Driftwood Public Library is delighted to announce the schedule of mystery writers for its 16 th annual Dark & Stormy Night series for this October. This will be the 16 th year in which the library invites genre authors to speak in Lincoln City. The series takes place at the library at 4:00 Thursday afternoons in October, beginning October 3rd.
Fifteen years ago, Driftwood teamed with the late Marcy Taylor to bring Northwest
mystery writers to the Oregon coast. That first year was so successful that the series has continued every October, with only one break while the library was closed for its renovation in the Autumn and early Winter of 2009. The series has expanded to include writers from other genres, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror, sometimes all mashed together!
Dana Haynes will be returning to open this year’s series on October 3rd. Dana is the
author of the new mystery/thriller novel, St. Nicholas Salvage and Wrecking.
Haynes has spent 25 years in Oregon newspaper newsrooms, split between
weeklies and dailies. He currently serves as managing editor of the Portland Tribune
and several associated newspapers. He has won awards as a reporter, columnist and
editor. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he also served as spokesman and
speechwriter for the mayor of Portland. He lives in Portland with his wife Katy King.
The series continues on October 10 th with a visit from Christa Yelich-Koth. Christa’s
most recent book is The Jade Castle, the first book in the Land of Iyah cycle. It was
published earlier this summer. Christa comes from a varied educational background, from
Spanish Immersion primary school, to vocal music at an arts high school (where she
learned classical music and opera), to a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. She’s
always had a love for working with animals and found herself most interested in marine
biology and entomology. She has published five novels to date, as well as a graphic novel
and a comic book series. She has also worked as a professional editor for many years and
has been fortunate to work with several bestselling writers, both in the US and
Internationally. Christa currently resides on the Oregon coast.
On October 17 th , we’re delighted to welcome Valerie Davisson. Valerie published the
fourth book in her Logan McKenna series last November. Having grown up all over the
world, including in Italy, Germany, and Japan, she eventually earned her Master’s degree
in Anthropology from UC Irvine. She has taught Cultural Anthropology and 6 th graders in
Southern California, and it was while teaching that she started writing the first two Logan
Mckenna books. She is the mother of two grown sons, and currently resides with her
husband John in their dream cottage in the middle of an old-growth forest on the Oregon
coast, five minutes from the Pacific, with their dog Finn.
Alexandra Mason will join us on October 24 th . Mason has lived a life devoted to reading,
writing, teaching, and publishing. As a Shakespeare scholar, she wrote one of the first
essays to focus on the language of Ophelia (rather than of Hamlet); and she helped bring
to critical light the first woman playwright in England, Elizabeth Cary. After a full
academic career as a professor and a dean, Mason is author of five books, two of them
volumes of poems (Poems along the Way and Lost and Found) and one a novel (The
Lighthouse Ghost of Yaquina Bay). Critics have called this narrative "the Mother of all
Ghost Stories!" and it is sold at lighthouses nationwide. With the Tuesday Writers of
Waldport, she has been working on memoirs and a sci-fi fantasy novel called
Shakespeare’s Pipe. Her study of economic metaphor is soon to be released in a revised
and expanded second edition, Shakespeare’s Money Talks. For years she traveled through
the Pacific Northwest giving a Chautauqua called "My Shakespeare." Chapters from her memoir appear as separate essays in recent issues of Groundwaters, an annual Oregon anthology. She lives in the perfect spot overlooking the sea on the central Oregon coast.
The series wraps up on October 31st with a visit from Caitlin Starling. Equipped with an
anthropology degree and an unhealthy interest in the dark and macabre, Caitlin writes
horror-tinged speculative fiction of all flavors. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead,
published this past Spring, tells the story of a caver on a foreign planet who finds
herself trapped, with only her wits and the unreliable voice on her radio to help her
back to the surface. Caitlin also works in narrative design for interactive theater and
games, and has been paid to design body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new
ways to inflict insomnia. She lives, writes, and wrangles spreadsheets near Portland.
All events in the Dark and Stormy Night series are free to the public and made possible by
ongoing generous support from The Driftwood Library Foundation, U.S. Bank, and
D’Sands Condominium Motel. Questions about the series may be directed to Ken
Hobson at Driftwood Public Library: 541-996-1242 or khobson@lincolncity.org .
Driftwood Public Library is located at 801 SW HWY 101 in Lincoln City on the 2 nd floor
of the City Hall building, across the street from Burger King and adjacent to McKay’s
Market.
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