I have published a new e-novella called Teacher of the Year. The bulk of it was written in 2011 and I recently cut 45,000 words to complete this final form. It’s available through Amazon at
Nestucca Spit Press will feature Teacher of the Year on its website this spring. A print version may be ready by then as well.
As always thanks for supporting my writing and an independent Oregon publisher.
Summary of the book is below:
A reluctant teacher becomes advisor to a moribund high school newspaper. He meets the new editor, a dynamic 18-year-old senior, and together they begin a unique creative collaboration that revives the publication and slowly slides into gray areas. As the poet Octavio Paz wrote, “To realize itself, love must violate the rules of our world…committed by two stars that break out of the conception of love, which implies breaking away and a catastrophe…”
Teacher of the Year unfolds in an energetic mixture of epistle, stream-of-consciousness, narrative and meditations on the craft and alchemy of teaching. There is no other more authentic literary exploration into the agonies and ecstasies of teaching in the annals of American literature than this novella.
Nestucca Spit Press, an independent Oregon publisher for 22 years, is offering a 4th of July special two for one sale. Purchase any of the titles below and receive another one for free. (Just leave a note with the order via PayPal) I’ll also thrown in a hand-crafted Oregon-themed bookmark and other goodies.
Thank you for your support and head to the website and place your order today!
Twenty years ago this spring I launched Nestucca Spit Press to publish/present Let It Pour, a web site chronicling dive tavern and bars on the Oregon Coast. It finally left this world a year ago after I decided not to renew the domain name. Most of the joints were gone or gentrified anyway.
At the time, I never dreamed that two decades later NSP would have published almost 30 books/publications ranging from poetry to fiction to memoir to history to pamphlets to magazines and sold/distributed almost 40,000 literary items across the region and beyond.
I want to thank all the purchasers and readers of NSP publications. You kept an independent Oregon publisher going, and it was especially important to me as a person during a dark and dangerous time not that long ago. I never stopped writing and the writing took on a different, better path.
In 2022, NSP will publish a fantastic and groundbreaking book of non fiction written by Drew Kaza called High Contrast, set in 1972, about Jefferson High School’s remarkable basketball championship season featuring an all Black team victory over an all white Baker City squad. It was a cultural landmark and a story of racial relations more relevant today than it was 50 years ago.
I have a favor to ask. To support NSP and its unique editorial mission, will you consider purchasing a title through the web site/blog, or make a contribution in support of the blog, or purchase some of the new print and e-book titles available on Amazon. Link here:
Thanks for considering. I look forward to leading NSP into its third decade.
A special thanks to Lena, Amira, Cindy, Shannon, Erin, Pioneer Printing and Brandy for all the help over the years. It always has been, and always will be, a collaborative effort.
I want to update you on NSP’s latest creative projects and invite your support to assist an independent Oregon publisher during these challenging times for small businesses. Some of these are free to enjoy while others can be purchased directly through the website. Thanks for supporting Nestucca Spit Press.
Matt Love
Pioneer Pride
Pioneer Pride: An Oregon City Memoir is a 20,000-word book published in 500-800-word installments on my Nestucca Spit Press Meditations blog. It chronicles my growing up in Oregon City in the 70s and early 80s and features stories about hackey sack, calligraphy, football, tennis, the Promenade, the mill, journalism, teachers, coaches, text from my journals of in high school, and a personal account of observing and interacting with a unique Christian sect, the Oregon City Followers of Christ Church, or the Kissers.
The book is free to read but I hope readers will consider “purchasing” it through the web site and support a writer at work. To read Pioneer Pride go to:
Published in 2004, The Far Out Story of Vortex I, sold out its 2000-copy press run a couple years later. To commemorate Vortex I’s 50th anniversary in 2020, Nestucca Spit Press has produced an E-book version of the book. This E-book version does not include the hundreds of photographs from the original because of their incompatibility with reading on devices and securing permission from the photographers to reprint them in digital form. The book cost $3.99 and the link to it is here:
A limited edition, handcrafted children’s book for adults about a magic mushroom-eating chipmunk named Jimmy who teaches a would-be writer how to help struggling people all around him and find a voice and purpose for his writing. (Based on a true story.) Cost is $10
Oregon Tavern Age (OTA) is a 64-page tabloid size book-with-in-a-magazine featuring original illustrations that culminates 22 years of writing about the crazy and poignant life that unfolds in Oregon Coast’s dive taverns and bars. Cost varies by number of issues purchased.
Enjoy 20 episodes featuring my observations, stories, poems, musings and original music from the show’s producer. Each show is around 20 minutes long and offers a welcome dose of humor, idealism, wordplay and meditation for these trying times. Totally free! And ad free! To listen to the show go to:
The Nestucca Spit Press Writing Curriculum features 30 lessons that I developed over the course of my long teaching career and used with great success. They are primarily in nonfiction writing, but also in fiction. Most are thematic in nature. They can be used by secondary classroom teachers, aspiring writers and online writing educators. The subjects are:
Zen Buddhism
Walking
Rain
Oceans
Food
Music
Stars
Kindness and Gratitude
Sartre Writing (for beginning or experienced writers)
In recent months, I have been resurrecting some of my 500 or so mix tapes and revisiting them and the interesting little histories that only mix tapes can provide. It’s about the music, of course, but also about the art and the naming, and where you were in life when you made the tape.
One in particular arrested me, and I am
listening to it as I write this now, on a tiny little player, in
mono! Neil Young is soloing on “Like a Hurricane.”
The tape is titled Urge, Urge and
Urge after a line from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It
was compiled during October, 2003. I was 39 years old. There is no
track list only my scrawl of the sentence: “Ready to pack it in.”
That is a reference to my writing
career at that point in my life. I was unpublished in book format. I
had endured so many rejections for my memoir of being caretaker of a
wildlife refuge, that I was ready to quit. There was so much crap out
there but I couldn’t cut through the crap.
Ryan Adams is now playing.
But I wasn’t ready to “pack it in”
yet. I no longer recall what prompted me to create Nestucca Spit
Press and publish my books and run an end run around the regional
publishing industry and get my Oregon stories out. I was probably
cruising Nestucca Spit in Bob Straub State Park with the dogs and it
was raining plywood walls.
Star Star by the Stones rocking
now….and that priceless Steve McQueen line.
But I did create NSP and it was more
than an act of defiance. Defiance doesn’t last as creative
inspiration for 17 years. That’s only one limited tone. For all of
you out there who have supported NSP’s unique editorial mission,
thank you. More to come. A collection of Christmas tales this holiday
season, presuming there is one.
Nestucca Spit Press seeks an intern to
support an independent Oregon publisher in its ongoing mission to
produce and disseminate unique Oregon stories and books.
Duties involve transcribing interviews,
conducting historical research, proofreading and publicity. The
internship will last for six months. Benefits include a small stipend
at the conclusion of a successful internship, free tuition to any
Nestucca Spit Press writing workshop (next one is Sept. 14 in
Astoria), and editorial input/comment into any writing the intern
wants to share.
The internship is an excellent
opportunity for someone interested in learning the regional book
publishing business and/or assisting in resurrecting and curating
long lost stories and books, or wants to help an Oregon publishing
company founded in 2002 that has distributed well over 30,000 books
during that span, exclusively through independent bookstores, live
events, out of the back of my vehicles, or through thrift stores.
All work can be performed remotely.
If this offer intrigues, message me,
and include a statement outlining your interest and availability. I
could really use the help. (Please share this post with anyone you
might think would be interested in such a gig.)
