Boozy 90s remembrances of Chico State University

"I have so many fond memories of attending Chico State," writes Michele Schlueter "Shleets" Smith. "From sorority socials, to road trips, to hanging out a Riley's and deciding if I wanted a burrito or piece of pizza at 2 a.m. when the bars closed. The only responsibility I had was to get my butt to class--I did however work part-time, volunteer and ended up being President of my romper room sorority. Not exactly the real world, especially when you can schedule your classes around Days of our Lives and the bars (Tuesday nights were 'Buck Nights' at Riley's and Thursdays were beer specials at the Bear)."

Smith and eight other sorority sisters contributed anonymous chapters to a new book she edited, "One Too Many: College Secrets As Told By Many Anonymous Past Chico State Sorority Girls" (from mcompublishing.com, the Website address of Smith's independent publishing company). The writers, says the publisher, have produced "a funny, raunchy, enlightening and nostalgic book for those who have walked the walk."

Eleven chapters look back at Chico State University in its party-school heyday, full of a host of embarrassing moments, crazy roommates, and frat boys too full of themselves. Along the way there is some "I was there" advice, about "Boys, Bong Loads and Booze" (Chapter 1) and "Sleeping with a Stripper is Never a Good Idea" (Chapter 9).

Several activities show up throughout the chapters, including "barf" (5 times), "throw up" (twice) and "puke" (once), thanks mostly to beverage overindulgence. There's also a lot of hot sex, and even a few short-lived marriages out of the deal, but mostly sex is mentioned but not pursued. It's the girl bonding that takes the limelight here, and frat boys are mostly bad news.

"Attending Chico State," one contributor says, "was a moment in my life I wouldn't trade for anything. You are away from home, in the middle of nowhere and there isn't much to do except party with your friends and occasionally open a book and study. I am conflicted because as a parent, I would never, ever want my children to attend Chico. However, I really want my kids to build those memories in their young adult years at such an amazing college."

Chico author on coming to terms with the loss of a son

In her first book, "The Third Floor," Chico businesswoman Judi Loren Grace told her own heart-wrenching story, "forced to relinquish an infant as a teen mom." Her new book is about loss as well. "Dreamscape in A minor" ($19.95 in paperback from Jetstream Publishing, jetstreampublishing.com; also available in Amazon Kindle format) is the story of Jeff, "my second son, the oldest of the three children whom I had the privilege to raise. This is about a lost life, one that fell through the cracks."

The book is written to Jeff, a long letter of love from a mother who didn't understand, or wouldn't accept, the warning signs. "I'm bringing my son back to life," Loren Grace writes, "for you to get to know and love as we, his family, did. Jeff died too soon, far too young, leaving an unfinished life."

"He left no note," she continues, "but as I look back I realize that in his own way, he did say a proper goodbye. Here is the story of our family--the joy and grief, the anger and love, the frustration and pride, the comedy and tragedy, the laughs and tears, and the coincidences and memories that follow. The conflicting emotions and apparent inconsistencies in this story are the twenty-four year aftermath of living with Jeff's suicide and my father's connected death."

A section of family photographs suggests nothing amiss, adding to the poignancy of the story, recounted in sometimes searing detail as the author attempts to make sense of Jeff's death at twenty-one.

"My son," she writes, "you seemed so hostile and explosive, whether with anger or laughter, that you'd think any mother would know their child is losing their grip on sanity. Your highs and the lows began to get closer together as the rest of us went about our daily lives, expecting and waiting for you to do the same; waiting for you to snap out of it and get on with your life." It was not to be.

A presentation and book signing will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 21 at Lyon Books in Chico. There will also be a signing Saturday, December 7 at 1:00 p.m. at Satori Color and Hair Design, Broadway and 7th St. in Chico.

Doug Keister's "kidhood"

"I was born," writes Chico author and photographer Doug Keister, "in a working class neighborhood in Lincoln, Nebraska on June 14th, 1948 and remained there for the first two decades of my life." His parents had three children, all boys.

"I'm a child of the heartland. The middle kid, born in the middle of the country, in the middle of the century." Thus the title of his forty-first book: "Heart-Land: Growing Up In The Middle Of Everything" ($8.99 in paperback from Doublewide Productions; also in Amazon Kindle format).

In nearly two dozen deftly-written chapters Keister recalls his life in "kiddom." By turns witty and poignant (and embellished just a bit here and there), the book highlights young Doug's unceasing curiosity (except for girls--ugh!) and will rekindle fond memories of that long-ago time when "Father Knows Best" reigned supreme.

The TV show "featured a Midwestern household composed of Jim and Margaret Anderson and their three children with pet names: Princess, Bud and Kitten. With the possible exception of Bud, everyone in the program was PERFECT. Our parents would sit us in front of the television hoping that somehow we'd absorb at least a smidgen of the Anderson family's aura, but alas, we did not." Good thing, though; otherwise young Doug wouldn't have explored explosives with his Gilbert Chemistry Set.

