Oklahoma is the center of everything and knitting/crafts save us from ourselves.
Powell’s book store sends me an email, so I was wandering through it and saw a Night of Knitting, which of course intrigues me but then because I truly believe we are the Center of All Things, I saw where an Oklahoma photographer, Angela Cash, had a showing at Powell’s Bookstore in the Basil Hallward Gallery.
The Basil Hallward Gallery is pleased to present Insomnia, a photography exhibit by Angela Cash.
Originally from Oklahoma, Angela now lives in Portland, where she works as an editorial photographer.
So as you browse the internet are you as interested or okiecentric as I?
So back to Knitting. Right now I’m obsessed with a new pattern called entrelac. Here’s some examples, http://craftlover.wordpress.com/2007/03/17/instruction-to-entrelac-knitting-with-illustrations/ I have this one with sticky notes all over it, http://knittyotter.typepad.com/otterknits/2007/03/entrelac_scarf_.html
After I learn this I can probably launch a space shuttle or take up rocket science. Anyway the book, Scarf Style, is very inspirational for all kinds of scarves including entrelac. Fortunately I had someone who helped me “live” with the pattern or I don’t think it would have happened. Thanks CB.
Knitting again has saved me.
Red Dirt Book Festival !
Be one of the first to register, can’t wait, wouldn’t miss it!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Pioneer Library System
225 N. Webster
Norman, Ok 73069
Phone: 405-701-2673
Fax: 405 -701-2649
Contact: Galyn Cresap Hembree
Public Relations Specialist
Phone: 405-701-2674
email: gcresap@pls.lib.ok.us
Registration Opens for Regional Red Dirt Book Festival
The fourth biennial Red Dirt Book Festival will be held in Shawnee November 6 -7, 2009, at the Expo Center and on the campuses of Oklahoma Baptist University and St. Gregory’s University. The Festival’s web site, www.reddirtbookfestival.com/ is now accepting registrations to attend the free festival and a number of ticketed events included in the activities.
“Registering to attend the festival is easy and free; you can go online and take care of everything including reserving tickets for meals and paying for them through PayPal,” said Julia Harmon, festival director. “Or, anyone not comfortable using the internet, can go to their hometown library and ask their librarian to help them register. There is a form available on the website to download and use to register by mail.”
Shawnee has been home to Pioneer Library System’s Red Dirt Book Festival since 2003. Imagine Oklahoma – Join the Conversation is the theme for this year’s free, public book festival, which continues to have tremendous community support.
The Red Dirt Book Festival has been a creative home in Oklahoma for nearly 1,500 readers, writers, illustrators, publishers, storytellers, scholars and performers since 2003.
Special events planned for the festival include a keynote address by author Billie Letts, best known for her New York Times bestseller, “Where the Heart Is,” a writing workshop for area high school students, appearances by Oklahoma personalities Galen Culver, Ron Stahl, and Susan Miller, and a tea and scone reception followed by a guided tour of OBU’s Raley Chapel stained glass windows.
What’s new on the Okie Bookshelf Thursday.
Prolific Oklahoma fiction writer (we have to share her with Texas now), Lisa Wingate has a new one out this summer, called appropriately, The Summer Kitchen. Lisa writes what I would call gentle reads, and her writing can be shared with your grandmother without any reservations. This one is part of the “Blue Sky Hill Series”, but she has several series going so if you like this one you will have more to choose from.
Take a peak at Lisa Wingate’s YouTube offerings, http://www.youtube.com/lisawingate for interviews and book trailers.
If you enjoy fiction, void of vampires, sex, and violence, then I have another Oklahoma author for you. Rene Gutteridge. And just out, a new book with co-author, Cheryl McKay, titled Never the Bride. Rene likes to explore different genres, and please check out her other books, Occupational Hazards series and the Boo series. Both authors are like a long sip of sweet tea, have some fun reading them this hot summer.
Fun at the zoo, and literary too.
Look what just came across my email.
Ooook-lahoma, where the pen comes sweepin’ down the page! Come and mingle with the wildest writers in Oklahoma at the Oklahoma City Zoo’s Animal Author Expo. This event will be held on Saturday, July 25 from 9 a.m. to noon, in the Zoo’s Global Plaza. Both fiction and non-fiction authors will be present to showcase their books, meet-and-greet fans and sign autographs. Plus, additional books will be available for fans wishing to purchase these storybook classics.
Authors from across the state have bound together to take part in the Zoo’s Animal Author Expo. Writers attending this event include: Anna Myers, Tammi Sauer, Una Belle Townsend, Stacey Nyikos, Richard Trout, Glenda Carlile, Susan Meyers and many more! Plus, meet the Zoo’s own Amy Dee Stephens as she showcases her book, Oklahoma City Zoo: 1902-1959. This event is free to attend.
Amy Dee Stephens
Naturalist Instructor & Certified Interpretive Guide
Oklahoma City Zoological and Botanical Garden
(405)425-0277
Yeah Tammi Sauer, and see who’s dancing now.
Another very good thing that happened to us on the way back from Chicago, we met Tammi Sauer, Oklahoma children’s book author extraodinaire. She wrote Cowboy Camp, and if you have any children in your family between say four and eight you need to get this one for them.
Plus she is a genuinely nice person. And the good news is she has a new book coming out very soon, called Chicken Dance. And look at this news from her website,
June 26, 2009:
CHICKEN DANCE was selected for the theme book for Read Across Oklahoma 2010. 
