Naughton speaks at Willamette Writers

Romantic adventure novelist Elisabeth Naughton, author of the Stolen Trilogy series, speaks at the Salem Branch Willamette Writers Jan. 14. Her lecture is titled, “What’s Hot and What’s Not - Staying Published in Today’s Market."

"We’ll be discussing genre trends, how themes you see in movies and recently released books are not necessarily what publishers are buying now, what to do when “the book of your heart” isn’t what’s selling, and how to reinvent yourself when the market turns away from your chosen genre," Naughton said.

Naughton wants to impart to her audience what a difficult and worthwhile business writing is.

“I want attendees to realize that being published is a job and in order to stay published you have to work even harder than you did to sell that first book," she said. "Popular authors are constantly reinventing themselves, writing better books, looking for ways to make their stories and writing better. It’s a never-ending process, but one that’s rewarding in so many ways; it’s worth working hard for.”

Willamette Writers meets upstairs at the West Salem Roth's 1130 Wallace Rd. NW at 6:30 pm. The cost of attendance is $5 for guests of members and $10 for non-members. For more information, visit the Willamette Writers website at www.willamettewriters.com.

Little Local Libraries

Public libraries are an insight into the value a town places on community, education, and civility. Supported by tax-payers and even more by volunteer labor, the many little libraries of the Mid-Valley provide amazing services to their communities. Here we explore two such local libraries, The Monmouth Public Library and The Mt. Angel Public Library.

Even though Monmouth is one of the oldest towns in Oregon, it was in no rush to have its own city library. Formed in 1934 with books provided by the Monmouth Civic Club, the city housed their small library collection inside City Council Chambers. They did not acquire their first librarian until 1960, nor build their first real library until 1966. The building that is now the Monmouth Police Station on the corner of Jackson and Knox was built on donated land with a $50,000 bond. In the early 90’s, Monmouth’s book collection had outgrown the building, and a 1.4 million dollar bond was passed to build a new library. A human chain transferred the book collection the two and a half blocks to their new home, completed in 1995. The library has a large selection of new and harder to find out-of-print books, as well as an extensive DVD collection, according to Fran Kosko. The many community services the library offers include children’s story and activity times twice weekly, movie Fridays, book club, and summer reading programs. The library has wireless access and has also recently received a grant from the Gates Foundation, resulting in an upgrade of their public-use computers. For more information visit the Monmouth library, or contact them by phone at 503-838-1932.

Mt. Angel’s first library was the pet project of Miss Mary Anne Toner. She opened the Mt. Angel Rental Library in 1946 in rented rooms above what is currently the Happy Garden Restaurant and Lounge at 125 N. Main. Miss Toner charged 3 cents a day for a book rental. Slowly, the city took over the expenses of Miss Toner’s library, and in the early 50’s it became the official Mt. Angel Library. Relocations and an extensive fire in 1966 damaged many books but did not keep the library from continued growth. The library collection was moved several times before finding a long term home in the old Mt. Angel Creamery Building. This library location was supported and cherished for several decades. Unfortunately, due to earthquake damage suffered in 1993, 2003 found the library building uninsured as a public building and too expensive to renovate. The Mt. Angel library had no choice but to make a noisy and cramped home in the basement of St. Mary’s school gymnasium, according to Margaret Teem and the Friends of the Library. A great deal of hard work, grants, fundraisers, and local generosity saw the building and stocking of Mt. Angel’s new library, dedicated in January of 2008. The new library houses 33,000 books, magazines, and audio-visual media. They provide story hour for children, and fiber-optic internet access. For more information visit the Mt. Angel Library at 290 E Charles Street or call 503-845-6401.