To this day Keister, the self-described "effervescent eccentric," loves "the smell of gasoline" because it meant getting away. "Nebraska is one of those states that is memorable for how long it takes to get through. There are few significant changes for its entire length, unless you count the different colors of grasshoppers splattered on your windshield."

Don't forget Jell-O, "the universal solvent. Midwest mothers fabricated a number of congealed concoctions using Jell-O as the base. These creations were used to surreptitiously transport vegetables into our developing bodies."

Chapters toward the end of the book introduce a sober reality--JFK's assassination was "the end of our childhood"--but also the "obsession with weather. ... Nebraska has real weather, often two or three seasons in the same day." Doug weathered his kidhood, and his book is a delightful look back.

Keister will be signing copies of "Heart-Land," and many of his other books, this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

The Book In Common: War's aftermath

An author's note says Kevin Powers "served in the U.S. Army in 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, where he was deployed as a machine gunner in Mosul and Tal Afar." A Virginia native, he was the Michener Fellow in Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin.

His novel, "The Yellow Birds" ($14.99 in paperback from Little, Brown and Company/Back Bay Books; and in Amazon Kindle format), is the searing tale of John Bartle, fighting in Northern Iraq, pledged to help his buddy Daniel Murphy, just 18. Bartle was asked by Mrs. Murphy to keep her son safe. "I promise," he said. "I promise I'll bring him home to you."

It didn't work out that way.

Part of Bartle's story is what happened in Iraq, yet afterward, what does it mean? For him, life has only "an undetermined future, no destiny, no veined hand reaching into our lives, just what happened and our watching it."

Bartle, now in his thirties, is looking back. He was a 21-year-old going to war. Bart and Murph work closely together under the watchful eye of Sergeant Sterling, also young, and for a while, it seems, all three would survive. But it doesn't work out that way.

Bartle remembers Murph as still a kid, joking around. "I remember that part of him fondly, before he was lost, before he surrendered fully to the war, twisting through the air, perhaps one beat of his heart remaining as they threw his tortured body from the window of the minaret."

The great irony for Bartle is that he is welcomed home to high-fives from his friends. His words are laconic, but his thought-life troubled. "I feel like I'm being eaten from the inside out and I can't tell anyone what's going on because everyone is so grateful to me all the time and I'll feel like I'm ungrateful or something. Or like I'll give away that I don't deserve anyone's gratitude and really they should all hate me for what I've done but everyone loves me for it and it's driving me crazy."

Butte College (butte.edu/bic) , Chico State University (csuchico.edu/bic), and various community groups are scheduling Book In Common events the next several months--discussing issues that require full measures of courage and grace.

Discovery's wonder from a local poet

Marianne Werner is a retired Butte College English instructor who writes that "I have always felt more at ease sitting under a tree (or in one) than sitting in a chair made from a tree. In nature is a world far more perfect than we humans seem able to sustain, and I am continually awed by the ingenuity of its adaptation and its beauty." Long a poet, when she took up photography she realized words and images could combine in a "thematic closeness."

Her work is on vibrant display in "Simple Images: Nature Poems and Photographs" ($16 in softcover, self-published, available from SimpleImagesBook.com or from Lyon Books in downtown Chico). The twenty poems and associated images (some taken from locations in Chico, some from Oregon, Costa Rica, Honduras, Ireland) weave together the story of a poet's delight and even astonishment at the natural world.

In "Concert of Plants," the writer is in Mexico, at the Charco del Ingenio Botanical Gardens, where "The Plasmath Lute shivers sounds, / eerily beautiful. ..." Electrodes are connected to cacti, where "plant signals translate into music, / simple chords seeping throughout / their joined familial roots. // I don't believe this, / but I see it happening."

In "Wild Lupine," "Against the mottled snow / and green hills of Lassen, / an enormous purple shawl / of wild lupine smothers // the hillside. The switchback / trail turns us through / acres of lavender--lighter, / darker, lighter blossoms // until we are in the center / of such an explosion / that we are wordless."

"In midwinter," the poet writes in "Flight," "I hear sounds / from above, sounds of wild / geese pulsing and honking / in patterns of flight. // ... I watch, incredulous, / not at their instincts pulling / toward a particular / destination--rather, / their spacing, exact // in its precision of distance, / wing tip to wing tip. ..."

Somewhere else, a heart flower opens, "its surface posed / like dappled silk-- // while I watch and marvel." Everywhere there is something to cause wonder. In "Sanctuary," "Thousands, thousands of pure / white snow geese have arrived / on this bright November day, / feather cuddling each other, / idling so far across dark lagoons / that I could walk shore to shore / upon their soft curved backs."

The images evoke wonder as well, portraits of a world the poet longs to embrace, and does.

