians in the northwest and beyond.

Christopher Howell is the author of twelve collections of poetry including Love’s Last Number, Gaze, and most recently, The Grief of a Happy Life, just released by University of Washington Press. Howell has received numerous awards including the Washington State Governor’s Award, the Washington State Book Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and three Pushcart Prizes. Locally, he is known as a faculty member in Eastern Washington University’s Master of Fine Arts program as well as director of Willow Springs Books and Lynx House Press.

Gordon S. Jackson, is the author of the new novel, Never Say Moist at Wyndover College. Jackson taught journalism at Whitworth University for more than 30 years. He grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era, encountering the sensorship that subsequently promted him to promote free expression in the classroom and in his writing. Never Say Moist at Wyndover College is Jackson’s fourteenth book, and his second novel. 

Stephen Jenkinson is an activist, teacher, author, social worker, farmer, and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School. He is also the host of A Night of Grief & Mystery, a musical, poetic, ceremonial evening which he describes as “devoted to the ragged mysteries of being human.” The tour will be in Spokane on Wednesday, November 13th, 7 p.m. at the Bing Crosby Theater. Jenkinson joined Chris Maccini via phone to talk about his work and upcoming performance.

Spokane Arts announced earlier this month that Spokane’s next Poet Laureate will be Chris Cook. Cook and outgoing Poet Laureate, Mark Anderson, talk with SPR's Chris Maccini.

TEDx Spokane will take place on Saturday, October 26th, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Bing Crosby Theater in downtown Spokane. This year's event will feature educators, authors, poets, morticians, community advocates, non-profit administrators, and more. 

Event founder Jaime Tender talked with SPR's Chris Maccini about the origins of the event, and two of this year's performers, Spokane Poet Laureate Mark Anderson, and musician Karli Ingersoll gave a preview of their TED Talks.

Tickets and details about the event can be found at TEDxSpokane.com.

Kathryn Smith's new chapbook, Chosen Companions of the Goblin, won the 2018 Open Country Chapbook Contest. It is inspired by the real-life story of the Fox Sisters, who claimed to be spiritual mediums and helped spark the spiritualist movment in 19th century America. 

She will be hosting a release party for the book, on Friday, October 25, 7 p.m. at the Woman's Club of Spokane, 1428 W 9th Ave.

Writers in the Community (WITC) is a not-for-profit internship project that sends MFA students from Eastern Washington University to volunteer as creative writing teachers in placements as varied as hospitals, correctional facilities, halfway houses, community non-profits, as well as public, private, or alternative schools, and other locations throughout the Spokane area.

Their Spokane Arts Grant Award will fund a creative writing contest for high school students. For more information about Writers in the Community and the creative writing contest, email witc@ewu.edu.

Nicholas Decaro is an artist, student at Whitworth University, and founder of Apostrophe Spokane Art Collective which exhibits LGBTQ+ students, students of color, and women artists from six local universities. Apostrophe Spokane is the recipient of a Spokane Arts Grant Award for their upcoming second annual exhibit of curated student artwork. 

The exhibition will run from April 3 to 12, 2020 with work by student artists from Whitworth University, Spokane Falls Community College, Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington University, North Idaho College, and Washington State University. More information about Apostrophe Spokane can be found on their Facebook page. 

Now in its twelfth year, Terrain has become a signature arts event for the Inland Northwest. This year’s annual showcase will feature close to 300 artists, musicians, and performers on display at the Jensen Byrd Building in Spokane’s University District.

Fall is a busy season for art in the Inland Northwest. This weekend, a unique arts festival will invite the public into working artists’ studios.

The Little Spokane River Valley is home to popular parks, golf courses, small farms, and suburban developments. Driving through, you might not notice the many artist studios, but this Saturday, September 28, five studios in this neighborhood will open their doors to the public, showcasing forty artists from around the Northwest.

Jeff Alessandrelli and Hajara Quinn are two Portland-based poets who came through Spokane on their way to the Montana Book Festival earlier this month. They stopped in to the SPR studio to talk with Chris Maccini about their new books and their Montana Book Festival panel titled "Is This Surreal or For Real?"

Harper Quinn is the author of Coolth (Big Lucks Books, 2018). She received her MFA from Cornell University in 2014, and her work has been supported by Literary Arts and the Regional Arts & Culture Council. Poems can be found in Gramma Daily, Gulf Coast, The Volta and Sixth Finch. She lives in Portland, OR where she works as the Program Director at the Independent Publishing Resource Center.

Rebekah Crane is the author of several critically acclaimed young adult novels, including The Infinite Pieces of Us, The Upside of Falling Down, and The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland. She is a former high school English teacher who found a passion for writing young adult fiction while studying secondary English education at Ohio University. She is a yoga instructor and the mother of two girls. After living and teaching in six different cities, Rebekah finally settled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to write novels and work on screenplays. She now spends her days tucked behind a laptop at seventy-five hundred feet, where the altitude only enhances the writing experience.

