Saturday, November 19, 2-4 PM: Book Signing and Meet-and-Greet with Lauren Kessler and Jeff Fearnside

About Jeff:

Ships in the Desert (SFWP, 2022) is a linked essay collection in which the author analizes his four years as an educator on the Great Silk Road, primarily in Kazakhstan, and reflects on the personal and social change once returned to the States.
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Kim Barnes notes, “Informative, impassioned, and urgent… Ships in the Desert is a clarion call to protect and treasure the ‘grain of gold’ in ‘every drop of water,’ to honor our collective humanity, and to acknowledge the grievous losses and courageous hopes that bind us.”

Jeff is the author of two full-length books and two chapbooks. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies such asThe Paris Review,Los Angeles Review,Story,The Pinch,Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest(University of Washington Press). He teaches writing and literature at Oregon State University.

About Lauren:

About Free: Two Years, Six Lives, and the Long Journey Home: 95 percent of the men and women who go to prison are eventually released. But then what? A gripping work of immersion reporting for readers of Evicted and Maid, Free shines a spotlight on the rollercoaster of re-entry: the exuberance of freedom, the rules and regulations that make you feel like you're still in prison, the often dispiriting work of looking for employment and housing, and more. Veteran reporter Lauren Kessler follows six individuals whose diverse stories paint a portrait of the search for redemption that many former inmates face as they fight to rebuild their lives"

Lauren is the author of 10 books, Including the Oregon Book Award title Stubborn Twig.