Verbal variety from guest author

Sometimes verbs "don't get no respect," especially when it comes to headlines. These days, writes Bay Area author and critic Constance Hale, verbs are ousted from headlines in favor of search-optimized nouns, but that can lead to some interpretive problems. Take the story of spud farmers wanting to catch the ear of a hamburger giant. The Associated Press headline: "McDonald's Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers."

Hale grew up speaking "proper" English at home in Oahu but used Hawaiian creole with friends at school. Maybe that stoked her passion for language; her obsession with verbs is on display in "Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing" ($16.95 in paperback from W.W. Norton; also in Amazon Kindle format).

The book is a salted-peanut delight for language lovers, dipping "into the highbrow and the lowbrow, the sacred and the profane, the eloquent and the cheesy. We'll unpack one aspect of verbs at a time, keeping things simple. We won't forget the fun."

Each chapter has four sections; the Vex part tackles language confusion and history (sometimes it's a history of confusion); Hex is there to "shatter myths and debunk shibboleths, and set you free to write with new confidence and zest." Speaking of zest, the Smash sections examine a plethora of bad examples (I scoured the index for my name--not there! Whew! I'm safe until the next edition). And Smooch? This section is for "writing that is so good you'll want to kiss its creator. These passages feature juicy words, sentences that rock, and subjects that startle." (You can find more at sinandsyntax.com.)

Chapters contain little think-piece asides and carry the reader from verb dynamics and tenses to moods, participles and "odd uses." Meaty appendices consider Chomsky, dictionaries, irregular verbs, and more.

Log on is a phrasal verb and "when we're done, we log off." We don't logon, though we may be logging on. And once you've logged on, you may read some smoochable words from Toni Morrison: "Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; ... ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down their stalks."

Lyon Books in downtown Chico is hosting a presentation and signing with Constance Hale tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.

The business side of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Sierra Nevada's first brew date was November 15, 1980. Almost a quarter century and uncounted bottles of Pale Ale later, Ken Grossman, president and owner of the company, contemplated retirement. Then he read a book by "Gary Erickson, the founder of Clif Bar and Company, that chronicled his struggle with the direction of his company at a similar point in his life. His story was similar to mine, with a troubled partnership and the near sale of his company to a major industry player. He changed his mind at the absolute last minute and walked away from signing over his company and had since rededicated himself to it."

With Sierra Nevada, Grossman writes, "we built one of the best breweries in the world." Now, as he rededicated his energies, he learned the importance of a sales team, made plans to build a second operation in North Carolina, and nurtured the next generation of craft brewers. In an odd way, a Clif Bar saved the vision.

Grossman tells the story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in "Beyond The Pale" ($24.95 in hardcover from Wiley and in Amazon Kindle format). It's a business memoir, with a color photograph section included, recounting the growth of a company that by 2010 was producing 800,000 barrels and running out of room. There were financial and personal challenges, including the tragic loss of the company's first employee, Steve Harrison. His death, Grossman writes, "was the worst thing the brewery has ever been through."

But the focus of the book is on how the business navigated the ups and downs of the craft beer revolution and how Grossman, an avowed beer purist, became a beer scientist, "shunning pasteurization" and instead focusing on "the yeast and the cleanliness of your plant." As far as the hops are concerned, "we have the one of the most sophisticated gas chromatographs available for aroma analysis." He discusses management style as well, and the use of alternative energy.

It's wisdom to tap into.

Grossman will be signing copies at Sierra Nevada's "Single, Fresh, Wet and Wild Harvest Festival" this Saturday from 1:00 - 6:00 (visit sierranevada.com/sfww for ticket information) and Lyon Books in Chico will hold a free signing event on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 7:00 p.m.

Activist poet Brenda Hillman returns to Chico

A fiery life force runs through everything in Brenda Hillman's latest book of poetry. "Seasonal Works With Letters On Fire" ($22.95 in hardcover from Wesleyan University Press; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format), nominated for a National Book Award, concludes a series of volumes exploring earth, air, water and, now, fire.

Perhaps it's the poet's responsibility to discover that life-fire, to give voice to it, or even to create it in the interplay of the physical "stuff" of words and letters and the meanings they evoke. Hers is not a humanist but an animist vision; yet humans can make a difference: "words are living." Hillman's book is dedicated in part "To women awake in the world / To people moaning at gas pumps, to the students / To protesting corporate violence ... To Love & the unsayable / To the fire in everything."

Most of her short poems end in a dash, as if there is unfinished business. Her work requires surrender to an artistic playfulness. In "Some Kinds Of Reading In Childhood," the poem ends: "The world has created a sickness / but the sickness is being / reversed ... Consonants / can be reasoned with, but vowels / start fires--now! breathing / twice: Now! Here come / the bandit occupiers: / silence & meaning--"

The poet attests all is not well. "When i read the word drone," Hillman writes in "The Body Politic Loses Her Hair," "my hair falls out in solidarity with old words. Stingless singless honey bees [Apis mellifera] or the music drones on & on, but now (at the top of Google), unmanned, where the 'un' in the 'unmanned' looks like little pinchers, the 'u' & the 'n' like the fingers on a throttle when one of our soldiers bombs a target's wedding while his family members are eating potatoes with tamarind, cardamom, onion, / & the target's family falls."

