EVENTS for Writer in a Life Vest

April 2023

Lopez Center for Community and the Art (LCCA), April 21, 7:30 PM

A Poet, A Novelist, and An Essayist Walked Into An Indie Press…
A Celebration of Three Lopez Authors and Homebound Publications

Join Lopez authors Kip Robinson Greenthal, Abigail Morgan Prout, and Iris Graville for an evening of reading and storytelling about their books and their experience with Massachusetts-based Homebound Publications. The event is free. Books will be available for purchase.

Earth Day Orcas 2023, April 22

Eco-literature events all day, opening with Abigail Prout and Iris Graville at 10am in the Emmanuel Episcopal Chapel in Eastsound, Orcas Island

WA State Poet Laureate Rena Priest and Orcas Poet Jill McCabe Johnson read in the Chapel at 3pm thanks to support from Humanities WA.

Previous Events

Bookstores/libraries that have hosted events likely have copies of Writer in a Life Vest in stock – and they might be signed!

September 2022

Pacific Northwest Essayists at Kingfisher Books, September 30

Pacific Northwest authors Heather Durham and Iris Graville will read from and discuss their new essay collections at Coupeville’s Kingfisher Bookstore, September 30th, 5-6 pm. Admission is free, although seating is limited at the store located at 16 Front St. 

Wolf Tree: An Ecopsychological Memoir in Essays melds Durham’s backgrounds in psychology and ecology to examine her relationships with resonant landscapes, animals, and human animals, and the myriad environmental, physiological, and cultural factors that inform those relationships. In lyric or more traditional personal essays, linear narratives or meandering musings, each exploration builds on the one before, quilting together a patchwork terrain of ruminations, insights, and ever more questions that comprise the examined life of an earthling.

In Writer in a Life Vest: Essays from the Salish Sea, Graville uses a storyteller’s hand to tackle complex interconnections and conflicts related to climate change. Drafted when Graville served as the first Writer-in-Residence for Washington State Ferries, her thirty-six lyric essays explore threats to Southern Resident killer whales, highlight the voices of climate activists and marine scientists, and relate the joys (and challenges) of ferry transport among the state’s San Juan Islands.

For more information, contact Kingfisher Bookstore at 360-678-8463. 

September 8, The Whale Museum: Friday Harbor, WA.

September 13, Wenatchee River Institute, Red Barn Event: Leavenworth, WA. See recording below.

May 2022

May 12, Third Place Books: Lake Forest Park, WA

May 25, San Juan Island Library. Author Talk with Iris Graville from San Juan Island Library on Vimeo.

April 2022

April 21, Orcas Island Library: Eastsound, WA

Tom Rawson

Iris read excerpts from Writer in a Life Vest and was joined by special guest, singer/songwriter Tom Rawson. Recorded event available on the Orcas Library YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAdrC7UnrDI&t=2341s.

Books signed by the author available at Darvill’s Bookstore in Eastsound.

April 9, Village Books Literature Live Events: Bellingham, WA

Books signed by the author available at Village Books in Fairhaven.

April 2, Browsers Bookshop: Olympia, WA

Books signed by the author available at Browsers.

March 2022

March 24, Book Launch at Lopez Island Library: Lopez Island, WA.

Recording of Launch Event – For those who couldn’t attend the debut of the book at Lopez Island Library, you can watch and listen here: 

March 22, Book Signing at Lopez Bookshop: Lopez Island, WA

Books signed by the author available at Lopez Bookshop

Past Events for Hiking Naked

Bookstores/libraries that have hosted events likely have copies of Hiking Naked in stock – and they might be signed!