North Coast Writers; reading featuring Carmen Germain and Molly Hollenbach,,WHEN: Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014, 7:00 p.m.

PRESS RELEASE: North Coast Writers; reading featuring Carmen Germain and Molly Hollenbach

WHEN:  Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014, 7:00 p.m.

CONTACT: Suzann Bick, heteraena46@gmail.com, (360) 797-1245

            North Coast Writers present an evening of both creative non-fiction and poetry on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 7:00 p.m.  Readers Carmen Germain and Molly Hollenbach will focus on their experiences of the natural environment in select locales of Italy, the Midwest, the Grand Canyon and the Pacific Northwest.     

The public is invited to this free reading at Wine on the Waterfront, 115 E. Railroad Avenue in Port Angeles.  Early arrival for seating and purchase of refreshments is encouraged.

            Germain grew up in Wisconsin, spending her early years as a "free range child," in the company of fields, forests, creeks, lakes and rivers.  After leaving the Midwest, she earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an MA from the University of British Columbia.  Currently, she and her husband spend a significant part of each year in the North Coastal interior of British Columbia, an area of fragile beauty now imperiled as the land is being leased or sold to mining companies, eager to supply the fracking industry.  Germain recently retired from Peninsula College where she taught composition studies and world literature for over twenty years.  Additionally, she co-directed the Foothills Writers Series.     

            Like Germain, Hollenbach was raised in the upper Midwest, where a neighbor remembers her paddling on Saginaw Bay—a "real country girl."  She received her undergraduate degree from Carleton College, then earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Washington.  Much later, she returned to graduate school, and was awarded an MFA from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. 

Germain, whose main focus is poetry, published a collection, These Things I Will Take with Me (Cherry Grove Press), as well as a previous chapbook, Living Room, Earth. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Cold Mountain Review, Crosscurrents, Heliotrope, Pontoon, and Raven Chronicles. Currently, she writes e-reviews for Rattle and Verse Wisconsin.  As a visiting scholar/artist in Rome, Germain had the opportunity to focus on novelist Else Morante. Germain also lived in Umbria, where she interviewed a film maker who had known both Morante and her husband.     

            Considering herself something of a nomad, Hollenbach has at various times called Seattle, Portland, OR, and Mount Shasta, CA home.  She taught English at Peninsula College and Anthropology at Shoreline and Bellevue Community Colleges.  She also served as a senior writer and editor for the Salmon Recovery Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service, a reporter for The Islands' Sounder (San Juan Islands), and program director for KRAB radio in Seattle.  She currently resides in Port Townsend.

            Hollenbach's main interests are creative non-fiction and documentary film. She considers the time she volunteered as a park ranger at the Grand Canyon a pivotal experience. Her essay Rock Bhakti: Dreaming the Vishnu Schist was recently published in an anthology, On Foot: Grand Canyon Backpacking Stories (Vishnu Temple Press). Her work has also appeared in Communities Magazine, Resurgence, The Seattle Weekly, Winds of Change, and Pacific Fishing Magazine. Additionally, Hollenbach published a memoir, Lost and Found:  My Life in a Group Marriage Commune (University of New Mexico Press).  

            Works by both writers will be available for purchase and signing following their readings on December 2.

 Hope to see you and friends there.
Mary-Alice Boulter
North Coast Writers