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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 11, 2019)
THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2019 // 3 SCRATCHPAD Writing and reading as acts of love By ERICK BENGEL COAST WEEKEND W hen I need a reminder of why I got into the busi- ness of storytelling, the candid, confessional, two-hour discussion among Get Lit at the Beach’s guest authors is like a call from mission control. As usual, local bestselling fan- tasist Terry Brooks, author of the “Shannara” series, moderated the Sunday panel at the Coaster The- atre, the closing event of the Can- non Beach book fest. This year’s lineup of Pacifi c Northwest writ- coast ers: Pierce Brown, Deb Caletti, Carol Cassella, Sophia Shalmiyev and Leni Zumas. At one point, Brooks posed a question meant to hit bedrock: What exactly do the authors get out of writing? Catharsis? Valida- tion? A challenge to overcome? Closest to my heart was Cassel- la’s response: “What really gets to my soul when I read … is just the lyricism, the beauty of what words can do when they are put together in the right way,” she said. “To read language that is used at its most supreme is really a joy to me, and INSIDE THIS ISSUE weekend arts & entertainment I think, from a very young age, I just thought, ‘I wonder if I could do that — I want to do that.’” Given that the human condi- tion, Cassella said, is often one of loneliness, of failed attempts to be understood, writing is how she tries to “break through that and connect to other people.” I’ve often found comfort in the fact that, as we wander through periods of darkness and discon- tent, confusion and alienation, it’s comforting to know that such feel- ings have long been expressed and validated through stories. For solace, we need only seek them COAST WEEKEND EDITOR ERICK BENGEL CONTRIBUTORS NICOLE BALES KATHERINE LACAZE BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL ON THE COVER Hands Across the Sand, part of Cannon Beach 12 Days of Earth Day celebration, in 2015. ERICK BENGEL See story on Page 8 THE ARTS 4 Oregon Art Day 8 12 Days of Earth Day 19 North Coast schools expand workshop off erings FEATURE Get your hands dirty in Cannon Beach from April 11-22 BOOKMONGER Cli-fi Cai Emmons’ ‘Weather Woman’ worth a look FURTHER ENJOYMENT MUSIC CALENDAR .....................5 CROSSWORD ...............................6 SEE + DO ............................. 10, 11 CW MARKETPLACE.......... 15, 16 Find it all online! CoastWeekend.com features full calendar listings, keyword search and easy sharing on social media. To advertise in Coast Weekend, call 503-325-3211 or contact your local sales representative. © 2019 COAST WEEKEND New items for publication consideration must be submitted by 10 a.m. Tuesday, one week and two days before publication. TO SUBMIT AN ITEM Phone: 503.325.3211 Ext. 217 or 800.781.3211 Fax: 503.325.6573 E-mail: editor@coastweekend.com Address: P.O.Box 210 • 949 Exchange St. Astoria, OR 97103 Coast Weekend is published every Thursday by the EO Media Group, all rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without consent of the publisher. Coast Weekend appears weekly in The Daily Astorian and the Chinook Observer. out. The writers we value most are the ones that do this best. Such lofty literary consider- ations are easy to forget in the grimy pressure cooker of a news- room. This is especially true on those days when everyone is strung out on stress and sleep- lessness, when all you can dis- cern through the fog of fatigue is your stunted social life, your teeth slowly dissolving in a never-end- ing acid wash of Folgers, and your next career-threatening deadline. But there are rewards. Now and then, you make a sentence appear that, despite the odds against it, somehow suc- ceeds in mapping a region of the soul; to paraphrase Caletti, you’ve found the words for a feeling you didn’t know there are words for. You’ve become a cartographer of the inner world we all have in common. In this way, two people who want nothing more than to be understood — the writer and the reader — make a connection. It feels less like a professional feat or artistic achievement and more like a spontaneous act of love, as they try to make sense of this befuddling, terrifying, lovely ter- rain together. Writers, in the end, are simply fools for this kind of love. As far as “whys” go, this is my bedrock. CW