In "I Heard Flame-Folder Spring Bring Red," the poet observes "Women / in Kandahar make $2 a month; our people / tweet & sleep through the wars, / our soggy purses lie open, the eyes / of the dollar bills stare up from the / floor--"

Hillman will be speaking at Chico's 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway, Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., sponsored by the Butte College Literary Committee. The event is free; donations welcome.

Eve Ensler coming Thursday to Chico State University

Best recognized as author of "The Vagina Monologues," Eve Ensler is also an internationally known activist and the founder of V-Day (vday.org), "a global movement to end violence against women and girls."

Her heart is in the Congo, with the women brutalized beyond measure, "women with missing limbs and reproductive organs, women with machete lashes across their faces and arms and legs ... women carrying babies the color of their rapists, women who smelled like urine and feces because they had fistulas--holes between their vaginas and bladder and rectum--and now they were leaking, leaking."

Ensler's childhood was also a story of bodily abuse. "I grew up not in a home but in a kind of free fall of anger and violence that led to a life of constant movement." A father's incest, a mother's emotional distance. Ensler "drank myself mad, numbed myself with drugs at sixteen, snuck out with grown men to the Fillmore East for the late show, lived naked on communes, and stole things."

Years passed. Then, "on March 17, 2010, they discovered a huge tumor in my uterus. Cancer threw me through the window of my disassociation into the center of my body's crisis. The Congo threw me deep into the crisis of the world, and these two experiences merged as I faced the disease and what I felt was the beginning of the end."

Ensler's harrowing story--in-your-face blunt--is told in "In The Body Of The World" ($25 in hardcover from Metropolitan Books; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format, and as an audiobook read by the author).

Ensler is scheduled to speak at Chico State University's Laxson Auditorium this Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Premium tickets are $40, adults $35, seniors $33, students $20, available at the University Box Office, (530) 898-6333 or online at http://bit.ly/14FaSXp.

The story of her treatment, the effects of chemo, the doctors, nurses, friends and family and people in the Congo gripped by her pain, the death of her mother, and how she became a survivor, is a searing account that is impossible to put down. The story, ultimately, is "about showing up and not forgetting, about keeping promises, about giving everything and losing everything." It is love, "endless and generous and enveloping."

Growing up in the logging camps

Local history buffs can rejoice in the publication of "What's In The Woods?" by William "Bill" Dennison and Clifford "Blackie" Gilbert ($35 in hardcover from the Butte Meadows-Jonesville Community Association). Checks for $40 (which includes $5 in shipping), made out to BMJCA, can be sent to 20 Lakewood Way, Chico, CA 95926; reach Dennison at (530) 258-1489 or 33dennison@gmail.com.

The subtitle fills in the details: "Life Stories And Histories As Told By The Kids Who Lived In Northern California Diamond Match Company Logging Camps 1927-1944." "The Kids" are six lifelong friends, Dennison, Gilbert, Jackie Chandler Abell, Stanley "Stan" Brock, Pat Schulse Gein, and June Beavers Yount. The co-authors "were raised in simple logging cabins just across the dusty road from each other in the West Branch Camp. Their lives and friendships have been interwoven for over 79 years."

The book itself is beautifully, elegantly designed. It includes a logging glossary, 142 historic photographs, and maps by Chris Ficken. The remembrances, set within the context of Diamond's experience in Northern California, center on "The Woods." The term "is still used in the forest products industry to denote the logging operation locations. Our homes were in very remote areas and surrounded by The Woods." It was a place of danger where their fathers worked, but "as we reached the ages of eight or nine, our parents were comfortable with us exploring and hiking outside the camp borders ... one had to be there in order to feel the security and trust that many of us developed between each other and The Woods."

The larger purpose of the book, Dennison told me in an email, is "to let the reader sit back and 'feel' The Kids' stories about the logging communities which formed their basic life foundation. The sounds of steam locomotive engines and bells, the school house bell, the water running in the streams in our backyards, abundant wildlife, the smells of summer flowers, as well as the dust from the camp roads and the tragedy of severe injuries/deaths and wildfires were all part of our early lives, which we wish to share with others. ... Life was hard, but The Kids recall fondly that our lives in the logging camps were good...very good." And so is the book.

Seeing Genesis through the eyes of Qabalah

Chico author Glynda-Lee Hoffmann recounts her quest for self-knowledge in "The Genesis Code: Your Key To Unlocking Hidden Genius" ($12.95 in paperback from CreateSpace; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format). Hers was a difficult childhood; "in my forties," she writes, looking back, "I underwent three years of therapy and finally realized that the punishment I endured from my parents and teachers most likely had nothing to do with me. ..."

