At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com
• Tuesday, Sept. 6, 7:30 p.m. – Nathan Everett reads from The Gutenberg Rubric – Just months before the famous Bible that bears his name was finished, Johannes Gutenberg was sued by his business partner for misappropriating funds for a private enterprise. When Gutenberg refused to share the secret project, the court awarded the entire Bible-printing operation to Johan Fust, leaving Gutenberg with nothing but his secret. Was it an alchemical formula? A heretical treatise? A new technology? Or something far more dangerous?
Brilliant, eccentric professor Keith Drucker and rare books librarian Madeline Zayne are reluctant heroes in a centuries-old search for Gutenberg’s secret. Crossing continents to follow clues from an encoded rubric and stolen manuscript, the couple face injury and encounter arcane rituals and biblio-terrorism as they race to find the fabled treasure.
Nathan Everett has worked in the publishing industry for over 30 years as a publisher, author, trainer and technologist. Nathan was among the first authorized trainers of desktop publishing software in the country and trained hundreds of graphic artists on computers. During this time he also taught typography, print history, and color theory. He holds seven patents in computer layout and reading technology. He is on the Board of Directors of the Seattle Center for Book Arts (SCBA), an organization devoted to teaching and preserving traditional and contemporary book arts including typesetting, printing, book-binding, and eBook arts. The SCBA receives a portion of the royalties from The Gutenberg Rubric to help fund education programs in the Seattle area.
• Thursday, Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m. – John Reimringer reads from Vestments – Hailed as a Best Book of 2010 by Publishers Weekly, the bracing tale of a young man caught between faith, family, and his love for a woman from the past. Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James Dressler finds himself attracted again to his first love, Betty GarcÃa – just a few years after his ordination. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring age-old and yet urgently contemporary issues in the Catholic Church, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, Vestments is an utterly honest and subtly lyrical novel.
A former newspaper editor and a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Arkansas, John Reimringer lives in St. Paul with his wife, the poet Katrina Vandenberg. Vestments is his first novel. For more, see www.johnreimringer.com.
• Wednesday, Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m. – Catherine Holm, Sheila Packa and Becca Brin Manlove read from their work – My Heart Is a Mountain by Catherine Holm is a collection of eleven fiction stories and one memoir piece. From northern Minnesota to Alaska, from the Dustbowl to Appalachia, from swamps to mountains to the afterlife, these tales blend the magic and the mundane as characters discover themselves, their limitations, and their greatness. Catherine Holm is an award-winning writer who lives with her husband Chris in rural Cook, MN, on ten acres of boreal forest. Her short stories have been published in several anthologies and chapbooks. She writes about human yearning and how it is shaped by land and place.
Cloud Birds by Sheila Packa is a breathtaking flight through the western shoreline of Lake Superior north to the Iron Range of Minnesota. The poems are about bears, immigrants, bird migration, and women moving through violence. Sheila Packa is the poet laureate of Duluth, MN. She has written three books of poetry, The Mother Tongue, Echo & Lightning, and Cloud Birds. She is the recipient of an Arts and Cultural Heritage Community Arts Learning grant to do poetry and writing workshops for those in transition, with a special outreach to those dealing with domestic violence. For more information about her work, visit www.sheilapacka.com.
Becca Brin Manlove is the author of Hauling Water: Reflections on Making a Home in the North Woods. It is a collection of little love stories – love for the land, love between a man and woman, love of children and family, love for all the beings that share the neighborhood (even the occasional annoying bear in the garbage), and eventually love for a life well lived. The freshness of maple sap plunking into pails, the chill of a strong wind at an ice fishing hole, the satisfaction of a Thanksgiving dinner tradition, the dismayed thoughts at a lightning-struck pine, the camaraderie of the sauna, and much more are shared with humor, warmth, and respect for the wild places.
• Sunday, Sept. 18, 4 p.m. - Kathryn Kysar and Jim Moore read from their poetry – From her St. Paul kitchen to the historical shores of Lake Superior, from a rock outside of Baghdad to a clothing factory in Guangdong, Kathryn Kysar constructs and reconstructs a world in poems that confront our false sense of safety and explores the inequities and fissures in women’s lives. Kathryn Kysar is the author of two books of poetry, Dark Lake and Pretend the World, and she edited Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers. She has received fellowships from Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Kysar recently served on the board of directors for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and teaches at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and the Loft Literary Center and lives with her family in St. Paul.
Jim Moore is the author of six collections of poetry, including Invisible Strings, Lightning at Dinner, The Freedom of History, and The Long Experience of Love. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, the Nation, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Threepenny Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and in many other magazines and anthologies. He teaches at Hamline University in St. Paul.
• Monday, Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m. – Russ Van Heel reads from A Life in Purgatory – A Life in Purgatory: A Selection of Short Stories is an honest depiction of different phases of the author’s healing process as the survivor of an abusive relationship. Destructive moments in an abusive relationship come full circle as they ultimately reverse themselves, becoming the foundational pieces in a healing process. Scattered pictures, some remembered, others forgotten, reappear as one man documents his desperate journey from the darkest cataclysms of his soul into a resurrection of daylight where miracles can somehow become real and life can go on.
• Sunday, Sept. 25, 4 p.m. - Sunny Love discusses An Incomplete Story of a Whole Person – In her book An Incomplete Story of a Whole Person, Sunny Love specializes in revealing insights from a victim’s perspective, giving real life accounts from her past experiences with physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Sunny also speaks on the healing process of a victim and relays stories of success and hope proving that recovery is not only possible but very achievable. Sunny Love’s message is motivational to all who have ever experienced, witnessed, or counseled those in situations of abuse. Her firsthand knowledge of how abuse can destroy the body but never break the spirit is inspirational to all who hear it. Sunny Love is a member of the National Speakers Association and last year alone she won the 2010 Spirit of Peace Award, the 2010 Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2010 Governor’s Faith Based and Community Services Initiatives Award.
