Hoffman Center Blog

Brian Doyle, photo by Jerry Hart

Brian Doyle will read from his latest book and first novel Mink River at the Manzanita Writers’ Series at 7 pm on Saturday, January 15, at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita.

Mink River is set on the Oregon coast, specifically the fictional village of Neawanaka, bringing a town to life through the jumbled lives and braided stories of its people.
 
The fantastical blends with the natural in this tapestry of small town life that profits from the oral traditions of the town’s population of Native Americans and Irish immigrants.
 
Here’s how one fellow Northwest author describes the book.
“If my high-hearted friend Brian Doyle is trying to avoid the nickname ‘Paddy,’ his wondrous Oregon Coast novel is the wrong feckin’ way to go about it. … I’ve read no Northwest novel remotely like it and enjoyed few novels more. Of an Irishman’s Oregon I am nothing but glad to have wandered, Mink River sings and sings.” –David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and The River Why.
 
Those who heard Doyle read from his book The Grail at the Manzanita Writers’ Series in 2009 know that we are all in for an entertaining evening.
 
Doyle is also author of Wet Engine and five collections of essays.  His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, American Scholar, Orion and in the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003 and 2005.  He is editor of Portland magazine, the publication of the University of Portland, in Oregon.
January also kicks off a new element of the Open Mic section of these monthly events. For those who are interested, we are adding a suggested theme each month as a possible writing prompt to inspire new work. This month’s theme is “Life in a Small Town.” Local writers are of course welcome to bring whatever 5-minute original piece they would like to share. Nine writers can sign up at the door to read; first come, first to read.
 
Writers interested in reading should check out the Open Mic guidelines and come prepared to read your original piece of work in five minutes or less.
 
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. (Further information and the 2011 schedule are available here, or contact Kathie Hightower, 503-739-1505; kathie@jumpintolife.net).

Brian Doyle, essayist and editor of Portland, the University of Portland’s magazine, prefers not to read from his published books.  ”I like to read you things that you can’t find in books already,” he told the audience at the Hoffman Center on September 19.

And so he did.  Stories he’s picked up from his own experiences as husband, father, brother, and son, as well as from other people.  Like the story he captured from a nurse about naming babies who are stillborn or died shortly after birth.

After moments that brought tears to both audience and storyteller–from laughter as well as a heartbreaking tale– he closed his part of the evening with a story about his encounter with the Dalai Lama.  They argued about sports, of all things.  With an ending that’s too great to mention here, because that would just spoil it.   The next time he’s in town be sure to make a point of going.