In Improspectives: Applying Improv Comedy Techniques to Life and Business, Curtis Frye reveals the secrets that professional improv comedians use to entertain audiences around the world. Drawing on insights from over 1,100 performances as well as notes from artistic directors of improv troupes, business communication experts, and game theorists, Frye clearly explains how to apply improv techniques to situations you face every day.

As Frye notes in the preface:
After reading this book, you will be better prepared to take on challenges in the personal and business facets of your life. As you gain skill and confidence, you will apply these principles effectively and learn even more as you go.  Frye starts by describing how performers prepare to improv; play characters; listen, process, and react to offers madeduring a scene; play the games within the games; build an effective team; and create and evaluate improv performances.
Along the way, he discusses specific ways you can apply these techniques to business and life. At the end of the book,  you’ll find an Appendix with a series of improv games you can play to help energize your groups.

Curtis Frye is the author of more than two dozen books, including Microsoft Excel 2010 Step by Step, Microsoft Excel 2010 Plain & Simple, and Privacy-Enhanced Business. He graduated from Syracuse University with an honors degree in political science and started his professional career as a member of the technical staff at The MITRE Corporation in McLean, VA. During his time in the DC area, he performed with a local improv group. After moving to Portland, Oregon, in 1995 to pursue his writing career, he joined ComedySportz Portland. Since then, he has performed in more than 1,100 shows with the professional cast. Curt also appears as a solo performer and keynote speaker.

Longtime bookseller Marty Kruse has served literary communities from San Francisco to Seattle; promoted poetry slam locally and nationwide; and was a founding organizer of ILWU Local 5, the Powell's booksellers' union.  If you visit St. Johns Books often, you've probably met him.  He's the tall guy with the glasses, the really knowledgeable one who can almost always put the right book in your hands.  Marty has shared support, inspiration, and skill with St. Johns Booksellers since before we opened (including the design of our beautiful monogram with the St. Johns Bridge).  He has been living with cancer for the last 2 years, which is a lot of work for him and his family--so we're inviting all his communities to show their appreciation and support at a special performance by one of the most honored poets in Slam. We're so excited, we're opening on a Monday for this event!

Ms. Spelt is the stage name of Angus Adair.  He is one of the founders of the Vancouver Poetry Slam and is the only Canadian to ever earn Poetry Slam Inc.'s Spirit of The Slam Award for outstanding contribution to the North American poetry slam community. He is also the only Canadian to ever appear in PSI's Legends Showcase. He is the first and only Canadian to ever be host city director for a major PSI tournament, The Individual World Poetry Slam 2007.  He has been published in 4 anthologies the latest of which, Aim For The Head (Write Bloody Press), recently received a good review in The New York Times. He has been seen performing his work in the Universal Pictures film Love Happens and has been on 4 Vancouver Poetry Slam Teams, including the 2011 team.  He has remained a consistent distinct and powerful voice in the performance poetry community since he first entered it in 1998.  

Longtime bookseller Marty Kruse has served literary communities from San Francisco to Seattle; promoted poetry slam locally and nationwide; and was a founding organizer of ILWU Local 5, the Powell's booksellers' union. If you visit St. Johns Books often, you've probably met him. He's the tall guy with the glasses, the really knowledgeable one who can almost always put the right book in your hands. Marty has shared support, inspiration, and skill with St. Johns Booksellers since before we opened (including the design of our beautiful monogram with the St. Johns Bridge). He has been living with cancer for the last 2 years, which is a lot of work for him and his family--so we're inviting all his communities to show their appreciation and support at a special performance by one of the most honored poets in Slam. We're so excited, we're opening on a Monday for this event!

Ms. Spelt is the stage name of Angus Adair. He is one of the founders of the Vancouver Poetry Slam and is the only Canadian to ever earn Poetry Slam Inc.'s Spirit of The Slam Award for outstanding contribution to the North American poetry slam community. He is also the only Canadian to ever appear in PSI's Legends Showcase. He is the first and only Canadian to ever be host city director for a major PSI tournament, The Individual World Poetry Slam 2007. He has been published in 4 anthologies the latest of which, Aim For The Head (Write Bloody Press), recently received a good review in The New York Times. He has been seen performing his work in the Universal Pictures film Love Happens and has been on 4 Vancouver Poetry Slam Teams, including the 2011 team. He has remained a consistent distinct and powerful voice in the performance poetry community since he first entered it in 1998.