Those experiences left her lonely, bereft of love; though, mysteriously, there were also moments (a Voice; a vision of being inside the mind of Jesus) that left her with a yearning for "clarity": "Clarity is salvation." She forgot these experiences (only to recover them later). Then, in her twenties, she was given given a book, by French author Carlo Suares, which used the Qabalah to interpret Genesis. She was hooked.

An author interview is scheduled for this Friday at 10:00 a.m. on Nancy's Bookshelf, on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

The Qabalah is an ancient mystical tradition that sees deep meaning in each Hebrew letter. The first, ALEPH, "is the undetectable pulse of life." The second, BAYT, "is the static container which forms a boundary or perimeter which contains life." ALEPH is inner, BAYT outer. Each word of Genesis is a kind of acronym embodying the qualities of its letters.

Creation in Genesis is an outer story, the past. But the garden is an inner story, the present, the story of self-awareness and the presence of light. "I can't call it God since that implies separation. I am God, so the God that saves me is the energy that is me. ... The Qabalah recognizes that life is the only truth that exists. Life, not God, is our source." For Hoffmann, this was the moment of clarity. Eden is "a portrayal of our inner, psychological and neurological world."

Adam, in this inner story, is the neocortex and Eve is "the frontal lobe" which "emerged last in the human brain, extracted from the tissue of the neocortex, yet expressing new qualities, possibilities, and opportunities for human awareness, vision, and perception." YHWH is inner and outer intercommunication, "a process, not a deity, not the Lord."

It's amazing what the human imagination can find within the text.

A new Brett Raven adventure from a Chico author

Mike Paull, pilot and retired dentist, created in Brett Raven a brainy, handsome dentist who is also a pilot. His first outing came in "Flight of Betrayal" and now, hard on its heels, we have "Flight of Deception" ($15.99 in paperback from Skyhawk Publishing; also available as an Amazon Kindle e-book), billed as "the second in the Brett Raven trilogy."

The first two books form a continuous story, and though new readers can start with book two (the shenanigans in book one are recounted within the first forty pages), it's best to start with "Flight of Betrayal" for the full effect. "Flight of Deception" is a story of sweet revenge, with Raven and former wife Annie going to great lengths to recover millions of dollars and put things right.

Paull will be signing copies of his books at a wine and cheese reception at Canyon Oaks Country Club in Chico on Thursday, September 19, from 5:30-6:30 p.m. The event is open to the public.

The story takes place in 2000, and Raven and his ex-wife Annie are seeing a lot of each other. Brett is in love and wants to marry Annie, but the relationship is "complicated." "Are the issues you're dealing with still related to when I talked you into the abortion?" Brett asks.

Annie: "Brett, I've already forgiven you for that. I just have to be sure I've forgiven myself. I keep thinking about the plans we made twenty years ago when we were in college ... but now that I'm in my forties and living with the realization I can never have children. ... I want to solve my own problems. Our relationship will never be right if I let you solve all the problems, make all the decisions, and I just come along for the ride."

And it's quite a ride, as Brett enlists the help of some key acquaintances to spin a web to catch a bad guy. Brett rarely makes a mistake, and part of the fun of the book is watching his elaborate plot unfold like clockwork (though Annie may have upset the best laid plans). No dental forensics this time, but plenty of fawning over a "twin engine Beechcraft Baron." Or, in Brett's words: "Pretty sweet."

A Chicoan in Paris

Prolific Chico writer and photographer Doug Keister went to Paris--to study its cemeteries. He got an Eiffel! (Gustave Eiffel is buried in the Levallois-Perret Cemetery, a towering figure indeed--whose mausoleum is “out of alignment with the other tombs in the cemetery” so Gustave could face his masterpiece.)

The result of Keister’s study, aided by a number of dedicated taphophiles (“lovers of cemeteries”), is rather, shall we say, monumental. “Stories In Stone Paris: A Field Guide To Paris Cemeteries and Their Residents” ($24.99 in hardcover from Gibbs Smith, Publisher) includes hundreds of color photographs detailing cemetery symbolism, architecture, and cemeteries themselves.

Though designed as a guidebook (including GPS coordinates) for those touring the monuments, Keister’s eye for detail and the telling tale will keep armchair travelers engrossed as well. Tidbits abound. “A word,” he writes, “about the permanence of burial in Paris--Americans are often shocked to find that, unlike in America, where burial is permanent, burial in much of Europe is often a temporary affair.” In fact, “many graves are essentially rented for various periods of time.”

Jim Morrison’s grave in Père-Lachaise (he the “lead singer for the late 1960s/early 1970s rock group the Doors” who “visited Paris in March 1971 and never left”) was almost given to someone else in 2001 after the rental period expired but, fortunately for fans, he’s still there.

