First Wednesday Reading featuring Matt Love, Cheryl Strayed, and Bryan Free of Bryan Free and the Doxyhaunt. June 2, 2010

Oregon Literary Review co-hosts First Wednesdays, a series of readings, performances and wine-tasting at the Blackbird Wine Shop, 4323 NE Fremont, 7-9pm. This show is 21 and over. Contact Julie Mae Madsen at [email protected] or http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Wednesday-Readings for more information.

The readers for June 2 are Matt Love, Cheryl Strayed, and Bryan Free of Bryan Free and the Doxyhaunt.

Matt Love grew up in Oregon City and is the publisher of Nestucca Spit Press and author/editor of The Beaver State Trilogy, Citadel of the Spirit: Oregon’s Sesquicentennial Anthology, Super Sunday in Newport: Notes From My First Year in Town and his latest book, Gimme Refuge: The Education of a Caretaker. He’s a regular contributor to the Oregonian, Oregon Coast Today and Bear Deluxe magazines, and writes the “On Oregon” blog for Powells.com. From 1998-2008 he served as caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Tillamook County. In 2009, Love won the Oregon Literary Arts’ Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award for his contributions to Oregon history and literature. He lives in South Beach with his two dogs and teaches English and journalism at Newport High School. He’s currently working on a book about the filming of Sometimes a Great Notion.

Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, Wild, will be published by Knopf in 2011. Her debut novel, Torch, (Houghton Mifflin in 2006) and was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award and was selected by The Oregonian as one of the top ten books of the year by writers from the Pacific Northwest. Strayed’s personal essays have appeared in more than a dozen magazines, including the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, Allure, Self, Brain, Child, and The Sun and have twice been selected for inclusion in the Best American Essays. Born in western Pennsylvania, raised in Minnesota, Strayed now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and their two children.

Bryan Free’s live performances have taken Portland by storm and his new album, OK, is compelling as it is celebratory. After sold-out releases for his last 2 albums (both in 2009!), Bryan‘s live band has shown the Portland community the value of surprise, honesty, and loose-cannon performances. Evidence of this is an overwhelming support by radio, press, and Portland music lovers. These successes will never diminish Bryan Free’s productivity, which is priority #1. Free is currently working on his second full dance score (to be performed 9/2010), multiple lm scores, and a musical.