Guest reader Reuben Nisenfeld will compose instant poems on request, for a donation to the cause. Reuben is a native Portlander and thus easily persuaded into clever acts of deviancy and child like wonder. He is a writer and performer and in various eras has ran the Portland Poetry Slam, founded Plazm magazine, taught children to fear theater, and currently performs improv with Brainwaves and Brody Theaters. He is the proud author of several prose/poetry combo platters: Gigolo Of Misfit Toys, Too True To Be Good, the children's book spoof "What's Happening To My Money," and is currently shopping a novel, and by shopping he means sending PDFs to a closed email for Dave Eggers. Reuben has raged for and against the machine with Marty Kruse for years and loves him deeply.

Guest reader Michelle Frost lives in Portland, Oregon where she writes about anything except rain. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in Yoga Journal, Portland Parent Magazine, and Arizona Woman Today. Currently, she is editing a collection of poems to be published by Minor Characters Press (Phoenix, Arizona). Her smallest poems are online at 4and20poetry.org.

Guest reader Ansel Appleton claims he used to catch chickadees in his hands. Ansel is a poet and storyteller who splits his time between Montague City, Massachusetts and Portland, Oregon. A former competitor for the Boston Cantab team and original member of the Hampshire College Slam Collective, he has appeared on the finals stage of the Individual World Poetry Slam and the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. Periodically dropping off the face of the planet, he has surfaced as a cook at the Occupy Wall Street encampment, a carnival switchblade salesman, and an anonymous small-town bartender. Ansel has shared stages with artists as varied as Jim Carroll, Eugene Mirman, and the Country Players' production of A Few Good Men. In addition to performing, he also DJs and helped curate the Oubliette, a community art space in Portland.

Suggested donation: $5 per person

All door proceeds and a portion of bookstore sales from this event will be forwarded to Marty's family.

Photo of Angus Adair courtesy Nora Nathoo.

Join us for a celebration of the days when easy travel was the stuff of science fiction, and don't forget to dress in your steampunk best for a costume contest judged by our author guests! Prizes will be offered for Best Character, Most Historical, and Judges' Favorite costumes.

Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention is by husband-and-wife team Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, a follow-up to their acclaimed book Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel. The couple has been collaborating in print since 1989, when they created the groundbreaking science fiction comic Heartbreakers, an action series that explores the personal and political ramifications of cloning. Their 2005 graphic novel Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate stars Anina as the main characters and was nominated for an Eisner Award for Paul’s innovative art. In 1998 they launched their web site, www.BigRedHair.com, which became the birthplace of Boilerplate.

Paul is a multimedia artist and recovering television personality. He combined his skills in illustration, photography, and model-making with his love of history when he created Boilerplate, the Victorian-era robot. Paul also co-created Chronos, a time travel series from DC Comics, and is internationally renowned as an authority on nineteenth-century automatons. With Anina at his side, he has lived with the Apache in traditional fashion, sailed the Pacific on a square-rigged brig, and walked the sands of the Roman Coliseum.

Anina, first published at age 15, has written five Heartbreakers graphic novels and edited everything from Star Wars comic books to Supreme Court briefs. It’s a good thing she loves to travel, because her career has taken her from Chicago, where she cut her teeth at First Comics; to Dark Horse Comics in Oregon, where she collaborated with renowned author Harlan Ellison; and to Denmark, where she handled Mickey Mouse tales for multimedia giant Egmont. Anina also teaches writing workshops for students of all ages.

Paul and Anina were raised in Chicago and have known each other since before the Internet existed. They now reside in Portland, Oregon with their weimaraner, Bowie.

Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention (Hardcover)

By Paul Guinan, Anina Bennett

$24.95

ISBN-13: 9780810996618
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harry N. Abrams, 2/2012

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ON THE HEELS of The Book of Shadows; New and Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2009) comes Pomegranate, Sister of the Heart. In his fifth full-length collection, poet and translator Carlos Reyes offers a lyrical and sometimes surreal vision of our world. The edgy tone of this collection represents a departure from his earlier work, but the omnibus quality of this book offers something for everyone. The poems “Terror in the Garden” and “Fifthlogic” set the tone of the book, defining the image of a pomegranate, first in its suggestion of violence (the Spanish for pomegranate is grenada, for grenade), then in its more benign aspect as a sister to the heart. The themes run the gamut from the bizarre to the sublime: “Blood” paints the image of a nude man hanging on the gallows with a frightful erection; “Mussolini’s Children” recalls yet another hanging; “In the Shadow of Sacre-Coeur” evokes the striking beauty of a Paris neighborhood. Political themes flavor these poems, from the anti-war sentiments in “Some Thoughts I Have at the Oregon Steel Mill,” recalling the bombing of Dresden; to environmental concerns such as water in “Down the Path from Imerovigila” and the footprint we leave on the earth in “Arizona Nocturne.” This collection balances the darker themes with lyrical and light moments: the poet sings of the tropics (“Song for a Caribbean Afternoon”), goes to Paris to visit Beckett and Baudelaire (“The Montparnasse Cemetery”), and stops in Spain to have the last dance with Antonio Gaudí (“Fame, I Want to Live Forever”).

PRAISE FOR THE POETRY OF CARLOS REYES

Carlos Reyes’ poetry is as clear and strong as his social conscience. One is always struck by his sen­sual and sensory qualities: the touch, taste, feel, color of things, and his ability to capture a mood, a world, in a handful of lines.

—Carolyn Kizer

About the Author(s)

Carlos Reyes

Poet and translator Carlos Reyes lives in Portland, Oregon when he is not traveling. He travels a lot, and whether he journeys to Panama, Spain, Alaska or Ire¬land, those experiences inspire and inform his poetry. In 2007 he was honored with a Heinrich Boll Fellowship, which gave him time to write on Achill Island in Ireland. He has had fellowships to Yaddo and the Fundación Valparaíso (Mojácar, Spain). He was poet-in-resident in 2009 at the Lost Horse Ranger Station in Joshua Tree National Park, and recently writer-in-residence at the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska.

Isabel is a single, twentysomething thrift-store shopper and collector of remnants, things cast off or left behind by others. Glaciers fo llows Isabel through a day in her life in which work with damaged books in the basement of a library, unrequited love for the former soldier who fixes her computer, and dreams of the perfect vintage dress move over a backdrop of deteriorating urban architecture and the imminent loss of the glaciers she knew as a young girl in Alaska.

Glaciers unfolds internally, the action shaped by Isabel’s sense of history, memory, and place, recalling the work of writers such as Jean Rhys, Marguerite Duras, and Virginia Woolf. For Isabel, the fleeting moments of one day can reveal an entire life. While she contemplates loss and the intricate fissures it creates in our lives, she accumulates the stories—the remnants—of those around her and she begins to tell her own story.

"Smith’s debut unspools in delicate links of linear thought...." --Publishers' Weekly

Alexis M. Smith grew up in Soldotna, Alaska, and Seattle, Washington. She received an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. She has written for Tarpaulin Sky and powells.com. She has a son and two cats, and they all live together in a little apartment in Portland, Oregon.

This event will be held at the ST. JOHNS COMMUNITY CENTER, 8427 N. CENTRAL ST.  Tickets are required for this event. 

Tickets available at St. Johns Booksellers, 8622 N Lombard St.
Price of admission includes a copy of A Pictorial History of St. Johns
(Your purchase of a ticket reserves one copy of the book from the first printing--you may pre-order additional copies)
$20 in advance/$25 at the door
Light refreshments will be served

St. Johns Booksellers will host a book launch event for A Pictorial History of St. Johns, a new collection of historic photographs of St. Johns, Portland's own small town in the city. Author Don Nelson will give a visual presentation, discuss the process of selecting images for the book, and answer questions from neighbors. This event will take place at the St. Johns Community Center Auditorium. Light refreshments will be served. Tickets to the event include a copy of A Pictorial History of St. Johns, and may be purchased at St. Johns Booksellers.

