The purpose of the First-Year Reading Experience is to provide new students with a common connection through a thought-provoking book. This year, the book is “The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival” by John Vaillant, which details the hunt for a man-eating Amur tiger in the remote Primorye region of Russia’s eastern border in the 1990s.
The nonfiction work published in 2010 addresses conservation and natural resources; culture and place; and the human-environment relationship, among other themes.
Vaillant will be at UM to discuss his book and his lecture is free and open to the public
http://events.umt.edu/blog/event/lecture-the-tiger-author-john-vaillant/–Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air, about Marc Beaudin's Vagabond Song.
“In Having Listened, Gary Whited guides the reader to a time and place that evokes the very essence of his experience growing up on the prairie of Eastern Montana. Through his eloquence and imagery, Whited brings the reader to a deeper understanding of the spiritual beauty and sorrows of that life and thus a deep universal connection to it.”This will be a great event for teachers and writers of all ages!
Robert E. Lee will disucss outreach and Marnie Prange will talk about teaching younger children, including some of her own poetry lessons and the responses by her students. Mark Gibbons will discuss his experiences in the classroom by way of student poetry and Sheryl Noethe will read her own poems about kids and writing.Join Aaron Parrett, author of Literary Butte: A History in Novels & Film, with Skylar Browning and Jeremy Watterson, authors of Montana Baseball History, as they converse on two of Montana's favorite entertainments. A homerun for sure!
Come enjoy a conversation with three Historic Press authors who deeply understand our natural landscapes: Russ Beck, John Clayton, and E. Donnall Thomas. From fly-fishing to peaks, streams, praries and the frontier, this conversation is sure to be of interest.
Three poets and a novelist with astoundingly full schedules (they are editors, publishers, teachers, reading-series hosts, administrators) share their creative work and discuss the joys and perils of the modern writer's perpetual juggle.
Formed in 1980 and based in Helena, Montana, Farcountry Press is an award-winning publisher that specializes in color photography books showcasing the nation's cities, states, national parks, and wildlife. Farcountry also publishes a handful children’s series, along with guidebooks, cookbooks, and regional history titles nationwide. On top of all this, Farcountry has a custom publishing division, called Sweetgrass Books, that helps individuals publish their own titles.
Farcountry will be exhibiting work on Saturday at the festival bookfair, at the Holiday Inn.
Edited by Shelly Taylor and Abraham Smith
HICK PO is an anthology of contemporary rural American poetry edited by Shelly Taylor and Abraham Smith. This project was officially released in early 2015.
This anthology offers up forty poets, from the globally famed to the emerging, each of whom have been or are now fast-tied to the countryside. Let us sing to you of this age-old tradition so well we know the woodline.
This book will feature not only poems but also aesthetic statements speaking towards our writers’ relationships with the liminal, the rural, the great American wilds.
Please join us to celebrate the life and writing of Ivan Doig. All Festival attendees are invited to share a favorite passage or memory of Ivan during this open forum. Some of The Missoula Gang, that Ivan dedicated The Winter Brothers to, will be present.
There will be an autograph book at Fact & Fiction during The Festival for attendees to sign, which will be given to Carol Doig, at a later date. This is based on an autograph book that Donal, the main character in The Last Bus to Wisdom, carried with him on his journey.
Bitterroot photographer Barabra Michelman and former Missoula writer Charles Finn will give a combined talk and reading, “Tin Types: A Photo-Poetic Collaboration”. Chronicling the inspiration for and evolution of their collaborative project, the two long-time friends will discuss the improvisational nature of working together by using each other’s work to inspire their own. Barbara will also explain the revitalized technique, tintype, she used to give their work its unique look, and Charles will read from selected pieces. Q & A to follow.
The ultimate book party celebration, the premier fest fete, the textual tops - delicious food and drinks with your favorite literary guests. Free admission with official festival button or $15 dollars at the door (includes one drink ticket, a mouth-watering spread from the Good Food Store and the best of times).
Tell Us Something awakens imagination, empowers storytellers and connects the Missoula community through the transformative power of personal storytelling. It is a celebration of each other, our stories and how we move through the world together. All of the stories at Tell Us Something are true. Stories last for 10 minutes and are told from memory. Everyone is welcome to tell a story. There is a theme for each event.
Generally, storytellers are not announced ahead of time. Tonight's event is different in that we've invited storytellers who have been well received by the Tell Us Something crowds and have been enthusiastic about the program. Usually there are between 8-10 storytellers. Tonight we'll have four storytellers from the Missoula community.
Subscribe to the podcast using your favorite podcast app. Learn more about Tell Us Something at tellussomething.org.
Registration is now open for the 4th Annual Book'n It for the Library fun run! Join us Saturday, September 12th. We have a limited supply of race day shirts available. Sign up early to secure yours!
