Independent bookstores have been holding the fireline against ignorance for centuries. These days, the blaze has crept way too close for comfort in too many pockets of society, but bookstore owners and librarians have suited up.
Holly Lorincz, the newest owner of Manzanita’s Cloud and Leaf Bookstore, says, “I’m grateful to live in a community that supports books. Our little store turns twenty years old in March… I want to celebrate not just the authors who create paths to knowledge and empathy, and the readers who seek and share ideas, but also my heroes, those brave protectors of the printed word who’ve had to don their flame-resistant cardigans and stand strong in a time when we should be way past intolerance of the unknown.”
In order to celebrate two decades of selling books and the people who’ve kept the rural store alive and thriving, Lorincz is hosting what she calls a “Champagne Shindig” on Saturday, March 2, from 2 to 6 PM. This free community event, supported in part by a grant funded by Transient Lodging Tax dollars through Tillamook Coast Visitors Association, will be held under a large commercial tent in front of the bookstore. Complimentary cake and champagne will be catered by Manzanita’s Offshore Grill and local band StayTuned Manzanita will be playing the blues, while four PNW authors will be available to sign their books.
“A big book party is just what this world needs, with loud music and cake and probably a raging March storm to make it exciting,” says Lorincz. “Let’s hoist a glass to the printed word!”
The author line-up for Cloud and Leaf’s Champagne Shindig signing table is impressive: Rene Denfeld, Liz Prato, Anna Quinn, and Carlos Reyes.
Rene Denfeld’s award-winning writing has been praised by Margaret Atwood as “astonishing.” Her best-selling novels will be available at the event: The Enchanted, The Child Finder, and The Butterfly Girl. The forthcoming Sleeping Giants will be available for presale and complimentary signed bookplates. Denfeld’s novels are influenced by her work as a licensed death row investigator. In 2017, The New York Times named Rene a hero of the year and she was awarded the Break The Silence Award in Washington, DC. Her novels have received many prestigious literary awards, including a French Prix, an ALA Medal for Excellence in Fiction, a Carnegie Listing, a listing for the International Dublin Literary Award, and she was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
Liz Prato, Editor at Large at Forest Avenue Press and a popular teacher at conferences, is the award-winning author of three books: Kids in America: A Gen X Reckoning (essays); Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai‘i (a Top Summer Travel Read by the New York Times, and a Finalist for the Oregon Book Award); and the short story collection, Baby’s on Fire. Prato also edited The Night, and the Rain, and the River: 22 Stories. Her own stories and essays have appeared in dozens of literary journals and magazines, and have been chosen as Notable Works in Best American Essays 2018 and Best American Sports Writing 2018.
Anna Quinn is the author of two popular novels, including The Night Child, listed as #1 Best Real Psychological Fiction on Goodreads and Ingram’s 2018 Best Book Club Book. Her second novel, Angeline, is officially releasing in paperback mid-March but will be available for a special early release at the Cloud and Leaf event. Quinn’s writing has also appeared in Psychology Today, Writer’s Digest, Washington 129 Anthology, and Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 Anthology. She is the founder of The Writers’ Workshoppe in Port Townsend, WA., and has thirty years of experience teaching and leading writing workshops across the country.
Carlos Reyes, the publisher of Trask House Books, is a noted poet and translator. Of his work, Carolyn Kizer said: “Mr. Reyes is one of our local and national treasures.” His newest book of poetry, The Empty Chairs of February, is releasing this month. This title will be available for signing, as will many of his other books, including The Four Hinges of the World (2023), Osage Elegy (2022), The Ebbing Tide (2022), Lament for Us All (2022), Sea Smoke to Ashes (2020), Two People in the Night by a River (2019), Along the Flaggy Shore, Poems from West Clare (2018). Hopefully available will be his translation Poemas de amor y locura/ Poems of Love and Madness, as well as his prose memoir: The Keys to the Cottage, Stories from the West of Ireland (2015).
Reyes has been awarded multiple prizes, including the Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship-Poetry (1982); Finalist Oregon Book Awards-Poetry; Yaddo Fellowship (1982); Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain (1998); Heinrich Boll Fellowship (Achill Island, Ireland 2007); and the Ethel Fortner Award, St Andrews College (2008).
The event is free, located at Cloud and Leaf Bookstore, 148 Laneda Ave, Manzanita, Oregon, 97130. Further information can be found at the website for Cloud and Leaf Bookstore (https://cloud-leaf-bookstore.square.site) or on Instagram and Facebook.