The lineup is set for the second Mazama Festival of Books, scheduled for Sept. 7-8 at the Mazama Community Center.
The festival debuted last year with moderators Katherine Lanpher and Lauren Cerand, who will return this year to engage authors in intimate salon-style conversations about their work.
The festival was founded by part-time Mazama resident Art Gresh in partnership with the Methow Arts Alliance, and in concert with the Mazama Country Inn and the Trail’s End Bookstore.
Tickets are $15 per adult for the entire festival; children and students up to 18 years of age will be admitted free. The festival begins at 9:30 a.m. each day.
On Sept. 7, the day begins with a meet-and-greet session with authors and a welcome by Gresh. Featured authors that day are Shannon Huffman Polson, Ana Maria Spagna, Leni Zumas, Shawn Vestal, Leslie Helm, with Peter Nathaniel Malae, Vanessa Veselka, Sharma Shields, Ellen Welcker, Scott Elliott and Peter Mountford. There will be a lunch break at 1 p.m.
On Sept. 8, featured authors will be Dia Calhoun, Nikki McClure, Alexis Smith, Gregory Spatz, Kate Lebo and Jessica Lynn Bonin. Gresh will offer closing remarks at 1 p.m.
For registration and other information, visit www.MethowValleyArts.org, email Amanda@MethowArtsAlliance.org, or call 997-4004.
Here’s a brief look at the authors:
• Jessica Lynn Bonin lives and works out of a former hardware store and lumberyard in Edison, Wash., where she runs a shop called the Lucky Dumpster, hosting the handmade goods of over 50 local crafters and artists.
• Dia Calhoun is the author of eight novels for kids and teens, and has won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature for her novel Aria of the Sea. Three of her books, Firegold, Aria of the Sea, and White Midnight, were selected as American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults. Her newest books – After the River the Sun and Eva of the Farm – are set in the Methow Valley.
• Scott Elliott is the author of the novels Coiled in the Heart and Temple Grove. His shorter work has appeared in the Antioch Review, Juked, Mayday, the New York Times, and elsewhere. He teaches at Whitman College in Walla Walla.
• Leslie Helm has worked as Tokyo correspondent for Business Week and the Los Angeles Times, and is the author of Yokohama Yankee. He is currently editor of Seattle Business magazine.
• Peter Nathaniel Malae is the author of the novels Our Frail Blood and What We Are, winner of the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Award, the Arts Council Silicon Valley Fellowship and a New York Times Editor’s Choice; and the story collection, Teach the Free Man, a New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award and Glasgow Prize finalist. His poems and prose have appeared in Cimarron Review, Missouri Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Southwest Review, Witness and Zyzzyva, among other journals.
• Nikki McClure lives in Olympia where she cuts images from paper using an X-acto knife. She also makes a calendar every year as well as many books and pies.
• Peter Mountford’s debut novel, A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism, won the 2012 Washington State Book Award, and his second novel, The Dismal Science, will be published by Tin House Books in February 2014. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Granta, Slate, Salon, and Best New American Voices 2008.
• Shannon Huffman Polson is the author of North of Hope: A Daughter’s Arctic Journey. Her work is published in Huffington Post, High Country News, Seattle and Alaska Magazines, as well as other literary magazines and periodicals.
• Sharma Shields is an award-winning author from Spokane. Her short story collection, Favorite Monster, was selected by Stewart O’Nan as the winner of the 2011 Autumn House Fiction Prize. Her fiction has appeared widely in such journals as The Kenyon Review and Fugue.
• Alexis M. Smith’s debut novel, Glaciers, has been translated into Italian and Spanish, and was a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction.
• Ana Maria Spagna’s books include Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness, finalist for the 2012 Washington State Book Award, Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter’s Civil Rights Journey, winner of the 2009 River Teeth literary nonfiction prize, and Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw. She lives in Stehekin.
• Gregory Spatz is the author of the novels Inukshuk, Fiddler’s Dream and No One But Us, and of the story collections Half as Happy and Wonderful Tricks. His stories have appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, Glimmer Train Stories, Epoch, Kenyon Review and New England Review. He teaches at Eastern Washington University in Spokane.
• Vanessa Veselka is the author of the novel, Zazen, which was a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and won the 2012 PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize for fiction. Her short stories appear in Tin House, YETI and Zyzzyva. Her nonfiction is found in GQ, The Atlantic, The American Reader, Salon, and is included in 2013 Best American Essays.
• Shawn Vestal is the author of Godforsaken Idaho, a collection of short stories, and is a columnist at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. His stories have appeared in Tin House, Ecotone, McSweeney’s, The Southern Review, and other journals.
• Ellen Welcker has a chapbook forthcoming from Shotgun Wedding (alice blue books), and recent poems in H_NGM_N, Everyday Genius, JERRY, Phantom Limb, InDigest, and Leveler Poetry Journal.
• Leni Zumas is the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator and the novel The Listeners, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Portland State University.
• Kate Lebo is an award-winning baker and writer. Her poems appear in Best New Poets, AGNI, and Poetry Northwest among other journals. In October 2013, Chin Music Press will publish her first book, A Commonplace Book of Pie.
