Host of ‘Northwest Book Talk’ puts Clark County on the literary map

Bookworms and podcast fans, get your reading glasses and earbuds ready. The Northwest Book Fair and Media Fest is bringing 100 local and Northwest authors and a dozen media content producers to Clark College on June 27.

All the vendor spots were booked five months in advance, said event organizer and founder Patty Grasher, but there were so many more authors and media guests to include, she simply expanded the festival. This is the festival’s fourth year, but it’s the first year at Clark College and also the first time that the festival also includes local media producers.

“We’re just kind of getting it more established and more recognizable,” said Grasher, 69, host of the “Northwest Book Talk” podcast and radio show on KXRW 99.9 FM. “I think it’s starting to become more well-known. If I search for ‘book fairs in the Pacific Northwest,’ we come out in the top three with Portland and Seattle.”

Grasher organized the first book fair four years ago at Covington Historic House in Vancouver, attracting 32 authors. The fair outgrew Covington House in two years, moving to the Fort Vancouver Artillery Barracks last year with 70 authors. Grasher’s maximum for this year’s combined Book Fair and Media Fest was originally 90 vendors. But with so many great regional authors (and a growing number of readers interested in local content), excluding enthusiastic vendors seemed senseless. All of the authors at this year’s book fair are Pacific Northwest-based, Grasher said. There are some authors from Seattle and a few from Oregon, she said, but 40 of the authors live in Clark County.

Grasher herself is a Clark County author who recently celebrated the release of the second edition of “Explore Vancouver Washington,” a combination travel guide and local history primer with photographs by Jonathon Kraft. Grasher, a U.S. Navy cryptologist-turned-nun who lived at the Franciscan Poor Clares monastery in Spokane from 1981 to 2009, is a relative newcomer to Vancouver. She’s always been a writer and a history buff, she said, but most of her work centered on the Catholic experience. When she moved to Vancouver in 2015, she was surprised by everything there was to do and learn — so she wrote a book about it.

Grasher, who ran a small publishing company and radio station during her time at the monastery, quickly found a community of writers and readers in Vancouver. She discovered quite a few authors in Clark County as well as around the Pacific Northwest and connected with Vancouver’s independent radio station, KXRW. “Northwest Book Talk” has been on the air for about three years, focusing on just the types of writers featured at the book fair: Northwest, local and independent. Clark County readers took note: last year’s fair drew 1,500 attendees. Grasher said she’s hoping for 3,000 guests this year.

Nearly every book category will be represented at the fair, from children’s books to romantasy novels, the latter being an extremely popular genre mixing romance with fantasy. (Yes, there will also be a few “spicy” romance books, Grasher said — that is, books with racier content.) Readers will find historical fiction and nonfiction, science fiction, mysteries, cozy mysteries, thrillers, memoirs, suspense novels, young adult and graphic novels, women’s fiction and local interest books. Authors will be there in person to answer questions and of course to sell and sign their books.

“There are all these authors here in Vancouver but Portland gets all the attention,” Grasher said. “I thought we should have something on this side of the river, to show that we weren’t a second cousin to Portland.”

The fair will also include three author panels — “Stories of the Northwest,” “Dragons, Magic and Adventure” and “Romance, Heartbreak and Happy Endings” — as well as seven workshops, with topics ranging from drawing comics and screenwriting to book publishing. (Grasher said that all the workshops are free but seating is limited to 30 people at each, so attendees should register at northwestbookfair.com.) The fair’s free admission is by design, Grasher said; aside from a $1,000 donation from Columbia Bank, the fair is funded by vendor registration fees, which this year totaled about $8,000. Grasher said she broke even last year and expects to do a little better this year.

It seemed natural, given Grasher’s background in publishing and radio, to open the festival to local media producers, such as KXRW, podcasters, film companies, production companies and studios, as well as The Columbian and Vancouver Family Magazine. (KXRW has also been a significant partner in the festival for the past two years.) Media guests include social justice podcaster Michelle Bart; career advice podcaster Brandi Oldham; political and current events podcasters Wil Fuentes, Mike Selig and Ben Christly; Jessica Geffen from The Soundstage, a recording studio for voiceover artists, audiobooks and podcasts; Dawn Sellers from POV Filmmakers, a nonprofit supporting local moviemakers; Chris Martin from independent media production company Chris Martin Studios; and John Barber from radio theater company Re-Imagined Radio.

The fair will also feature live music as well as several artisan vendors, Grasher said. For those who work up an appetite carrying around heavy bags of just-purchased books, food vendors will sell coffee and espresso drinks, hot dogs, barbecue and ice cream. Children’s literacy nonprofit Read Northwest will host a Kids’ Zone where kids and parents can relax, do activities or just sit and read. And really, that’s what it’s all about, Grasher said — a not-too-serious, neighborly gathering where readers can meet authors and authors can meet each other.

“I wanted it to be a welcoming community for authors,” Grasher said. “I didn’t want it to be too hoity-toity. I just wanted a friendly place for new authors to make a start. We want newer authors to mingle with more published authors.”

Monika Spykerman: 360-735-4556; [email protected]