Bawk-bawk-ba-GAWK!
Look at her blog, she’s got a picture at ALA (American Library Association), where she was signing and promoting her new book. I can’t wait to see Chicken Dance. (I must have been off at some boring meeting during her signing, Sigh)
So sometimes work can be fun, at least when it’s in Chicago or at the airport. Check out Tammi’s works if you haven’t and see what an Okie author is up to on her blog and website.
American Library Association celebrating authors and readers.
Wonder where I’ve been, it’s off to the American Library Association conference for a few days, and then of course all the work, emails, etc. that built up while I was gone. But I did have some encounters of the author kind, and it made everything enjoyable. Went to a Science Fiction and Fantasy author panel, and Horror author panel. Saw Eric Flint and Charlaine Harris, so I’m excited. Two people that totally get it that librarians are on their side. They were both enlightening and funny and interesting and all the things you would imagine they would be and more. Eric Flint made some interesting observations about how “genre” writers are often ignored or negated by the “literary fiction” people. Those of us who hate this literary gamesmanship by the so-called important writers, welcome this interpretation of how things really are. We see that all types of literature are important and necessary for our audience of readers, especially those frequenting public libraries or borrowing on Interlibrary Loan.
So then there is the charming southern Charlaine Harris. Remember I blogged one of her Aurora Teagarden books early on. But oh do I love the sexy steamy Sookie Stackhouse novels, now of HBO True Blood fame. She’s (Charlaine) charming and I find her very down to earth, even after many of us worship at the altar of her characters and books.
So it was fun when I got to go to the author’s panels and less so when I went to library software programs, but so it goes.
Jeanneta Calhoun Mish
This item is hot from my poetry source, Ms. Carol Hamilton
Subject: Shawnee Read
I know we are a little early this time but I want to give you plenty of time to schedule us in…Most of you
know Jeanneta Calhoun Mish. She is an excellent poet and reader. Also an educator and author.
She will be our July feature……16 July 09 at 7PM at Benedict Street Marketplace…Three blocks
west of Catholic Church….Or call 919 6155 anytime.
Come visit with us to read or listen or both…..The food here is the best in Shawnee.
Kitty: I’ve read Tongue Tied Woman and it was excellent.
Come hear Oklahoma’s poetry friend & author, Dorothy Alexander
News from the Norman Literary Folks:
DOROTHY ALEXANDER FEATURED AT SECOND SUNDAY POETRY
The Performing Arts Studio will feature Dorothy Alexander reading her poetry on Sunday, July 12, in the Norman Depot, 200 South Jones Avenue. There is no charge for the reading which begins at 2:00 pm. Light refreshments will be served.
Dorothy Alexander of Cheyenne, Oklahoma, a retired attorney who practiced law in rural western Oklahoma communities for thirty-five years, is a self-taught poet, writer and storyteller. She conducts writing workshops, poetry readings, book discussions, and story projects in rural communities. She has authored six books of poetry and stories.
Dorothy is co-owner with Devey Napier of Village Books Press, an award-winning publishing house featuring the works of Oklahoma writers.
Dorothy has been a featured reader at the Oklahoma Festival of the Arts and Full Circle Bookstore in Oklahoma City, Benedict Street Market in Shawnee, the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival at East Central University in Ada, the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival at Okemah,” and in many other venues in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and New Mexico.
Her books of poetry include “The Dustbowl Revisited,” “Borrowed Dust,” and “Rough Drafts.”
Her most recent poetry book, “Lessons From an Oklahoma Girlhood,” was a finalist for the 2008 Oklahoma Book Awards. It is a collaboration with Oklahoma women artists who created visual art in response to Dorothy’s poetry. The result is a vivid expression of Dorothy’s rich life, full of stories and memories that bring unbounded joy and heart-breaking poignancy.
Dorothy was nominated for Poet Laureate of Oklahoma in 2006.
Second Sunday Poetry Readings, and other PAS programs, are made possible in part by grants from the Norman Arts Council, the Oklahoma Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. For additional information on PAS programs visit www.thepas.org, or phone 405-307-9320.
Western Writers of America give a hats off to Oklahoma
What happened to the long fourth weekend? It was gone in two seconds. I keep picking up books, putting books down, forgetting which ones I’ve started, starting new ones and basically not getting anything read.
So for some Okie book news, the Western Writers of America have met, awarded book awards and gone home for this year. A really nice honor was given to the University of Oklahoma Press by way of the WWA Lariat Award. For the complete Roundup issue, http://www.westernwriters.org/2009_June_Roundup.pdf
I’ve posted about Full-Court Quest on the Reading Oklahoma blog. Also note the Frank Keating children’s book The Trial of Standing Bear won Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction. 
And a great book for a “guy read” is Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit, and Sport, 1800-1900. I looked this one over and thought it was really interesting and I’m not a game hunter. David Dary, one of the Oklahoma Center for the Book Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award Winners, was a finalist in this same category for Frontier Medicine.
Oklahomans appear in the Western Writers of America almost as often as they appear on the County Music Awards.
We just bought the Craig Johnson book, Dark Horse, which I’m going to find and checkout. His novel, Another Man’s Moccasins,won the Best Western Short Novel. Maybe it’s time to take up a western. Even one by a Wyoming native.
