The Nature of Words will again present a roster of renowned guest authors at its annual literary festival November 7-10.

The ninth consecutive year of the festival will include authors from the genres of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and young adult fiction. The Rising Star Creative Writing Competition awards ceremony, recognizing emerging writers, will be the opening event of the festival. The festival also includes one night of author readings at the Tower Theatre, lectures and workshops by the guest authors, a VIP reception and an author reception with flash readings. A Sunday guest author reading and open mic conclude the festival.
The festival will showcase these authors: (in order of appearance)

Lawson Inada is a former Oregon Poet Laureate and currently professor emeritus of writing at Southern Oregon University. Inada will be honored with the 2013 Caldera Award from The Nature of Words, in recognition of his body of work. He is the author of five books including Legends from Camp, a volume of poetry which won the American Book Award.

He also is a winner of the Governor’s Arts Award (1997), the Oregon Book Award (for Drawing the Line 1997) and the Pushcart Prize (1996) for poetry. Other titles include In This Great Land of Freedom, Just Into/Nations and Before the War. Professor Inada has won two Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and his work has appeared in The Best American Poetry.

Karen Finneyfrock’s debut young adult novel, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door was published by Viking Children’s Books in 2013. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost was released on Write Bloody press in 2010. She is a former writer-in-residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools program. Finneyfrock has competed in four National Poetry Slam teams and was honored as a Slam Legend at the National Poetry Slam in 2006. In 2010, Finneyfrock traveled to Nepal as a Cultural Envoy through the U.S. Department of State to perform and teach poetry.

James Prosek is an artist, writer and naturalist who made his authorial debut at 19 with Trout: an Illustrated History, featuring 70 of his watercolor paintings of the trout of North America. Prosek has written for the New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, the 17th-century author of The Compleat Angler. Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Amazing and Mysterious Fish, was a New York Times Book Review editor’s choice, and was the subject of a documentary for the PBS series Nature that aired in April 2013. Prosek’s latest book, Ocean Fishes, is a collection of life-sized paintings of 35 Atlantic fishes. Prosek co-founded a conservation initiative called World Trout in 2004 with Yvon Chouinard, the owner of Patagonia clothing company, which raises money for coldwater habitat conservation.

Jim Lynch is the author of three novels set in Western Washington. His most recent title is Truth Like the Sun released April 2012, which New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin picked as one of her 10 favorite books of 2012. The novel is also a finalist for the Dashiell Hammett Prize, given to the best literary crime fiction in North America. Lynch’s first novel, The Highest Tide (2005), won the Pacific Northwest Bookseller Award.

His second novel, Border Songs, 2009, was adapted to the stage and won the Washington State Book Award, as well as the Indie’s Choice Honor Book Award. The film rights have been sold for The Highest Tide and TV rights for Border Songs. Lynch grew up in the Seattle area and graduated from the University of Washington before working as a reporter for newspapers in Alaska, Virginia, Washington and Oregon.

Emily Carr has been a finalist in seven national book contests, most notably The National Poetry Series 2011. Her second book of poetry, 13 Ways of Happily: Books 1 & 2, was the winner of the 2009 New Measures Poetry Prize. 

Another book of poetry, Directions For Flying, was the winner of the 2009 Furniture Press poetry prize. Carr has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Jack Kerouac House, Writers in the Heartland and Camac Centre d’Art, France. She has authored a six-volume series of artist books. She received her PhD from University of Calgary in 2010. Carr is the director of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at OSU-Cascades in Bend.

Tickets will go on sale early in September at www.thenatureofwords.org,  541-647-2233 or info@thenatureofwords.org

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