We look forward to gathering with you around our hearth of words!
Happy Fall Equinox!!
You made it through another summer, and what a busy, fast-moving one it was. Thank you to everyone who came through our doors, whether you were discovering us for the first time or are one of the loyal locals who kept showing up through the downtown crowds. We're grateful for all of you.
Now we get to settle into what might be the best season of all. (Whether you're a bookseller or just a reader, it's hard to beat.) As the light shifts and the weather draws us indoors, there's more time for cozying up in a favorite reading chair, attending to that growing TBR stack, and simply savoring all the sensory pleasures of spooky season. There's also more reason to gather, in celebration and in solidarity, and we're looking forward to sharing the season with you.
Below are the author events we have planned for the coming months, both here at the shop and out in the community. There's more in the works, but this is what we have so far. We hope you'll find a few that speak to you, and that we'll see you around our hearth of words.
Warm regards,
Imprint Bookshop
Thursday, Oct. 8 at Finnriver Farm & Cidery - 6-8pm
Book Launch w/ Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Among the Birds: Field Notes from Cascadia
Join bestselling author Lyanda Lynn Haupt for the local launch of her new art-filled book, Among the Birds: Field Notes from Cascadia on Thursday,October 8, 6–8 PM at Finnriver Farm & Cidery. Featuring a reading, book signing, and live music by Fritillary--magical Celtic fiddle and cello duo Joey Gish and Claire Willow.
Gather with fellow bird lovers, book nerds, nature enthusiasts, and friends for stories and music as we celebrate this beautiful new book—and the remarkable birds who share our world.
Cider, drinks, and nibbles available for purchase from Finnriver.
Onsite book sales by Imprint Bookshop.
Tuesday, Oct. 13 at Taps at The Guardhouse, Ft. Worden - 5:30-7pm
Book Launch w/Kathy Fridstein, Landscapes of Forgotten Forts
In her evocative Landscapes of the Forgotten Forts, photographer Kathy Fridstein explores the three forts--Casey, Worden, and Flagler--that comprised the Triangle of Fire. Built at the turn of the 20th century, they have now been reclaimed by nature. Seen through Fridstein’s lens, the forts expand our consideration of the connections of constructed and natural environments, history and art, war and peace, absence and presence. In addition to Fridstein’s work, the book features fifteen poems by award-winning poet Kelli Russell Agodon written in response to the photographs. Curator Kathleen Garret provides a foreword. Historian David Hansen’s essay puts the forts in historical context, while historical photographs and quotations from soldiers stationed there are interspersed and evoke ghosts from wars past.
The author and contributors will speak about the impact of the forts in both artistic and historical terms. Kathy will describe her personal engagement with the project and what it was that drew her to spend eighteen years photographing and studying the landscape of the Forts.
Kathy Fridstein is based in Port Townsend. Her photographs have been exhibited widely at regional and national venues, including the Seattle Art Museum, and are found in both public and private art collections.
Kelli Russell Agodon lives on the Olympic Peninsula. She has published two books with Copper Canyon Press, most recently Accidental Devotions. She is the co-founder of Two Sylvias Press and co-hosts the poetry series “Poems You Need” with Melissa Stoddard.
Publisher: Chin Music Press, Seattle, Washington
We hope you will attend the event if you are able and encourage you to RSVP by Oct. 10th by emailing Kathy directly at [email protected].
Wednesday, Oct. 14 at Imprint Bookshop - 6:00-7:30 pm
Book Launch w/ Louisa Morgan, The Faerie Handmaid
Join us in welcoming back Louisa Morgan, author of The Secret History of Witches, to Imprint Bookshop to celebrate the release of her latest book, The Faerie Handmaid.
This is the sequel to The Faerie Morgana, an Arthurian fantasy reimagining with a powerful heroine who must protect Arthur. The story continues when the new king of Camelud is cursed, and Morgana's magicless handmaid must embrace her own power to save the kingdom.
Louisa will be in conversation with Anna Quinn discussing magical women and the patriarchy, as well as history and legends. This author event will be at Imprint Bookshop on Wednesday, October 14th at 6:00 pm and is open to all.
Thursday, Oct. 22 at Finnriver - 6:30-8pm
Author Event: Miranda Mellis discusses her novel Crocosmia w/ Crystie Kisler
Join us at Finnriver for a reading and discussion with Miranda Mellis, whose novel Crocosmia was recently published by Nightboat Books. Miranda will be in conversation with Finnriver's Crystie Kisler about the book. Books will be sold by Imprint Bookshop, with a book signing to follow.
