The Deschutes Public Library and Second Sunday have partnered to bring Newport writer Matt Love to Bend. He will be reading a selection from his work on Sunday, May 8, 2011 in the Brooks Room of the Downtown Bend Library at 2:00 p.m. An open mic will follow. This event is free and open to the public.

Frustrated with life, teaching, and the inability to become a writer, Matt Love escaped Portland in 1997 at 33 years of age and moved to the Oregon Coast. A year later he became caretaker of the 600-acre Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge. During his decade as caretaker, he helped restore the grounds to fuller ecology, discovered a love for teaching, and reinvented himself as a writer and historian who established Nestucca Spit Press. “Gimme Refuge: The Education of a Caretaker” is his passionate 777-page account of his teaching career and his experience as a caretaker. “Becoming the caretaker of the refuge was the biggest break of my life”, said Love. “I sincerely doubt I would have found my voice as a writer or developed my unique love for Oregon without this incredible opportunity. It also helped me return to teaching and to embrace and love that profession”.

Love is also the author/editor of “The Beaver State Trilogy”, “Citadel of the Spirit: Oregon’s Sesquicentennial Anthology”, and “Super Sundays in Newport: Notes From My First Year in Town”. In 2009, Love won the Oregon Literary Arts’ Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award for his contributions to Oregon history and literature. He lives in South Beach with his dog and teaches English and journalism at Newport High School. He’s currently working on a book about the filming of “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

For questions about this or other library events, or ADA concerns, please call Lisa McGean at 541/312-1034 or visit the library www.deschuteslibrary.org.