Willy Vlautin will read from his book Lean on Pete at the Manzanita Writers Series event at 7pm on Saturday, October 20, 2012 at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita. Lean on Pete received the 2010 Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and Literary Arts, The Oregonian Peoples’ Choice Award, and the Oregonian ‘s and Chicago Sun Times ‘ Best Books of 2010, among other awards.
Vlautin splits his time between music and literature. He started playing guitar and writing music as a teenager. It was a Paul Kelly song, based on Raymond Carver’s Too Much Water So Close to Home that inspired him to start writing stories. Vlautin has published three novels, The Motel Life, Northline, and Lean on Pete.
Vlautin founded the long-running alt-country band Richmond Fontaine in 1994. The band has produced nine studio albums to date, plus a handful of live recordings and EP’s. Driven by Vlautin’s dark, story-like songwriting, the band has achieved critical acclaim at home and across Europe. Some of the songs they perform are related to Lean on Pete. Vlautin will play a few songs as well as do his book reading at the Saturday event.
“This guy writes like the secret love child of Raymond Carver and Flannery O’Connor–just plain, true, tough, irony-free, heartrending American fiction about people living in the third-world sections of our country.” Michael Gruber
Following Vlautin’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.
Admission for the evening is $7.