News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters Country readers are camping out under western skies this week as the Sisters Festival of Books is underway. This week's events with the theme of "Under Western Skies" continues through Sunday, October 25, bringing together readers, writers, and community members for a week of literature, storytelling, and conversation rooted in the American West.
The programming includes author conversations, readings, workshops, poetry, a multi-course chef's dinner, and community storytelling events - all featuring acclaimed writers and regional voices across genres and generations.
Among the authors featured is Gabriel Urza, author of "An Incomplete History of the American West," a collection of 12 interconnected short stories that span 150 years across the stark, haunting landscape of the Great Basin. Moving chronologically through time, each story acts like a literary historical marker - pausing along the timeline to reveal a moment, a voice, a reckoning.
Urza will talk about the work on Saturday, October 24, at 1 p.m. at Sisters Movie House.
The author has deep roots in Nevada, where some of the stories take place.
"I grew up there," he said. "My family's been there forever."
Urza told The Nugget that the collection of stories developed over time.
"The stories were written over, really, a 15-year period," he told The Nugget. As he collected them, he realized that they represented a continuum, and the concept of "An Incomplete History of the American West" was born.
The second story in the collection, "The Findings of the Grand Jury of Lassen County: A Love Story (1872)" is a "found-document" story built on a fictional grand jury transcript regarding some uncanny and murderous doings in a frontier town.
That work was informed by time spent as a public defender in Reno.
"I understood Reno and I understood Nevada in a whole different way after doing that job," he said.
"The Findings" represents his take on how a collective group would come together to try to make sense of a strange incident.
Urza said he grew up on classic Western stories, and his work is both a continuation of the themes found in those classics and an effort to understand the West "in a complicated way."
The author is a frequent visitor to Sisters Country, has read at Paulina Springs Books before, and is looking forward to his session at Sisters Festival of Books.
Kathleen Boland, author of "Scavengers" will be in conversation with Nancy Foley ("I Am Agatha") at 2:30 p.m. at Sisters Movie House on Saturday, October 24.
"Scavengers" is described as "a rollicking debut novel about a cautious daughter and her eccentric, estranged mother venturing west in search of buried treasure-and a way back to each other-before they run out of patience, money, and options."
Boland, who grew up in New England and lived in New Orleans, migrated west and found her home in the wide landscape of mountain, river, and high desert.
"I find that environment inspiring," she said. "I also find it weird, in an exciting way."
She longed for a certain kind of novel that would engage with that landscape and couldn't find enough of them. So she wrote one.
It took her eight years, with work, motherhood, and the many vagaries of life requiring navigation.
"I had to figure out how to write a novel, not jut a pile of words," she said.
Boland is eager to engage with readers at Sisters Festival of Books. She noted that writing is largely a solitary process.
"For so long you're alone, wondering if anybody will read it and laugh at your jokes," she said.
She is looking forward to reader feedback - and she hopes readers get something from engaging with her.
"I hope it rounds out their reading experience in some way," she said.
You need not have read the authors' books to enjoy their presentations, however. Many festivalgoers discover new favorites from their engagement with the authors at their events.
As a registered nonprofit, Sisters Festival of Books directs funds raised through "Under Western Skies" toward literacy work throughout Central Oregon. Proceeds help bring visiting authors into local schools, provide grants to school libraries, support book access for students, and sustain other initiatives that connect young people with books, writers, and the pleasure of reading. Tickets and the complete festival schedule are available at http://www.sistersfob.org.