THE RACE
Race leaves from the library parking lot, 301 E. Main. Courses follow the Riverfront Trail along the beautiful Clark Fork River. Runners, walkers, and strollers welcome!
Saturday, September 12th
5k Start: 8:30am
Race day registration opens: 7:00am, closes: 8:15am
Cheap enough for the whole family:
There is a $20 registration fee for the 5k race. Book'n It for the Library shirts are available and included in the price of registration while supplies last. Register early to secure a shirt.
Family and non-racers are invited to participate in a free un-timed fun run the morning of the race.
There is a $2 discount for each runner with a Missoula Public Library card!
Packet pickup begins at 7:00 a.m. on race day.
Proceeds go to support library programming through the Friends of the Missoula Public Library.
VOLUNTEERING
We need volunteers! Contact Stephen to volunteer. Call the library at (406)721-2665 with questions.
SPONSORS
Interested in sponsoring the 4th annual Book'n It for the Library Race? Contact Stephen for more information.
Thanks to our sponsors: Friends of Missoula Public Library, Run Wild Missoula, The Runner's Edge, and Zoo City Apparel.
CutBank
The Oval
Camas
Booktrope Publishing
Willow Springs Journal and Press
Montana Romance Writers
Montana Historical Society
Farcountry
Josh Ashley Fine Art
Open Country Reading Series
Stoneydale
Green Ribbon Books
Elk River Books
Mountain Press
History Press
Humanities Montana
The Missoula Writing Collaborative
Lost Horse Press
Ahshata / Boise Review
Aerie
Dock Street Press
Riverbend
Get Lit!
New England Review
H_NGNM_N
YesYes Books
Conundrum Press
Montana Public Radio
Self-publishing is an increasingly viable and respectable route for writers to find audiences for their work. From funding and editing to e-book creation and physical book printing, the options are exciting, scary, challenging, and numerous. In this panel, three very different writers describe their paths to self-publishing.
Jess E. Owen is the author of the award winning YA fantasy series, The Summer King Chronicles. Janice K. Mineer self-published her first literary novel, Secret Heart of the Bitterroot, in March 2015, and is an award-winning poet. Carol Buchanan may publish her fourth novel, The Ghost at Beaverhead Rock, in early September, although she says, “One of the best things about self-publishing is the freedom not to publish until the book is good enough.” She teaches self-publishing at Flathead Valley Community College.
A brief yoga sequence (for all ages) and a book discussion with Shawnee Thonrton Hardy, author of Asanas for Autism and Special Need. Hardy is an educator with over fifteen years experience helping special needs children through yoga practice.
Around the World in 50 Minutes with Marty Essen is a high-energy show, featuring interesting facts, humorous stories, and the best of the thousands of photos Marty Essen took while traveling for his six-time award-winning book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents.
One part lecture, one part theater, one part slide show, one part comedy—it’s the type of show where the audience has fun laughing at the stories, oohing and aahing at the photos, and then, when it’s all done, they realize just how much they’ve learned.
Marty divides his show into eight segments, covering his adventures and wildlife encounters on each of the seven continents, plus Central America. He talks about endangered species, new scientific discoveries, and the need to protect our environment. After the show, he opens up the floor for questions and engages the audience in a lively discussion.
“A great deal of the living world really is red in tooth and claw. That important principle has needed a real biologist to illustrate and explain it, now accomplished dramatically by Emlen's Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle.”
—Edward O. Wilson (Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist, Harvard University)
Join biologist Doug Emlen and illustrator David J. Tuss for a discussion on the production of Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle.
About the book:
The story behind the stunning, extreme weapons we see in the animal world—teeth and horns and claws—and what they can tell us about the way humans develop and use arms and other weapons
In Animal Weapons, Doug Emlen takes us outside the lab and deep into the forests and jungles where he’s been studying animal weapons in nature for years, to explain the processes behind the most intriguing and curious examples of extreme animal weapons—fish with mouths larger than their bodies and bugs whose heads are so packed with muscle they don’t have room for eyes. As singular and strange as some of the weapons we encounter on these pages are, we learn that similar factors set their evolution in motion. Emlen uses these patterns to draw parallels to the way we humans develop and employ our own weapons, and have since battle began. He looks at everything from our armor and camouflage to the evolution of the rifle and the structures human populations have built across different regions and eras to protect their homes and communities. With stunning black and white drawings and gorgeous color illustrations of these concepts at work, Animal Weapons brings us the complete story of how weapons reach their most outsized, dramatic potential, and what the results we witness in the animal world can tell us about our own relationship with weapons of all kinds.
Join four prolific prose writers - Jacob Appel, Kate Bolick, Bernard Cooper and Kisha Schlegel - as they share from creative work and converse on pleasures and challenges inherent in the research (and memory-mining) process necessary for successful essay writing.