Marcel Proust is there as well, but Napoléon is in Les Invalides (“a rambling complex of buildings relating to France’s military history”), born “in Corsica, the second of eight children of noble Genoese parents.” Asked if he could conquer Europe, he was said to have said, Corsican! (Well, not really, but I couldn’t resist.)

From dogged puns to a true dog cemetery: “The Paris Dog Cemetery, which bills itself as the world’s oldest public pet cemetery,” was established in 1899. Know who’s there? Rin Tin Tin. Rinty died in 1932 but helped popularize “the German shepherd breed in the United States.”

Then there’s Saint-Denis, where lies Marie-Antoinette, who didn’t quite say “let them eat cake.” The word was actually “brioche,” “a type of egg and butter bread," still unkind words to starving citizens. Only, "there is no evidence whatsoever that Marie-Antoinette ever uttered those now infamous words."

See? Keister leaves no stoned unturned.

The printed version of "Nancy's Bookshelf"

Nancy Wiegman has been interviewing authors on Nancy's Bookshelf, aired on Northstate Public Radio (KCHO, 91.7 FM), since July 2007. The half-hour weekly program features local writers as well as visitors with a bit more notoriety, including Maya Angelou, Mike Farrell, Steve Lopez, Paula Poundstone, and Scott Simon. For each interview, it's clear to listeners that the host has done her homework, including the requisite reading. Her questions help the author tell the story of the book; they offer gentle nudges, astute reflections, compassionate understanding.

And now, with the help of husband Neal (book designer and transcriptionist extraordinaire), thirty-one of the interviews, including those above, are appearing in printed form. Reading "Conversations With Writers" ($14.95 in paperback from Yellow Arrow Press) is like sitting down to eat with some of the most interesting people; their words, which sometimes pass us by in audio form, become something different on the page: They are there to savor, to ponder, to read again. (Audio archives of the interviews are available on the KCHO.org site.)

Lyon Books in downtown Chico will be hosting a signing and discussion with Nancy and Neal Wiegman, Wednesday, August 28 at 7:00 p.m.

Nancy volunteers for the broadcast, directs the yoga program at Chico Sports Club, has a Master's in French linguistics, and was named Outstanding Woman of Chico in 1999. Neal has a Ph.D. in Spanish and is himself the author of several books, including the novel "Walking the Way: A Medieval Quest." (His interview by Nancy is included in the book, which also contains several photographs, additional notes by Neal, a list of the guests on each program through July 2013, and--full disclosure--several excerpts from this column and some kind mentions.)

Interviews range from Rob Burton, on the history of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in "Hops and Dreams," to Troy Jollimore, Chico State University philosopher and award-winning poet, whose "Love Poem" is just this: "I ache for you / with all of the teeth / that fell out of my mouth / when I was a child."

There's the story of Janis Joplin, from her sister Laura; Robb Wolf on "The Paleo Solution," Laird Easton on Harry Kessler ("The Red Count"), who knew Nietzsche; and more. The table is set. The book is the feast.

Chico author on reclaiming the art of conversation

"I live with my husband and a pair of yellow labs in Northern California," writes Peggy Jennings-Severe, "and am currently a student services administrator" at Butte College. And, oh yes: "I want to meet Oprah."

While Oprah can talk to anyone about anything, it seems, striking up a conversation is for many people something of a lost art. Over the years Jennings-Severe "watched older couples at restaurants, seated across from each other, eating in silence, which felt incredibly sad and lonely to me." Going out on a dinner date with husband Rhys was awkward: "It was if I had nothing to say that didn't begin with or include our children."

Yet people yearn for meaningful contact. What if they had a fun way to start the conversation? "Although my family, friends, and colleagues chuckle, roll their eyes, and mildly moan when I tell them it's time for verbal cards or begin an activity designed to break the ice, I think they secretly look forward to it--well, maybe not all, but most."

What changed the author's family is now available in book form. "Life Talks: A Guide To Bringing Back Conversation" ($15 in paperback from CreateSpace; also in Amazon Kindle e-book format) offers key questions and activities for baby showers, reunions, long car rides, retirement, Valentine's Day, and many more (see lifetalksbook.com).

Lyon Books in downtown Chico will be hosting a book signing (and conversation!) Monday, August 26 at 7:00 p.m.

For birthday parties, the group gets in a circle and someone begins by saying "'What I appreciate about __ is...' (No sarcasm is allowed.)" Such verbal cards last far longer than Hallmark. The birthday person joins in, too: "What is the most valuable lesson you learned last year?" "What questions about your life do you want answered in the coming year?" At family gatherings, members sort cards each with a quality written on it, like "creativity," "religion" "winning." Which are the most important, or least important? Surprises abound as the conversation gets going.

Thanksgiving gatherings are a great place to start. "What five things remain on your bucket list?" "You have been given unlimited resources to create a totally new and unique theme park. What would it be?"