Now in it's sixth year, Porchfest West Central is a free local music festival and community event in the West Central Neighborhood of Spokane. Homeowners will host local musicians and performers on their porches from 3 - 7 p.m. on Saturday, September, 21st. Details and more information are at porchfestwestcentral.com.

Marshall Peterson is a Spokane-based photographer and owner of the Marmot Art Space gallery in Kendall Yards. He started Porchfest in 2014, based on the original Porchfest event in Ithaca, NY. More information about Marshall is at marshallinspokane.com.

Ellen Picken and Rajah Bose started Factory Town to combine their interests in visual art and storytelling. With SAGA support, Factory Town will be creating six kinetic sculptures which transform the familiar handheld “Jacob’s Ladder” toy into an over-sized interactive experience on impermanence. The goals are to offer an interesting perspective on the state of affairs in our world today and remind people that change is inevitable and within our control. 

Another goal is to create a work that has rarely been experienced by our Spokane audience, at least in Spokane. We are offering an installation that the audience makes come alive, that they are not only allowed to touch, but encouraged to. 

Hannah Pomante, Katie Smith, and Melissa Jones, all 2019 graduates from Whitworth arts programs,  are collaborating to create "Bird Nest Installation: A Moveable and Interactive Public Arts Project." The project recently was awarded a SAGA Grant from Spokane Arts.

Charlie Pepiton is the Producing Artistic Director of Square Top Theatre and Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance at Gonzaga University. Square Top Theatre is the recipient of a Spokane Arts Grant Award (SAGA) for their upcoming production, Scent of a Thousand Rains. 

Shann Ray is a poet, short story writer, and novelist who grew up in Montana and Alaska and spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. He is the author of seven books including most recently a short story collection, Blood Fire Vapor Smoke and a poetry collection, Sweetclover, both of which were published this year.

Steve Almond is the author of ten books of fiction and non-fiction including the New York Times best-sellers, Candyfreak and Against Football. He was also the host of the popular podcast Dear Sugars with fellow author Cheryl Strayed.

Almond's latest book, William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life is part of the "Bookmarked" series from Ig Publishers, in which authors talk about their favorite novels and how they've impacted their life and work. The subject of Almond's book is the 1965 novel Stoner by John Williams. 

McCarrthy moved to idaho in 1977 to work trail crew in the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness for the U.S. Forest Service. He later ran a range crew and worked on ranches in Hells Canyon and the Salmon River country. He started writing about winderness as a reporter for he Lewiston Morning Tribune, where he also covered cops, courts, arts, and agriculture for 10 years. He swited to environmental organizing and advocacy for two decades, as the conservation director for the Idaho Conservation league and Idaho Forest campaign durector for the Wilderness Society.

John Keeble is the author of eight books, including the new novel The Appointment: The Tale of Adaline Carson, a fictionalized account of the daughter of the famous frontiersman Kit Carson. His previous novels include Yellowfish, Broken Ground and The Shadows of Owls. His short fiction collection, Nocturnal America, won the Prairie Schooner Prize for short fiction and was published by the University of Nebraska press. He is also the author of Out of the Channel, the definitive study of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Gregory Spatz is the author of a new collection of "bookmatched" stories and novellas, What Could Be Saved, and of the novels Inukshuk, Fiddler's Dream and No One But Us, and the short story collections Half As Happy and Wonderful Tricks. His stories have appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, Glimmer Train Stories, Shenandoah, Epoch, Kenyon Review and New England Review.

The Spokane Print and Publishing Center is a new organization located in the West Central neighborhood of Spokane. According to their Facebook page, "The main function of the SPPC is to teach you how to do all the printing and publishing things, but that’s not all! Writing, bookbinding, screenprinting, writing, editing, design, RPG and table-top game design, zines, letterpress, printmaking..."

Simeon Mills is a writer, cartoonist, and teacher. His novel The Obsoletes is just out from Skybound Books.

Washington Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna has launched an interactive map which highlights poems about places in the state, connected by a network of highways. You can see the map, and submit your own poem at WashingtonPoeticRoutes.com.

The national finals of Poetry Out Loud, a poetry recitation contest for high school students, takes place April 30th and May 1st in Washington, DC. After competitions at both the regional and state levels, just one outstanding student is chosen to represent each state and US territory. For Washington, that student is junior Madeline Luther, from the small north central Washington town of Okanogan.

Tommy Orange is the author of the New York Times best-selling novel, There There, and one of the headlining authors the 2019 Get Lit! Festival. There There has won numerous awards including the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award's John Leonard Prize for first book by a new voice, and the 2019 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for debut novel.