Michael N. McGregor

Tag: Portland

  • Upcoming Events to Celebrate ‘An Island to Myself’ Release

    Upcoming Events to Celebrate ‘An Island to Myself’ Release

    An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life will be published on May 13! And a number of events are coming up to celebrate its entry into the world.

    First up is the official release–at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 13, at Third Place Books in Seattle’s Ravenna district (6504 20th Ave. NE). I’ll be talking about my experiences with solitude, going back 40 years, and how they became a book. We had a great crowd at Third Place for my previous book, The Last Grand Tour, in February. I’m hoping to see a lot of friends and readers there again.

    Next up will be another return: to the lovely Eagle Harbor Book Co. (157 Winslow Way E.)on Bainbridge Island, WA. I’ll be flying solo at that one two. It begins at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 15. Eagle Harbor is just a brief (and beautiful) ferry ride from downtown Seattle and then a short walk up the street.

    The third of my four kickoff events will be held at Broadway Books in Portland, OR, on Tuesday, May 20. This one begins at 6 p.m. I’m especially excited for this one because I’ll be conversation with David Naimon, host of the popular and fascinating literary podcast Between the Covers.

    This early flourish will end with an appearance at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 5, at Content Bookstore (314 Division St. S) in Northfield, MN. This one will be a special treat: I’ll be in conversation with the wonderful novelist and memoirist Kaethe Schwehn.

    I’ll take a short break from book events after that to lead a 10-day workshop at the Collegeville Institute in Minnesota and speak at the International Thomas Merton Society conference in Colorado.

    Then we’ll wrap up June with the following appearances:

    2 p.m., Sunday, June 22, at Tattered Cover Book Store in downtown Denver (2526 E Colfax Ave.). At this one, I’ll be in conversation with Judith Valente, talking about both of our new books. Hers is called The Italian Soul: How to Savor the Full Joys of Life.

    7 p.m., Wednesday, June 25, at St. Andre Bessette (601 W Burnside St.) in Portland, OR. In my return to Portland, I’ll appear in conversation with author, priest, and University of Portland professor Pat Hannon.

    4 p.m., Saturday, June 28, at Village Books (1200 11th St.) in Bellingham, WA. We had a great crowd when I appeared there with The Last Grand Tour too. This time I’ll be in conversation with Western Washington University English professor Laura Laffrado.

    Other events are coming in the fall. Check my Upcoming Events page for the latest news.

    I hope to see you at a bookstore somewhere!

    Read a review of An Island to Myself on the Foreword Reviews site.

    Here’s the publisher’s description:

    An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life

    The power of solitude to deepen a life.

    In his twenties, Michael N. McGregor traveled to the remote Greek island of Patmos to spend two winter months alone, 6,000 miles from home. It was a time before cellphones and the internet, when even a phone call was costly. Although he expected his solitude to be meaningful, he wasn’t prepared for how it would change him.

    Before his island days, McGregor had spent years reporting on the world’s poor and months on the road. As he settled into days of rigorous writing, evening walks through fierce wind, and nights full of memories, dreams and spiritual encounters, he learned that solitude can be difficult and even dangerous, but also awe-inspiring and life-altering.

    When he returned to his active life, McGregor sought solitude wherever he could—in nature, in libraries, in silent spaces—before returning to Patmos forty years later to repeat his youthful experiment.

    “Solitude is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. Many of us would prefer to avoid being alone. But when we allow solitude to take us by the hand, we realize it is a guide, a doorway we step through to discover the most consequential person in our life: our self. As we follow along in this page-turner of a book—from the Greek island of Patmos to the San Juan Islands, Whidbey Island, and a myriad of other places McGregor has experienced solitude—we start to understand that being still is also a way to keep moving, to keep going deeper into the discovery of our true purpose and being.”

    —Judith Valente, former faith and values correspondent for PBS-TV, author of The Art of Pausing and How to Be

  • My Review of Portland Author and Friend Mark Pomeroy’s New Novel

    Work on the books I’ll be publishing in the coming months forced me to put my Writing the Northwest site on pause last year. But I just relaunched it with a review of my friend Mark Pomeroy’s excellent second novel, The Tigers of Lents.

