Going Visiting–Online and at Wordstock

Brave on the Page lands, still warm, in the chute of the Espresso Book Machine at Powell’s.

I’m visiting two exceptional blogs this week, as part of releasing Brave on the Page. 

Laura Stanfill

Anthony Lee Collins of U-town and Naomi Baltuck of Writing Between the Lines were kind enough to host me. They’re both among the most vocal contributors to this online community, and I always appreciate what they share in the comments.

Anthony is the creator and curator of the complex fictional community U-town, where he sets his novels, novellas and stories. His posts on writing, movies and Thomas Pynchon are always thought-provoking. And Anthony does what few people do these days: he serializes his fiction online.

I’m so honored to be the subject of Anthony’s first interview, which you can read here. He asked great questions about Brave on the Page, the future of Forest Avenue Press and how I’m balancing my novel writing and my new role as a publisher.

“I do want to publish more Seven Questions Series books, and it’s likely the next one will have a national focus, as I just published all my Oregon interviews in this one,” I told Anthony. “Volume Two will probably have a theme of some sort to make it cohesive, and I expect to do a call for submissions for flash essays on whatever that theme is.”

Exciting news, yes? If you want to be involved in the next Seven Questions book, I’ll post more information here over the next few months, or you can email me at laurastanfill at hotmail dot com.

Joanna Rose, Mary Milstead and Sherri Hoffman, who all contributed flash essays to Brave on the Page, visit at a writing party this summer. More photos of my community of writers are available at Naomi’s blog.

Naomi expertly blends stories and images on her blog, Writing Between the Lines. Her stories are always personal and vibrant–both the words and the pictures–and they always leave me thinking about her adventures as well as the beautiful world around me.

For Naomi’s lushly visual blog I wrote a guest post, “The Importance of Community,” and sent her a bunch of photos of writers visiting with each other. (Writers throw the best parties!)

“Creative people feed off other people’s creative energy,” I wrote. “Or at least I do. Visiting a museum will get me thinking about green, a slash of color across the canvas of my mind, and days later, I will write a paragraph about a girl leaving a room, and that slash of color will become a glimpse of her skirt as she shuts the door on my protagonist, a young boy lying in bed, afraid he’s dying because that glimpse of skirt set his heart beating way too fast.”

And in fact, that whole post, and the way I started it with an image, was inspired by Naomi’s approach to blogging.

Thanks to Anthony and Naomi for taking the time to host me and promote Brave on the Page, Forest Avenue Press‘ first title.

Now–for everyone who lives in Portland, Oregon–I’ll be wandering around at Wordstock this weekend, but if you want to be sure to find me, stop by the Espresso Book Machine booth between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. either day. The booth is inside the Powell’s Marketplace (that huge amazing book-happy space in the middle of the festival). Wordstock is held annually at the Oregon Convention Center.

And several Brave on the Page contributors are reading or teaching this year.

Kristy Athens, author of Get Your Pitchfork On!, will read at 5 p.m. on Sunday. Throughout the weekend, she’ll be at the booth shared by Process Media and ithaka: repurposed literary ephemera, her beautiful paper-reusing business.

Yuvi Zalkow is on a panel, “What Sex Does to a Story,” at 4 p.m. Saturday, and one with Anonymous (the author of Love Is Not Constantly Wondering if You Are Making the Biggest Mistake of Your Life) at 5 p.m. that day. He’s also teaching a workshop on Obsession x Voice at noon on Sunday.

Scott Sparling is teaching “Keep Talking: Discovering and Revealing Character through Dialogue,” at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Here’s the Wordstock site.