Evening Readings at Winekraft

The Writer's Guild of Astoria is pleased to present three Oregonian authors in celebration of their new book releases. Authors will read from their new book publications and sign copies afterwards. Please join us!

John Sibley Williams, Marianne Monson, and Dede Montgomery:

The Drowning House by John Sibley Williams is the winner of the 2020 Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award. Contest judge, John A. Nieves, had this to say about it: "In the dark and shifting world of THE DROWNING HOUSE, Sibley Williams dives deep to try to understand the ghosts of our country and our history--the violence inherent in displacement, in wiping away. The poems that populate this doomed architecture reach out in every direction to try to find purchase on truths that often shift a quickly as tides. Whether music or fire or flesh, these poems find the worn seams of our nation and our world and lay them bare, or as Sibley Williams writes: 'Skin can be its own broken republic.' This collection explores the depths it engages and challenges us all not to look away."

John Sibley Williams is the author of Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Book Award, 2021), The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award, 2021),  As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize, 2019),  Disinheritance, and Controlled Hallucinations. His book Sky Burial: New & Selected Poems is forthcoming in translated form by the Portuguese press do lado esquerdo. He has also served as editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies, Alive at the Center (Ooligan Press, 2013) and Motionless from the Iron Bridge (barebones books, 2013).

A twenty-seven-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Laux/Millar Prize, Wabash Prize, Philip Booth Award, Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, The 46er Prize, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry. Previous publishing credits include: Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Review, Colorado Review, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review, Poet Lore, Saranac Review, Atlanta Review, TriQuarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and various anthologies.

John holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rivier University and an MA in Book Publishing from Portland State University. He is the founder and head teacher of Caesura Poetry Workshop, a virtual workshop series, and serves as co-founder and editor of The Inflectionist Review. He also works as a poetry editor and book coach. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his partner and boisterous young twins, Kaiya and Addy.

The Opera Sisters by Marianne Monson is a historical fiction novel based on the true story of Ida and Louise Cook, British sisters who used their love of opera as a cover for a daring, secret operation helping those targeted by the Nazi regime find hope for a new life in England. Set against the historical backdrop of Europe in the 1940s, The Opera Sisters is a riveting and inspiring novel of two ordinary women who decided to risk their lives to help strangers during one of the darkest chapters of history. Monson's book, Frontier Grit, was nominated for the Amelia Bloomer Award by the American Library Association and Midwest Book Reviews called it "utterly absorbing from cover to cover." Of Women of the Blue and Gray, Booklist wrote, "Monson hails from a literary background, and her approach to this enormously overlooked history possesses a dramatic narrative appeal that reflects her novelist expertise."

Marianne Monson is the author of twelve books for adults and children. She earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and primarily writes on topics related to women's history in the nineteenth and twentieth century. She has taught English and Creative Writing at a number of colleges and universities, including Clatsop Community College, and she is founder of The Writer's Guild, a literary nonprofit. She splits her time between Astoria, Oregon and San Marcos, Texas with her spouse and two children.

Humanity’s Grace by Dede Montgomery was released January 2022. It is primarily set in Astoria with a few backstories based in Portland. Reviewer Mikko Azul summed up this book:

Humanity’s Grace is a collection of slice-of-life vignettes that eloquently demonstrate the interconnection between us all. Montgomery authentically shows the joys and sorrows of life exactly as they are. She shares the poignant perspectives and emotions from each individual touched by a single event, demonstrating how fleeting life is and how significant our choices are on every person we touch. Pure genius.

Dede Montgomery is a 6th generation Oregonian. She explores the jumbled path of forgiveness, reconciliation, courage and gratitude in her memoir, My Music Man(Bedazzled Ink Publishing, 2017). Dede’s novel Beyond the Ripples was released in 2019. Dede was a 2019 Oregon State Capitol Foundation Speaker Series presenter, sharing My Music Man stories on Oregon’s February 14 Birthday.  Then, Now, and In-Between: Place, Memories, and Loss in Oregon is non-fiction “blog to book” (2020). Her newest work, Humanity’s Grace (Bedazzled Ink, 2022), is a linked short story collection or “novel in stories.” Dede is also a prolific blogger on her personal website. During the day, Dede works at Oregon Health & Science University in worker safety, health and well-being outreach and education.

Dede lives with her spouse in West Linn where she explores the banks and ripples of the Willamette River. She grew up with four brothers who both skew and enhance her outlook in life. She was a competitive athlete who now prefers long solo walks and paddles, and sneaks in as many minutes as she can to read and write, and spend time with her grown daughters.