This book will get people talking.

"The Bard of Butte and the poet of Helltown"

Pres Longley, born in 1824, dreamed that one day his poems would be made into a book. Now, more than a century later, his dream has come true. "The Miner Poet: Poems of Pres Longley" ($19.95 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing), edited by John Rudderow and Nancy Leek, presents more than a hundred of his poems, along with a substantial dose of Longley's witty and self-deprecating prose, in a handsome volume that is simply a must read.
Lyon Books in downtown Chico will be hosting a book signing Tuesday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m.
The editors's introduction highlights the themes that captured the poet's heart, including Democratic politics, women's suffrage and the miners' plight; he "stood with them in their struggles against natural disasters, corporate greed, and ever-passing time."
He also wrote of his single status (he was almost 60 before he married) and "the effect that the gradual arrival of women had on the giant bachelor party that was gold rush California." For years he lived in a cabin "on Boneyard Flat, halfway between Centerville and Helltown, in Butte Creek Canyon. Helltown was a boom town in the 1850s, but by the time Pres settled there in 1866 most of the miners had moved on to the Comstock Lode and the Fraser River."
"I hold that true poets are prophets," he once wrote, "Whose voices are echoes sublime, / Whose songs are the anthems of nations / That float down the river of time." But he wasn't averse to writing about the small things, like bumping into a "Girl I Saw On L Street": "I've been in stormy battle's fray, / And heard the bullets whistle, / But never have been wounded with / So dear a little miss-ile."
"The rarest treasures of the tropic land," the poet observed, "On 'Rancho Chico' have been brought to stand. ..." He longed "for the good old days of yore, / When statesmanship was pure; / When men would scorn monopolies / Who tempted them with lure." He wrote for the Democratic Butte Record and skewered the Republican newspaper in "The Critic": "All must admit the man's a cheat / Who slobbers out the damndest lies, / Then hides himself behind a sheet / He calls the Chico Enterprise."
This is Pres Longley, the Bard of Butte.

A children's book about friendship and reunion

The new children's story from Marcia Sbarbaro-Pezzella and her brother, Vic Sbarbaro, is a tale of separation and reunion. Illustrated by Josh Smith, "Penelope the Lonesome Pillow" ($12.95 in paperback from North State Children's Books) begins with a little cottage in the Swiss Alps. An aging and lonely widow, Gretene Fritzl, has only two friends, "a rocking chair and matching pillow that she had stuffed and covered. She called the rocking chair Roxie and the matching pillow Penelope."

Vic Sbarbaro, a Certified Health Education Specialist who teaches at Butte College and Chico State University, edited the story from one his sister wrote. Marcia, born in Weed, worked as "a special education teacher for disabled children" and now helps with her husband's restaurant, Pezzella's.

Mrs. Fritzl loved Roxie and Penelope ("Penny") and in turn they talked with her. "Mrs. Fritzl was always afraid to tell anyone for fear that they would think her crazy. Mrs. Fritzl was a religious woman; she actually felt that God sent down special blessings to this particular rocking chair and pillow. Why they even had cloth eyes, ears, and voices to keep her company."

But together-time was not to last. Mrs. Fritzl died. "It was a rainy day in the small Swiss village. The little Fritzl cottage was dark with grief. Roxie and Penelope both shed a thread of a tear for their beloved mistress. They would never forget her or her kindliness to them. They also realized they would never speak to another human being for a long time until they proved worthy of their special gift to talk."

What follows is is a long journey as Roxie and Penelope are put in separate boxes and shipped to America. Roxie's box gets an address, but somehow Penelope slips through the cracks and her box ends up at the Lost and Found. Then she gets passed from person to person, finally ending up with the Barnes family. Billy, the teenager, uses Penny as a cushion when he changes his car's oil. But his sister, Kathy Sue, who happens to be blind, takes a special liking to Penny. And when Kathy Sue's dad builds her a playhouse and brings home an old rocking chair for her to sit in--a little magic happens.

How "Wings of Eagles" came to be

"Wings of Eagles: The Joseph Alvarez Organization for Seriously Ill Children," founded in 1993, seeks "to relieve the financial burden of families" faced with life-threatening illness. "There is an 85 percent divorce rate," writes Georgia Alvarez, "among families with seriously ill children. If we could relieve the financial burden of families, help pay the costs that insurance, that Medi-Cal don't begin to cover, maybe the family could weather the emotional storm they would be faced with."

Georgia Alvarez is intimately acquainted with that "emotional storm." Born and raised in Princeton, she lived "on a two-thousand-acre walnut ranch in which my husband, Alberto, is the shop supervisor." With housing provided (even in their moves "from Butte City, to Chico, and then to Nord") the couple and their children had few real worries--until the doctor's phone call in 1989.

