Literary Ashland with Haris Orkin

Our July guest was author, game writer and narrative designer Haris Orkin. Haris received degrees from Beloit College and University of Southern California. He has written several plays and screenplays, including Dada, produced among others at the American Stage, and A Saintly Switch, which became a Disney movie directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

Since 2005, Haris has written video game script for a number best selling games. Red Alert 3 was a finalist for the 2008 Writers Guild Award for best video game script.

His first novel You Only Live Once came out in 2018.

Literary Ashland with Alma Rosa Alvarez

Our June guest was our colleague Alma Rosa Alvarez. She’s a professor of English at Southern Oregon Unversity where she’s just ended her term as chair of the department. Alma Rosa received her PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. At SOU, she teaches U.S. Literature with a specialty in U.S. Ethnic Literature. She loves the way literature guides students through new experiences. Her research interest is in the formation of the Chicanx canon.

And, she writes poetry, the reason for our interview.

Literary Ashland with Michael Niemann

Every time I publish a new Vermeulen thriller, Ed Battistella, the founder of the Literary Ashland Blog, is very kind and lets us use an entire episode of our monthly radio show on my book. That’s a really big deal since for the past three years, we’ve devoted 1/12th of our shows to the books written by one of the hosts. The Germans have a word for that “Vetternwirtschaft.” Literally translated, that means cousins’ economy (business). Cronyism or nepotism would be the proper English translation. But it’s just a radio show and we don’t get paid, so I hope you forgive us.

Literary Ashland with Sophia Bogle

Have you ever held a treasured book in your hand and worried that it might fall apart? Our April guest Sophia Bogle can help you with that. Sophia is a professional book restorer and in our interview she gave us a quick intro to what her job is all about. Sophia graduated with a BA in English from the University of Minnesota. There she also worked at the university library re-bindery. She thought she would try bookselling. It was while working at Anthony’s Bookshop that she realized that all she wanted to do was fix up the books so they could find good homes. From that wish grew Save Your Books, the one-stop website for all things book repair and restoration. In addition to her hands-on services, Sophia also offers online courses in book restoration. Find her on Facebook.

Literary Ashland with Tim Wohlforth

Our March guest was Tim Wohlforth. Tim, an Ashland resident, has been writing fiction and nonfiction writer for more than forty years. He has published over seventy short stories and six novels, including the Jim Wolf series. He’s also published a number of non-fiction works, including On The Edge: Political Cults Right and Left and his memoir The Prophet’s Children. Over the past months, Tim has been rewriting his ecothriller Harry as a play. A staged reading of the play was performed at the Ashland library on March 25, 2019.