Come celebrate the release of Ellen Waterston’s new collection of essays, Where the Crooked River Rises, A High Desert Home, at February’s Second Sunday. The reading will take place on Sunday, February 13^th at 2:00 p.m. in the Brooks Room of the Bend Public Library. This event is free and open to the public, and an open mic will follow.

Where the Crooked River Rises was released in October 2010 by Oregon State University Press. Each of the essays takes its inspiration from an aspect of the high desert of Central Oregon, where Waterston lived and ranched for two decades. Since it’s release, Where the Crooked River Rises has received accolades from a number of Northwest writers. Kim Stafford, author of The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft, wrote, “Let this book take you…far out to listen with Waterston’s keen intelligence at remote Oregon places. This book accelerates the seeker’s life, offering concise accounts of local character, rutted roads, resonant silence, and unfolding mystery.

Ellen Waterston was recently rewarded the 2011/2012 Ann Werner writer-in-residence by Fishtrap in Enterprise, Oregon. Her essays and poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Best Essays Northwest, High Desert Journal, Oregon Quarterly, Ronde Dance and New Poets of the American West. Her memoir, Then There Was No Mountain, was rated one of the top ten books by the Oregonian in 2003. She lives in Bend, OR where she is the executive director and founder of The Nature of Words and president of the Writing Ranch.

For Questions about this or other library programs, or ADA inquiries, please contact Lisa McGean at 541-312-1034 or visit the library at www.deschuteslibrary.org.