Random House author and freelance writer Jane Smiley holds a seasoned pen.
She’s written with that pen for the better part of a half-century, having published her first novel in 1980, in addition to writing for multiple magazine publications in the years leading up to and thereafter. She won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with that pen in 1992.
She’s authored more than 20 books during her career, in addition to penning numerous articles, essays and now blog posts.
On April 16, she’ll be bringing the same pen to the Jewel Box Theatre.
It’s a bit of a unique event, a Pulitzer Prize winner speaking in Poulsbo. The Jewel Box has hosted plays with authors who were Pulitzer Prize winners, but never an actual award winner themselves recently.
This luminous literary event is hosted by West Sound Reads — a consortium of local independent booksellers and libraries from Gig Harbor to Port Gamble with a mission to, of course, to keep the West Sound reading. With their resources combined, the group has been hosting literary fundraising events and bigger-name book readings across the region over the last four years.
It’s likely largely because of West Sound Reads that many of these higher-profile authors — like Smiley and previously the internationally acclaimed Lisa See and the household name Lemony Snicket — ever come this far onto the Peninsula.
With attendance statistics from previous events, West Sound Reads is able to persuade publishing companies that it’s worthwhile to send their authors here.
The organizers don’t really get to pick and choose which authors they’d like to bring out.
“Each of the (authors) coming to Seattle we ask to come over here,” said Suzanne Droppert of Poulsbo’s Liberty Bay Books, one of the founders of the West Sound Reads consortium. “If we’re lucky, they’ll give us a day. And then we try to find a venue for that day.”
Other than Eagle Harbor Books, another founding member, the Bainbridge book store which hosts author readings almost weekly, most of the book stores on the peninsula don’t have the space to hold a big-name author and his or her crowd. So the West Sound Reads consortium “rents” out venues around the county.
“Part of it is, we’re doing it as a free event,” Droppert said, noting that each of West Sound Reads’ events are free to the public. “We’re trying to get places to give us the rooms for free.”
Enter literary-minded and community partners like the Olympic College bookstore, where Lisa See read last month, and the Jewel Box Theatre, where Smiley will be reading April 16.
Both OC and the Jewel Box are probably more than happy to play host.
Smiley — who won a Pulitzer Prize 15 years ago for her adaptation of Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” a contemporary midwestern version called “A Thousand Acres” — comes to Poulsbo with a new novel that’s very similar in style to that book with a bit more punch in the subject matter — it’s her newest, called “10 Days in the Hills.”
It examines American, er Californian, sentiments on the Iraq War from a misfit family-ish group of people, none of which are directly involved or have sons or daughters who are soldiers in the war. Each shares their point of view by telling a short story
“10 Days,” is akin to Smiley Pulitzer Prize winning novel because it once again draws on historic literature, this time using the frame narrative format laid out by writers like the 14th century authors Geoffrey Chaucer (“Canterbury Tales”) and Giovanni Boccaccio (“The Decameron”).
“One of the things I wanted to do when I wrote about the Iraq War was to use my version of ‘the Decameron’ to look around at the world that we live in,” Smiley said.
You can read more on Smiley’s take on the war and all things politic at the Huffington Post blogsite, www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley.WU
Jane Smiley, hosted by the West Sound Reads consortium of independent booksellers will be promoting her newest book, “10 Days in the Hills,” at a free, family event — 7 p.m. April 16 at the Jewel Box Theatre, 225 Iverson St. in Poulsbo. Info: Contact Liberty Bay Books at (360) 779-5909 or Eagle Harbor at (206) 842-5332.
