Our first Hoffapalooza, held Saturday, July 23, 2011 was conceived as an opportunity to show off the wide variety of programs that go on at the Hoffman Center, and to show them off all at once. In a six-hour timespan we had hundreds of people come through the building. A frequent comment, even from full-locals, was, “I had no idea there was this much going on.” It was great to hear that. It meant we were successful.
Check the gallery for some photos of the big day.
John Daniel to read on July 16th
John Daniel will read from his new book The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature at the Manzanita Writers’ Series event at 7pm on Saturday, July 16, 2011 at the Hoffman Center.
As Wallace Stegner describes Daniel: “John Daniel loves wilderness of all kinds, …, but it is more than scenery he is after. He has a streak of mysticism, some generalized religious sense, that is stimulated by the natural world…his essays will win him devoted readers.”
Daniel is the author of nine books of memoir, personal essays, and poetry. He has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University, a James Thurber Writer-in-Residence at Ohio State University, and a Research and Writing Fellow at Oregon State University’s Center for the Humanities. He has been a Writer-in-Residence or Visiting Professor at a number of other universities. Two of his books have won the Oregon Book Award and he has won the Andres Berger Award for Creative Nonfiction, the annual John Burroughs Nature Essay Award, and a Pushcart Prize, among other honors.
Following Daniel’s reading and Q&A, we’ll have our popular Open Mic where up to nine local writers will read 5 minutes of their original work. The recommended theme for this month is “Something Wild.”
Admission for the evening is $5.
The Hoffman Center in Manzanita host its first Hoffapalooza Saturday, July 23 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to highlight and celebrate the programs and activities that take place at north Tillamook County’s art, culture and education center.
“We’ve been making physical and program improvements to the Center over the past few months and felt the summertime would be a great opportunity to show off what we’re all about,” said event organizer and board member John Freethy. “Considering the scope of what goes on here, ‘Hoffapalooza’ seemed a great name for the event.”
Visitors will be invited to explore a number of family-friendly activities, including clay, drawing, writing, reading, drama, music, letterpress, and book and paper arts. Program volunteers will be on hand to demonstrate and discuss each activity.
“Hoffapalooza” will also feature performances throughout the day by local musicians, dramatic or comic presentations, and raffle prizes. Local artists and students of the center will also have their art on display and for sale. There’s no admission to the event, however proceeds of the raffle and art sales go to the Hoffman Center operating fund.
Jennifer Lauck to lead scene writing workshop
Join us Saturday, June 18, 2011, from 10am to 3pm for a highly interactive workshop to learn scene writing in seven steps!
Learn the key ingredients to formulating the single most important aspect of good writing – the scene. Jennifer has created a recipe all writers can follow in order to create juicy, tactile, focused and depth-filled scenes. All levels and all genres welcome. Plus, all workshop participants will receive a free copy of Jennifer’s audio series Writing Life: How to Write a Memoir and Free Your Self, a $35 value. Find out more here–http://www.jenniferlauck.com/writing_life.php
To register for Scene Writing in Seven Steps, download the registration form. Simply bring along the completed form to the workshop with a check for $50. Important, please email vwildauer@gmail.com to let us know if you plan on coming.
Saturday evening, Lauck will read from her latest book, Found: A Memoir, at 7pm at the Hoffman Center.
Jennifer Lauck is an award winning journalist and the author of the New York Times Bestseller Blackbird. Featured on The Oprah Show, Winfrey told her audience, “this should have been a Book of the Month book. Read it now!”
Blackbird has been translated into twenty-two languages and made the bestseller list in London, Ireland and Spain. Lauck has traveled throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Holland, to speak about her writing. Lauck was given the Book Sense 76 award and was featured in Newsweek, Harper’s Bazaar, Talk Magazine, People, Glamour and Writer’s Digest. She was a select USA Today pick and nominated for two Oregon Book Awards.
Her new book, Found: A Memoir, came out in March 2011. It is a sequel to Blackbird and is about the search and reunion with her birth mother.
For further information, contact Vera Wildauer at 971-344-5691 or email vwildauer@gmail.com).