Crocosmia; is a revelatory novel (or parable) of art, adventure, and radical politics, set in a world on the precipice. A philosophical fable, Crocosmia centers on Maya as she recollects the “great turning”—a moment of radical social and ecological change effected in part by the art of her mother, Jane. As Maya recalls her upbringing—from a commune run by anarchist nuns to a time of rural isolation before her mother’s disappearance—Mellis’ prose gorgeously conjures a life defined by revolutionary thought and action and the interplay and tension between family life and political commitment. At once a fantasy, a handbook to political thought, and a work of eco-fiction, this lush novel meditates on how, in a world on the precipice, dreams of communal care can bloom.
Join us for this important inquiry into how art and the creative life can transform the future!
In lieu of an entrance fee, donations will be accepted on behalf of Longhouse For The People, an Indigenous led revitalization project focused on land stewardship, spiritual education and first foods.
Thursday, Oct. 29 at Pope Marine Building - 6:30-8pm
Author Panel: "Books That Go Bump in the Night" hosted by Imprint Bookshop
"Books That Go Bump in the Night" is a special interest literary event for the Halloween season bringing together a panel of regional authors who write paranormal-inspired books that are fresh and creative. PT's very own Dylan Quarles, author of The Secret History of Port Townsend series, will moderate the discussion panel featuring:
Devon Kelley, podcaster and author of Cryptids of the Pacific Northwest: The Pend Oreille Paddler, Ringdocus, and the Iconic Sasquatch
Evan Peterson, author of Better Living Through Alchemy, a paranormal/fantasy/mystery based in Seattle
Tamara Sellman, podcaster and author of Rain Shadows, a PNW horror anthology
Patience Schoene, author of Shadows of the Stage, a paranormal romance based in Seattle
This is sure to be a weird and wonderful conversation about legends and lore inspired by the PNW. Don't miss out on a frighteningly fun evening!
Entrance fee is $10 and tickets can be purchased here.
Tuesday, Nov. 3 at Imprint Bookshop - 5:30-7pm Nov. 3 at Imprint - Author Event w/Curtis White, On Resistance: A Manifesto
We all have an important job this Election Day which is to, first and foremost, do everything in your power to ensure your vote gets counted. But after that, we hope you will join us for a galvanizing reading and singalong with author Curtis White.
Okay, so Curtis won't be leading the singalong himself but he is awfully excited to have members of Singing Resistance Port Townsend join us for the occasion and so are we! Curtis will be reading from his new book On Resistance: A Manifestowhich is "a hands-on, don't-lose-hope study of how writers, painters, musicians, and other cultural figures respond to fascism". We think this will be a perfect opportunity to redirect any midterms anxiety as we come together in community, solidarity, and song.
Books are on sale at Imprint Bookshop now so come get your copy and join the resistance! Programming Note: This event was originally scheduled for 9/24 but we decided to move this event to Election Day to avoid a scheduling conflict with another book launch being held at the same day/time. Our friends at Empty Bowl Press are releasing a beautiful new anthology Cascadia Works: Tend, Gather, Harvest, Restore. edited by Tele Aadsen Gigot. We hope you will consider attending this very special presentation at Finnriver Farm & Cidery from 5-7pm.
Thursday, Nov. 12 at Imprint Bookshop - 5:30-7pm A Friendship in Poems: An Evening of Poetry and Conversation w/Peter Quinn & John Willson
In 1976 John Willson and Peter Quinn shared an Academy of American Poets award while classmates at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. At Lewis and Clark, they benefitted tremendously from the mentorship of poet Vern Rutsala. John went on to earn his MFA at UC Irving while Peter followed the tug of entrepreneurship in, possibly, a few too many ways. Over the last few decades, however, they shared the same passions; independent bookselling and leading poetry writing workshops. John was a bookseller for thirty years at Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge, retiring in 2021. For twenty-seven years he was also a poetry writing instructor at the Bainbridge Park District. In 2008, Peter joined his wife, Anna Quinn, in creating Writers’ Workshoppe and Imprint books in Port Townsend. After eleven amazing years, they passed the mantel to new owners in 2019. This reading represents, but does not conclude almost fifty-five years of friendship, encouragement, and mutual support.
A Poem For Autumn...
Again The Air Is Full
by Wendell Berry
Again the air is full
of falling: the fall of the leaves
in the weighty season that bring
all home again to the lowly
miracle from which they came.
Nature, the mother and maker,
requires that life take form,
enflesh itself in the shapes
and habits of the world’s unnumbered
kinds. And then she requires
each one at last to shed
its guise, giving up
its matter to the life to come.
Think of a world of no fall
no gravity calling downward,
homeward, bringing all
by the light uprisen down
to rest in the resting land
– a world, instead, where all
that dies would fly upward
and outward, nameless and alone.
How sterile then would be
the earth, seasonless the year.
. . .
The year is the showing forth
of the heavenly love that is
the being of the present world.
The leaves, opening and at last
falling, hold a while
the beauty of God who made them
by the work and care of Nature,
His vicar and our mother.
His only is the light
of which all things are made,
the beauty that they are,
the delight that is our prayer.
