Fantasy author Valente to spin tales at Tea Party Bookshop

Catherynne Valente and her friends have a game they play every time she reads a new review of her books.

If the reviewer uses the words: difficult, decadent, rich, or dense.

They drink.

“Sometimes I think reviewers think they are smarter than readers,” Valente, a Peaks Island, Maine resident, said. “I write the books that make me happy.”

It surprises her even still that the collective review of her work basically says “this book is for me, but it may not be for you” – a kind of reviewer’s bait and switch. But that hasn’t stopped legions of fans from gravitating to those books – her debut "Labyrinth," her award-winning follow-up collection of fairy tales "The Orphan’s Tales," "The Grass-Cutting Sword," "Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams," and her new novel, "Palimpsest," a deeply layered and richly imagined fantasy-scape that draw on the images and language of classic Greek literature.

The author reads from her new novel at an event at Tea Party Bookshop on April 19 at 6 p.m. and will be joined by folk singer Skinny White Chick, who has written an album of songs inspired by the book.

Palimpsest, the author says, is her first book with a straightforward structure. It explores an otherworldly city that can only be reached in the sleep entered after sex – a city that exists only to satisfy its residents’ desires.

She suggests that people who attend the book event can expect a full performance from the duo – one in the spirit of the great traveling bards of antiquity.

“We add a lot of sparkle and shine,” Valente said.

In the cruelest month, poetry shines

Michael Smith, a playwright in Silverton who usually has others take the stage for him, took an uncommon step when he decided to read Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” at the Silverton Poetry Festival’s favorite poem event a few years ago.

“I could hardly get through it,” Smith said. “I’m a really romantic guy; I just don’t normally get a chance to show that emotion directly to the public.”

Readers are invited to share their favorite poem at the Silverton Poetry Festival as it opens April 18 with an event structured around the former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinksy’s favorite poem project.

“People really speak from the heart,” Smith said about the project’s ability to inspire emotion. “It surprises them when that happens.”

The event, which kicks off the Silverton Poetry Association’s ninth annual Silverton Poetry Festival the week of April 18-26, is one of many like events happening around the country in April, National Poetry Month. This is merely one in a series of poetry happenings that have made the Silverton festival a must-stop for major regional poets and their readers.

Fittingly, the festival events take place at some of the area’s most historic settings: the Gordon House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mt. Angel Abbey Library Auditorium designed by Alvar Aalto, the historic Wolf and Fischer Buildings, and Silver Falls Vineyards.  The events, which are free, include poetry workshops, open mic events, a young poet’s festival, and a food event called the Poetry Feast. More information can be found at www.silvertonpoetry.org.