Retired Longview librarian Hans Schaufus will read a short Christmas story, “The Three Second Dream,” a light-hearted tale of a graffiti artist and a museum director set in Portland and Paris. It is the latest in a series of holiday stories Hans has been writing each year since 1996.

Mystery writer Tom Larsen reads from Insomnia Blues, the fourth installment of his Jason Freeh Mystery Series. As he approaches his sixty-fifth birthday, Freeh is mourning the loss of his longtime girlfriend and common-law wife. A simple job—delivering a subpoena to a homeless street kid—turns into a complex case involving embezzlement, identity theft, campaign donor fraud, and ultimately murder. Freeh couldn’t care less who murdered Richard Asher until the killer tries to implicate him.

Dayle Olson will be reading poems from her recently published chapbook collection, From the Dead Letter Department. The chapbook received an Honorable Mention in Moonstone Press’ chapbook contest. These poems speak to change and loss, while maintaining a sense of wonder as the natural world finds new ways to delight and surprise us.

Craig Allen Heath will be reading from his Eden Ridge mystery series, set in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. In his debut novel, Where You Will Die, unconventional minister Alan Wright struggles against community obstacles and his own inner demons to discover who killed his best friend, Ruth MacKenzie, one of the oldest and most-beloved citizens of the small community.

Brandon Ford has worked as a writer and editor for daily and weekly newspapers. He was a public information officer for 10 years with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Resources Program. Upon retirement, he set out on a two-year sailing voyage to Southern California, Mexico, and Hawaii on a 50-year-old sailboat that he and his wife rebuilt. Brandon has “always loved the ocean and I want to use my writing to help others love and appreciate her as well.” Brandon will read from the book he is writing about sailing to Mexico and Hawaii that was “a diamond among the string of pearls that represent my life.”

Robert Michael Pyle reads from his latest book, Swimming with Snakes: Poems & Prose: Encounters with the Actual World(Watershed Press, Seattle). Blending narrative poems with short vignettes and essays, Bob celebrates experiences he has shared with creatures, plants, and places in the natural world. 

James Dott will be reading from his new poetry collection, Touch Wood, recently published by Watershed Press. The poems form a lyric field guide to trees. The short life and tragic death of David Douglas, early botanist who cataloged Northwest trees, threads through the work, offering elegies, narratives, and meditations on our tangled histories.

In her newest book, The Freedom of the Day: Everyday Silver Linings, Jan Bono shares 117 personal stories and poems spanning 7 decades—a few of her “silver lining moments”—that illustrate how we can focus on the good stuff in our everyday adventures. The book concludes with a challenge to readers to keep what’s going right in their lives on the front burner and recognize their many blessings.

Retired LCC instructor and counselor Mary Stone will read from her latest novel, Silent Pleas, which she describes as “an inspirational romantic suspense—the story involves a Mansion, Murder, and Guilt which join forces to ensnare and unite two strangers.” Reclusive, elderly Ophelia Wentworth owns Cavashahn Mansion. Venice Cambriole’s dream job is to liquidate the treasures within the estate. Besides their love for Cavashahn, the two women share something else:

Kay Smith-Blum will discuss the writer’s journey that produced her debut novel, Tangles, a Cold War love story revealing the devastating costs of the birth of the nuclear age. When a harpooned whale provides proof that the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is endangering all life in the Columbia River Basin, young scientist Luke Hinson begins to investigate the danger, while also avenging his father’s death from cancer. Facing his own thyroid cancer diagnosis, Luke fights those intent on keeping the extent of the danger secret.

Dawn Shipman will be reading from her YA fantasy novel, Kingdom Lost, (Elk Lake Publishing, 2021), the first in her Lost Stones of Argonia trilogy. A young princess finds herself on the run after her kingdom is overthrown and her father taken captive by the enemy. During her journey, she discovers the gemstone she wears is much more than a family heirloom, and that her world is inhabited by intelligent, non-human beings. If she wants to regain her throne, she must learn to trust those by her side—both human and not.

Jane Kurtz will read from her newest book, Oh, Give Me a Home, an “almost true story” in verse for young readers about when she returned as a child from Ethiopia to the U.S. and spent a year in Boise, Idaho. It’s a story of family, of culture shock, of being a third culture kid, and trying to figure out answers to the question, “Where are you from?” The book was named a Junior Library Guild selection and received a starred review from Kirkus, which calls it “A buoyant, beautiful explication of cultural adjustment as seen through a child’s eyes.”