Many Oregon history books include images of the St. Johns Bridge, North Portland's iconic and beautiful river crossing. Few explore the St. Johns neighborhood's rich history before and after the building of the bridge. For the first time, Don Nelson presents a visual history covering over 125 years of the life of our town. Besides James John, the Ohio-born settler who platted the township in the 1850s, you'll get to know Wan Jower, a Chinese immigrant whose workingman's supply store remained in operation for 100 years; Dr. Luzana Graves, who graduated medical school in 1908 and practiced in St. Johns for over 50 years; shipbuilders and coopers and many others who built the town that today is one of Portland's most attractive and close-knit historic neighborhoods.

Neighborhood bookseller Nena Rawdah notes that St. Johns neighbors are a mix of longtime residents and recent arrivals. Folks who grew up in the area often visit Rawdah's bookstore, St. Johns Booksellers, hoping to find new resources to share with friends and family. New neighbors come in to learn more about their adopted home. And visitors hope for something attractive to take with them when they leave. The neighborhood heritage society's last illustrated publication appeared fourteen years ago. Recent books by a local history columnist are mainly prose. Rawdah observed a lack of current pictorial materials that would satisfy neighbors' and visitors' curiosity. She urged experienced Portland historian Don Nelson to take on the task of gathering images and information for a book that would fill this niche.

Don Nelson is the author of several previous illustrated history books about Portland and its neighborhoods. In addition to drawing on public and museum archives, Nelson gathered photographs and ephemera from the private collections of history enthusiasts and St. Johns neighbors. Interviews with members of long-established St. Johns families provided the context and detail that enrich the captions and text of A Pictorial History of St. Johns. Nelson also shot photographs of present-day buildings and businesses.

Praise for Don Nelson's earlier book, Portland's Washington Park: A Pictorial History
"Don Nelson has accomplished the remarkable: He's taken a fresh look backwards. Nelson's gift for unearthing historical nuggets is enhanced by this book's brilliant photographs, many of which are previously unpublished...a welcome addition to coffee tables and research libraries." --Bart King, author of The Architectural Guide to Portland

We're delighted to welcome Randy Blazak with the print launch of his novel.  Light refreshments will be served.

A couple of hipsters, an opera singer, a homeless girl and a guy who may or may not be an alien navigate rainy Portland, Oregon in the year 2000. They each wrestle with the pressing question of the day; What is the point of hanging around when things seem so bleak? The answer comes from the joy of a great song and the rare glimpse of the sun. The novel is filled with sociological insights, inside references for music fans, snide humor, and good reasons not to spend too much time in a suicidal funk.

The Mission of the Sacred Heart is a rock novel loosely based on a 1976 Electric Light Orchestra record the author thought was a concept album when he was 12 years old. The novel was originally written in 1999 in Portlandia, while Blazak was loaded on Zoloft.

"Some of the book's best moments are the musical performances in the text. Blazak's descriptions of styles from opera to rock possess a reverence that borders on religious, and they color the relationship between Cozy and Lenny (Zak's musician friends) with a tenderness that floats off the page. But Zak's numerous missteps in his fool's quest to win back Petra--everything from post-breakup mixtapes to drunkenly contemplating the abyss below an ocean bluff--are similarly strong moments, even if only because most readers can identify, having themselves been guilty of similar folly at some point in their lives." - Josh Gross, Boise Weekly

Vegetarian Entrées That Won’t Leave You Hungry encompasses a wide range of ingredients—from pantry and refrigerator staples like grains, beans, noodles, eggs, and tofu—to an inspiring range of year-round and seasonal vegetables. Easy entrées like Summer Squash Gratin showcase seasonal produce, recipes for dumplings and curries draw on global cuisines; inventions like a Curried Potato Crepe Stack transform everyday ingredients into appealing new flavor combinations. Recipes for flavor enhancers and finishing touches—croutons, toasted bread crumbs, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, pestos, kimchi, and more—as well as informative and wide-ranging “Vegetarian Kitchen Essentials” features (including Five Appetizers, Five Easy Desserts, Cooking for One, and Hosting a Dinner Party) contribute to making this new cookbook one that home cooks will want to turn to again and again.

Author Lukas Volger will discuss

● Fresh ways to take advantage of seasonal ingredients and produce

● Making filling dishes without having always to resort to “fake” meat (tofu, seitan, tempeh)

● Making delicious vegetarian fare worthy of dinner parties and other meals to impress guests.

 Tasty samples will be available!