Joseph, then eight, was diagnosed with "acute lymphocytic leukemia with a Philadelphia chromosome ... so rare, that only ten children are diagnosed with it a year," all males. Joseph was terminal, one of his doctors said, and "even with a bone marrow transplant, he only had less than 20 percent chance for survival."

What happened next, the family strains, the tears, Joseph's care for others in the midst of his own pain, Georgia's "spiritual dreams" and a new relationship with God, are all recounted in "The Simple Plan: A Book Of Hope/A Book Of Dreams" ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format). There's a section of family photographs, too: This happened to a real family, and it nearly tore them apart.

Despair and hope played tag. Before the bone marrow transplant (his younger sister Mary was the donor), Joseph underwent repeated full-body radiation and harsh chemotherapy. The transplant seemed to help, but then Joseph relapsed. His mother described him as wise beyond his years. At one point Joseph said to her, "I'm an angel, and God sent me down to earth to teach, but now my job is done." He died early in 1991.

Thanks to an article in this newspaper, strangers began to make donations to help the family. Two years later, Georgia, with other volunteers, established Wings of Eagles, an ongoing memorial to a little boy whose life touched so many.

Chico novelist explores the secrets of the asylum

Something happened at the Emerson Rose Asylum in the late 1970s. Everyone left, suddenly; "patients, doctors, and staff completely vanished and were never seen again." Later, as the asylum falls to the wrecking ball, someone finds a series of letters stuffed in a bed, addressed to a "Dr. Quill." The brutal and heartbreaking letters, all from patients, are fictional; but they serve to illuminate not only the abuses one might imagine go on at certain mental institutions, but also the individual lives, where getting inside their heads is hardly imaginable at all.
Though "Letters From The Looney Bin" (self-published, $2.99 in Amazon Kindle e-book format) is not about Thatcher C. Nalley's actual experience doing intake work at Butte County Behavioral Health, it's clear her time there reaffirmed a commitment to help tell stories of mental illness from the inside out. The dozen letters all speak of something brewing at the asylum--maybe a mass escape--in the wake of the terror of Dr. V., the new man in charge.
With compassionate and wise care, those in the asylum can make at least a little progress in stilling the demons. Such compassion was represented by Dr. Huxley, but now he's dead of a heart attack. For one patient, Juliette, the demons are startlingly real. "I don't talk about the demons that come to my room at night," she writes in her letter to Dr. Quill. "I've seen what this place does to others who tell about the things they see. The orderlies come and take them away in the middle of the night. I think sometimes they take their brain, because their minds are gone by morning."
The letters tell of horrendous childhood abuse and neglect, and it's clear from the stories that those in the asylum could not very well be walking the street. Sabel screams, loudly, and yearns for control. The "white coats" allow one of the doctors to alter "my throat to where I cannot make any sounds, no sounds at all." Perhaps it is no wonder that Sabel runs to the nurse's station, picks up a typewriter, and smashes the head of one of those "white coats."
One can say, with full awareness of many meanings here, that this is strong medicine.

How a Chico man helped Ronald Reagan become Governor

"We had him for three days," writes Chicoan Ken Holden of Ronald Reagan, "in a tiny beach cottage near Malibu. This was in early 1966. Just three of us in a small beach cottage. An unlikely candidate for governor of California, he'd already goofed up a few public appearances. He couldn't seem to get his footing, he looked unprepared, he mangled details." Even his friends were ready to give up. But behavioral psychologist Ken Holden, and his business associate and friend Stan Plog, saw that he just needed a little training.

Holden tells the story of what happened in "The Making of the Great Communicator: Ronald Reagan's Transformation From Actor To Governor" ($26.95 in hardcover from Lyons Press; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format).

"Only three people on earth knew the full story of what happened in Malibu over those seventy-two hours, how we helped transform a B-move actor into a political giant. ... Ronald Reagan died in 2004, and Stan Plog is just gone, in 2010, so only I'm left standing. I know the full story. I'm the only one left to bear witness."

As conservatives, Holden and Plog found liberal academia little to their liking. So they started a consulting firm and eventually found themselves connected to the Reagan for Governor campaign. Part of what makes the book a delightful read is Holden's keen observations of California politics. "By late '65," he writes, "California Republicans were waging a nasty civil war. As in all such wars, it pitted the old against the new, the moderate Establishment Republicans versus the fiery conservative Young Turks." Who would win?

Set against the backdrop of the Free Speech Movement (Reagan called it the "filthy speech movement") and the Watts riots, the story of Ronald Reagan's ascension is simply fascinating, especially the central chapters detailing how Holden and Plog helped the candidate focus on California issues and articulate clear and concise positions. For Holden, Reagan was the real deal--well read, thoughtful, charming and charismatic. But he needed honing.

Holden and Plog insisted that the campaign stop for three days, and that they and Reagan meet privately, without a word to the press. "None of this was negotiable. Take it or leave it." They took it.