The Sunday Brunch
Sunday, October 3 - 11:00 am – 12:30 pm
(Tickets required)
Jane Kirkpatrick / The Healing of Natalie Curtis
Perennial favorite Jane Kirkpatrick once again draws from the history of the West in a moving and lyrical novel, The Healing of Natalie Curtis (Revel/Baker Pub. Group). In 1902, classical musician Natalie Curtis seeks to recapture the joy of music after exhaustive training and a lost love leave her broken. Joining her brother in the Southwest, she discovers the ancient music of the indigenous people, music that is new to her ears, and an artform under attack by the forces that demand assimilation of the native population. Her sense of justice and her fight to preserve the ancient songs help her find the healing she needs. Bestselling Oregon author Jane Kirkpatrick has written nearly 40 books, earning numerous awards, including from PNBA. She may also hold the record for the most PNBA tradeshows attended by an author. |
Lilliam Rivera / We Light Up the Sky
Three Latinx teenagers are thrown together when they come face-to-face with an extraterrestrial visitor in Lilliam Rivera’s new young adult novel, We Light Up the Sky (Bloomsbury YA/Macmillan). Each of the teens has reason to keep to themselves, but they will need to act together if they are going to survive the coming alien invasion - and if they are going to be able to convince the rest of the world that something out there is headed this way. In this compelling and chilling fantasy, Rivera explores just how much someone owes the world when the world hasn’t treated them too kindly. Lilliam Rivera is the author of several books for both young adults and middle grade readers, including the Pura Belpré Honor winner, Never Look Back. She lives in Los Angeles. |
Paul Tran / All the Flowers Kneeling
In their debut collection, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets/Penguin), poet Paul Tran explores gender and desire, reckoning and recovery, freedom and power. This collection offers a profound meditation on the emotional lives of trauma survivors, whether from racial, sexual or imperial violence, using innovative and nonlinear poetic forms to express both vulnerability and power. The poems also speak of resilience, endurance and love. Paul was the first Asian American since 1993—and first transgender poet ever—to win the Nuyorican Poets Café Grand Slam, placing top 10 at the Individual World Poetry Slam and top 2 at the National Poetry Slam. Their work appears in the New Yorker, Poetry magazine, and elsewhere, including in the anthology Inheriting the War. All the Flowers Kneeling will be published in February, 2022. |
Kim Fu / Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century
In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century (Tin House Books), the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each of these mesmerizing and original stories examines the personal and public contradictions of modern life, through a lens that blurs the boundaries between reality and the fantastic. Canadian-born Kim Fu now lives in Seattle. She is the author of a poetry collection and two novels, including For Today I Am a Boy, winner of the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Fu’s first short story collection, will be published in February, 2022. |
Abe Streep / Brothers on Three
New Mexico-based journalist Abe Streep vividly captures the true story of the 2017 Montana state high school basketball championship in Brothers on Three (Celadon Books/Macmillan, an inspiring and insightful book about community, adolescence and achievement. The Arlee Warriors carried the hopes of their community with them to the championship, ultimately making family, friends and fans proud. To understand just how they got there, and what it would mean individually and community-wide, Streep examines the lives of the players growing up on the Flathead reservation, meeting all the pressures of adolescence, and finding the way forward toward adulthood. Abe Streep’s work has appeared in numerous journals and newspapers; he is the recipient of the 2019 American Mosaic Journalism Prize for deep reporting on underrepresented communities. |