    As I write in my review, Mark’s novel is a “full and compelling picture of a struggling family in crisis”and “a deeply satisfying read.”

    You can read the whole review here. And you can purchase the book here.

    If you live in the Seattle area, you can see Mark in conversation with me about his novel at Third Place Books-Ravenna at 7 p.m. on THURSDAY, MAY 9.

  • New WritingtheNorthwest.com Post: Portland the Spinster

    Image from Clipart Library.

    I just posted a new piece on WritingtheNorthwest.com. It’s about a 1917 profile of Portland, Oregon, in the national magazine Collier’s Weekly. Called “Portland the Spinster,” the article suggests the city is run by a handful of conservative FFPs (First Families of Portland) who lord it over the later arrivals.

    I love reading other people’s views of places I love, and I had some fun writing about this one. You’ll find my post here.

  • Celebrating Black Newspapers in the Pacific Northwest

    (image from Wikipedia)

    There’s a new post up on my WritingtheNorthwest.com site. It looks at the history and vitality of Black newspapers in the Northwest and includes links to the actual pages of some of the oldest ones.

    Although there were few African Americans in Seattle in the 1890s, that decade produced 7 new Black newspapers, and while there were almost no African Americans in Portland in 1896, an enterprising young man named Adolphus D. Griffin started a weekly called The New Age for the Black community there that year.

    You can read more here.

  • Last Portland PURE ACT Reading at 6:30 p.m. This Tuesday, February 23…and Future Plans

    Last Portland PURE ACT Reading at 6:30 p.m. This Tuesday, February 23…and Future Plans

    After over 30 readings and other appearances over the past few months, I’m down to my last scheduled talk.  It will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 23, in room 333, Smith Memorial Union, on the Portland State University campus.  If you live in the Portland area, please join us.  To mark the occasion, we’ll have copies of Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax available at a discounted price.

    A big thank you to those who came to last week’s readings in the Bay Area, where a standing-room-only crowd listened to poet John Beer, author S. T. Georgiou and me talk about our friendship with Robert Lax at City Lights Books in San Francisco, and another good crowd heard me read from Pure Act at Pegasus Books in Berkeley.

    Among those in attendance at City Lights were Gerald Nicosia, one of Jack Kerouac’s biographers, and Mike Antonucci, a Bay Area journalist who is the nephew of Lax’s first publisher and close friend, Emil Antonucci.  It was fun for me to read a passage from my book about Lax’s friendship with Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in a space where their spirits lingered.

    My readings around the country have kept me from writing as much on this blog as I would have liked, and now that they’re over, I hope to write more.  Starting some time in March, I plan to try a unique experiment.  I’ll be teaching two courses in memoir writing while working on a memoir of my own AND a book on writing about other people.  I’m planning to make two posts a week from my research and thinking, one on memoir and one on writing about others (biography).  It will be interesting to contemplate how these two types of writing, one looking inward and the other outward, parallel and diverge.

  • Two Pacific Northwest Talks Coming Up: Seattle and Portland

    Two Pacific Northwest Talks Coming Up: Seattle and Portland

    I’ll be giving talks on Pure Act at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle at 3 p.m. on Sunday, October 4, and at the University of Portland bookstore at 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6.  (See my Talks page for location details.)

    These talks are significant to me for different reasons:

    Seattle: Having grown up in Seattle, I’ve long dreamed of giving a book talk at Elliott Bay, the top bookstore in the city.  And the talk is being co-sponsored by Image literary journal, which published my essay A Gyroscope On the Island of Love and named me its Artist of the Month in March of 2012.  The other co-sponsor is Wave Books, which put out a great collection of Lax’s later poetry in 2013: poems (1962-1997), edited by my Portland State University colleague John Beer.

    Portland: The University of Portland reading was arranged by my dear friend and former thesis student Fr. Pat Hannon, who teaches there.  Pat’s thesis was published last year by Ave Maria Press as a book called Sacrament: Personal Encounters with Memories, Wounds, Dreams, and Unruly Hearts.  Pat will be introducing me.  This will also be my first reading in Portland since my book came out.

    I hope you’ll come to one of these talks if you’re in the area, and spread the word to your friends!