Jennifer Lauck to lead scene writing workshop
Join us Saturday, June 18, 2011, from 10am to 3pm to learn scene writing in seven steps!
Learn the key ingredients to formulating the single most important aspect of good writing – the scene. Jennifer has created a recipe all writers can follow in order to create juicy, tactile, focused and depth-filled scenes. All levels and all genres welcome.
Jennifer Lauck is an award winning journalist and the author of the New York Times Bestseller Blackbird. Featured on The Oprah Show, Winfrey told her audience, “this should have been a Book of the Month book. Read it now!”
Her new book, Found: A Memoir, came out in March 2011. It is a sequel to Blackbird and is about the search and reunion with her birth mother.
Click here to download the registration form for Scene Writing in Seven Steps. Tuition is $50.
Saturday evening, Lauck will read from her latest book, Found: A Memoir, at 7pm at the Manzanita Writers’ Series at the Hoffman Center.
The workshop and series are programs of the Hoffman Center and will be held at the Hoffman Center (across from Manzanita Library at 594 Laneda Avenue.) (Further information and the 2011 schedule are available at hoffmanblog.org <http://hoffmanblog.org> online or contact Vera Wildauer at 971-344-5691 or email vwildauer@gmail.com).
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Jennifer Lauck to read from her new memoir on June 18th
Jennifer Lauck will read from her new book Found: A Memoir at the Manzanita Writers’ Series event at 7pm on Saturday, June 18, 2011 at the Hoffman Center.
Found is the long awaited sequel to the 2000 international bestseller Blackbird: A Childhood Lost & Found which was featured on Oprah and an international bestseller. Blackbird was translated into 22 languages and hit the bestseller lists in London, Ireland and Spain as well as in the United States.
Blackbird was written in the voice of a little girl who attempts to make sense of a world where parents die and children fall through the cracks and are left homeless. Found is written in the voice of a confident woman determined and thus destined to find inner peace, lasting happiness and sense of the familiar.
Jennifer Lauck, with humor, clarity and urgency takes her readers on a thrilling quest that leads her first into motherhood and then into the complex spiritual traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, where Lauck discovers great masters, great teachings and the great truth of who she is. Lauck finally ends her journey when she finds her natural mother—the one who gave her life and gave her away with the hope that she would have a better life.
Lauck has published two other memoirs, a novel and a book on writing memoir. She traveled throughout Northern Europe to speak about her writing. Lauck was given the Book Sense 76 award and was featured in Newsweek, Harper’s Bazaar, Talk Magazine, People, Glamour and Writer’s Digest. She was a select USA Today pick and nominated for two Oregon Book Awards.
Before becoming a memoir writer, speaker and teacher, Lauck worked for many years in television news for ABC affiliates from Montana to Oregon. Her investigative journalism reports appeared on CNN and the ABC Nightly News
During the day on Saturday, June 18, Lauck will teach a workshop on Scene Writing for all genres from 10-3 at the Hoffman Center. Click here to download the registration form.
Kaeli Eudy, left, Open Mic organizer with Beth Noregaard, fellow writer.
Kaeli Eudy loves to write. A Junior at Neah-Kah-Nie High School, she’s a member of the Creative Writing Club, takes every writing class available, and writes articles for the school newspaper. Asked about her favorite genre, she replies, “Poetry. And stories. Stories with a bit of mystery or a twist.”
That interest spurred her to take on organizing an All-Student Open Mic for the Manzanita Writers’ Series for her Senior Project.
The All-Student Open Mic event will be held on Saturday, May 21st at 7 p.m. at the Hoffman Center. There is a $5 admission fee, and half the proceeds will go to the Creative Writing Club.
If you’re a student, show up a little early to sign up to read. First signed up, first to read and pieces are limited to five minutes. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. If you’re a member of community, come on out and listen to original work by local students, and help make Kaeli’s Senior Project a success.
Jane Kirkpatrick to read on April 16
Jane Kirkpatrick was due to read from her latest book “A Daughter’s Walk” at the Manzanita Writers’ Series, at 7 pm, on Saturday, April 16, at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita. But the event and her workshop on historical fiction have been cancelled due to a family medical emergency.
