Local Writers Read ends season June 2
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Lopez Bookshop and SHARK REEF Literary Magazine will end their season of monthly Local Writers Read events on Friday, June 2 at 7 p.m. at the Lopez Bookshop. It’s fitting that the June line-up includes Lopez writer and SHARK REEF founder, Lorna Reese. She’ll be joined by poet Laura LeHew of Eugene, Oregon and poet and essayist Jennifer Bullis from Bellingham.
“It’s hard to believe we’re finishing our second season of Local Writers Read,” says Bookshop co-owner Karen Barringer. “We’re thrilled with the community support and great turnouts.”
Born and raised in Minnesota, Reese lived for twenty years in Boston before moving with her husband to Lopez Island in 1994. After writing other people’s words for most of her professional life, she discovered her own voice on Lopez and has been writing memoir, essays, and short stories since then. Lorna has been managing editor for most of the sixteen years of SHARK REEF’s history.
“I delight in acting as a sort of midwife for other writers,” she says. “I’ve made the acknowledgments page of at least eight books!”
LeHew is widely published, including four poetry collections: “Becoming;” “Willingly Would I Burn;” “It’s Always Night, It Always Rains;” and “Beauty.”
“Poetry is a way to explore and understand those ideas which frustrate and confront me,” LeHew says. She also supports other writers by co-hosting a reading series, “Poetry for the People,” and editing the small press, “Uttered Chaos.” When not writing poetry, LeHew runs her computer forensics and network security consulting company.
Bullis grew up in Reno, Nevada, and after three decades living in hot places, she says, “I was good and ready to move somewhere rainy and green.”
That desire took her to Bellingham in 1995, where she taught writing and literature at Whatcom Community College for 14 years. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals; in her book “Impossible Lessons,” she enacts her love for the Pacific Northwest landscape, her fascination with myths and stories of origin, and her friendly arguments with God.
Both LeHew and Bullis will appear at the Artsmith Salon Series at Darvill’s Bookstore on Orcas Island the night before they come to Lopez and meet up with Reese.
“The variety of writers who want to read here is exciting,” says Beth St. George, co-owner. “We look forward to resuming these first Friday events in October.”
Local Writers Read is free and open to the public. For more information visit lopezbookshop.com.
