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Community Corner

Local Talent Showcased at Pumpkin Festival Books & Authors Booth

“Made on the Coast” Block of Street Fair Adds New Literary Component

Coastside authors, editors and photographers will come together at the Local Books & Authors booth on the second day of the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival. A new component of the block-long Made on the Coast (MOTC) section of the festival, the booth will have book signings throughout the day on Sunday, October 20.

The work of 22 Coastside residents will be featured in 35 published and self-published books. The booth’s sponsor, Harbor Books & Gallery, is also including a creative opportunity for festivalgoers—a haiku contest, with proceeds benefiting the MOTC Emerging Artist Grant.

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There’s an abundance of talented writers living on the Coastside,” says Harbor Books & Gallery owner Carole Brehm, who has worked in bookstores on the coast about 25 years, “and this is a great opportunity to promote a wide variety of work, from fiction to poetry to memoir.”

Featured works will include several books by celebrated local author Richard Rhodes, winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for The Making of the Atomic Bomb; author Bruce Jenkins and photographer Doug Acton’s Inside Maverick’s; Patricia Ryan Madson’s Improv Wisdom; Steve Hawk’s Waves; Aryae Coopersmith’s Holy Beggars; and Shannon Nottestad’s Legends of the Coastland.

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Participants in a fun, new Pumpkin Festival haiku contest will be asked to donate $1 per entry (free for under age 12) and will write their poems on colorful slips of paper. They will pin their haikus like Tibetan prayer flags along lines crisscrossing the ceiling of the booth. After the festival, entries will be judged by Brehm and local poets Clifford Hunt (Chapter 0) and David Minton (Exhausted Grace), and the winning haikus will be published in local media and on the festival website. For this contest, a haiku is defined as a poem consisting of three lines—with five syllables in the first, seven in the second, and five in the third.

In keeping with the Made on the Coast Artists’ Group’s commitment to fostering the arts on the coast, proceeds from the haiku contest will help fund MOTC’s Emerging Artist Grant, which will be awarded to a deserving young Coastside artist in January 2014. The grant will serve as a “working scholarship,” offering the chosen artist funds toward materials and/or studio rent. The recipient of the grant will also have work featured in the MOTC Local’s block in 2014. 

Schedule of Book-Signing Sessions

Sunday, October 20

10:00 AM –– Carla Brooke, author of Hanai & I

10:30 AM –– Shannon Nottestad, author of Legends of the Coastland

11:00 AM –– Thomas I. Kirkpatrick, author of The Ghost of Crathes Castle

11:30 AM –– Dr. Eric Z. Shapira, author of A New Wrinkle   

12:00 PM –– David Minton, author of Exhausted Grace

12:30 PM –– Clifford Hunt, author of Chapter 0 —and— Aryae Coopersmith, author of Holy Beggars

1:00 PM –– Steve Hawk, editor of Waves

1:30 PM –– Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, author of House of Song

2:00 PM –– Diane Lee Moomey, author of Place . . . The Heart of the Dragon

2:30 PM –– Peggy O'Leary, author of Franny’s San Francisco Adventure

3:00 PM –– Hester Schell, author of Casting Revealed

3:30 PM –– Terry Adams, author of Adam’s Ribs

4:00 PM –– Chris Voisard, author of Say Uncle

Located on Main Street between Mill and Kelly, the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival’s “Made on the Coast” block will welcome visitors from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. on Sunday only, October 20.

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