Jane Kirkpatrick’s works have appeared in over 50 national publications. She has written nineteen books, most based on the lives of historical women. She speaks with humor and inspiration about the power of story in our lives, at events across the country and internationally.
Her works have won national awards including the Wrangler Award from the Western Heritage Center and the WILLA Literary Award from Women Writing the West. Her novel “A Flickering Light” was named to Library Journal’s Best Books of 2009.
You can find A Daughter’s Walk, as well as a number of Kirkpatrick’s other books, at Ekahni Books in Manzanita.
PoetryFest on March 19
Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen, and fellow award-winning poets Margaret Chula, Carlos Reyes and Penelope Scambly Schott will participate in a Poetry Fest at the Manzanita Writers’ Series at 7 pm on Saturday, March 19, at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita.
Oregon’s sixth Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen has five full-length books of poetry: The Wild Awake, Blood-Silk, A Bride of Narrow Escape, Kindle, and The Voluptuary, published by Lost Horse Press in 2010. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and the recipient of the 2006 Holbrook Award from Oregon Literary Arts, she serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford, organizing the January Stafford Birthday Events. (http://www.paulann.net)
Margaret Chula is a poet, performer and world traveler. In 1977 she traveled overland through Asia and Southeast Asia with her husband before settling in Japan, where she taught English and creative writing at universities in Kyoto. She has published six books of poetry. Her one-woman performance of Three Women Who Loved Love premiered in Krakow in 2003 and toured to Canada, Japan and the US. (http://www.margaretchula.com or www.margaretchula.blogspot.com)
Poet and translator Carlos Reyes lives and writes in Portland, Oregon when he is not traveling. He travels a lot, and whether he journeys to Panama, Spain, Alaska or Ireland, those experiences inspire and inform his poetry. In 2007 he was honored with a Heinrich Boll Fellowship, which gave him two weeks to write on Achill Island, Ireland. He has had fellowships to Yaddo and the Fundación Valparaíso (Mojåcar, Spain). He was poet-in-residence in 2009 at the Lost Horse Ranger Station in the Joshua Tree National Park.
Penelope Scambly Schott has published eight full-length books of poetry. Her verse biography A is for Anne: Mistress Hutchinson Disturbs the Commonwealth won the 2008 Oregon Book Award for Poetry, and her most recent collection Crow Mercies (2010) received the Sarah Lantz Memorial Award from Calyx Press.
To help you prime your own poetry, join the poets during the day on Saturday in a series of mini-workshops called Prompting New Work. Spend an hour with each of these acclaimed poets. They’ll share their favorite writing prompts. You’ll come away inspired and with new material for your work. Pick and choose, or spend time with all four; the price is the same, $40 for the day. Just download a registration form.
The series is a program of the Hoffman Center and will be held at the Hoffman Center (across from Manzanita Library at 594 Laneda Avenue.) The building will be set up in a café style with coffee/tea and snacks available. Admission fee is $5.
The Hoffman Center has been awarded a $1,500 grant from the Tillamook County Cultural Coalition to fund its Dark & Stormy Book Weekend this year. The funds will help expand the event, first held in 2009. The weekend event — featuring writing workshops and author readings — is designed to leverage the area’s reputation as a haven for writers and bring visitors to the area.
The grant will provide stipends to help recruit authors and experts, as well as additional marketing dollars to promote the event more broadly.
“Playing off one of the most famous opening book lines in history — ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ — and tying that to our obviously dark and stormy winter weather, we stand to attract writers and readers to the coast during our shoulder season,” said Kathie Hightower, co-founder of the Manzanita Writers’ Series. “That can benefit the business community at the same time it affords cultural connection between coastal and urban writers and readers.”
The grant will not cover the whole cost of the program, so additional funding will be sought from local organizations, businesses and individuals. “We will also be looking to work with local businesses to create additional related events and benefits for both visitors and local customers during that weekend,” said Vera Wildauer, Hoffman Center Board member and co-founder of the Manzanita Writers’ Series. “In 2009, several businesses jumped in to be part of the event and we hope to expand that participation this year.”
The Tillamook County Cultural Coalition is responsible for distributing Community Cultural Participation Grant program funds from the Oregon Cultural Trust.