What role can the speculative play in character-driven literary fiction? This panel unites four authors with ties to the Pacific Northwest in an exploration of hybrid forms and the future of slipstream literature. J Robert Lennon, Sharma Shields, Benjamin Parzybok, and Shya Scanlon read from their work, discuss common influences, expectations, and one another’s unique approaches, then answer questions.
Chérie Newman, producer of The Write Question, talks with Smith Henderson, author of Fourth of July Creek.
*This event is limited capacity and $30. Ticket price includes a delicious Top Hat lunch and one paperback copy of Fourth of July Creek.
Purchase tickets here: http://www.ticketfly.com/event/930223-smith-henderson-missoula/
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Smith Henderson is the author of the debut novel Fourth of July Creek (Ecco), a 2014 New York Times Notable Book. It was the 2014 Montana Book Award winner, finalist for the James Tait Black Prize, the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the Ken Kesey Award for the Novel, and the Texas Institute of Letters Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction.
The novel also made the longlists for the Folio Prize, the VCU Cabel First Novelist Award, the Folio Prize, and the John Creasy (New Blood) Dagger Award.
The book appeared on the Best Books of 2014 lists for The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Kansas City Star, and Book Riot and Powell’s Book Store.
Henderson was awarded a 2011 PEN Emerging Writers Award in fiction, and a 2011 Philip Roth Residency in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. His short story, “Number Stations” won a Pushcart Prize and a finalist honors for the University of Texas Keene Prize, where he was a Michener Center for Writing Fellow. He worked at the Wieden + Kennedy advertising agency, where he contributed to the Emmy-nominated “Halftime In America” Super Bowl Commercial. An accomplished screenwriter, he co-wrote “Dance With The One”, a 2010 South By Southwest Narrative Prize Finalist.
His fiction has been anthologized and published in Tin House, American Short Fiction, One Story, New Orleans Review, Makeout Creek, and Witness. Born and raised in Montana, he now lives in Los Angeles, California.
Just beginning its fifth year, YesYes Books has released titles that have won the American Book Award (Boyishly by Tanya Olson), the Lambda Award for Gay Poetry ([insert] boy by Danez Smith), and been ranked as top collections of the year (American Barricade by Danniel Schoonebeek and If I Should Say I Have Hope by Lynn Melnick, among others). YesYes Books is fast becoming known for its experimental projects, its electrifying tours, and the diversity of voice it brings forward.
Enjoy a brief reading from three of the newest poets at YesYes Books and then stay for a discussion with these poets and the publisher of this young, dynamic, award winning literary press as we walk through the journey from submission to production to promotion of small press poetry in today’s climate.
Join us for readings by Masters of Fine Arts candidates in poetry, fiction and nonfiction from Eastern Washington University, Boise State and University of Montana!
Beth McHugh has a novel on the way (The Actor), Marian Palaia (The Given World) is touring with her first, and Martin Corless-Smith is an acclaimed poet who recently published a book of fiction (This Fatal Looking Glass). Join us for a reading and conversation on the different stages in novel writing: creation, submission, publication and promotion.
This event is sponsored by Novel Suite, a new software program designed for writing novels.
Join us for a dynamic reading and conversation centered around the dyanimcs of privilege impacting academia, publishing and exposure. Three poets and one writer of fiction - Jeff Renard Allen, Tod Marshall, Rob Schlegel and Randall James Tyrone - will each share creative work and add their unique perspective to the conversation.
Come and read your best worst rejection letter. Tell a story of literary heartbreak. Share your invented favorable decline from It's Not You It's Us journal...or just listen in as others reveal the dark (and darkly humorous) downside of submitting work.
We have plenty of room - send an email to mindellrachel@gmail.com to sign up!
Acclaimed poet Allison Hedge Coke, with support from the UM's Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, will read from her new book Streaming, in conversation with her Coffee House Poetry Editor Erika Stevens. According to poet Adrian Matejka, as he writes of Streaming, "it is clear that in these urgent poems, and in this necessary book, we’ve found both the magnificent and the unforgettable.”
---The party continues at Missoula best live music dive, Ole Beck VFW Post 209. Enjoy drink specials and live music from festival authors. FREE ENTRY!
A great post-fest acitivity!
Germanfest is a free Montana German festival held each fall in Missoula.
Germanfest is a celebration of German culture and Missoula’s Sister City relationship with Neckargemünd, Germany. It is the premiere Montana German festival in the state. Highlights include traditional food, music and beer.
With Special Guests S-Bahn!Come savor some Kettlehouse brew, browse the many History Press Montana titles on display, mingle with authors, get your books signed, and say farewell to fellow Montana Book Festival attendees and volunteers while enjoying the old time music of History Press author Aaron Parrett and Brian Hall.