Question for Folks in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle

Our new book will be coming out in the spring, and we’re thinking about doing a small book tour up the west coast this May. Stodgy old-fashioned book signings make us miserable–we much prefer to be interactive. We prefer to do talks, panels, workshops and demos. We really like meeting new people and seeing what they’re up to. For this reason, we’d love to leave the beaten track for this book tour. We’re looking to hook up with like-minded venues/organizations/groups in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

If you have any suggestions, let us know. We’re pretty sure our publisher will set up a gig for us at the esteemed Powell’s. Beyond that, though…we’d welcome any ideas.

ETA: You can make suggestions here in the comments or send us an email: [email protected]

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26 Comments

  1. Seattle Tilth may be a good organization to hook up with here, and they can definitely direct you in some other directions if they aren’t the right fit!

  2. Try Mrs Dalloway’s bookstore in Berkeley: http://www.mrsdalloways.com. A beautiful independent bookstore with an outstanding gardening and horticulture selection near the Cal campus. There is a great deal of interest here in the topics you address. Would love to see you stop by the East Bay.

  3. The Urban Farm Store or Livingscape Nursery in Portland might be good spots to stop. They have lots of classes and panels regularly anyway.

  4. Maybe this is a little crazy, but I have a book coming out in Spring about my first year of starting up a small farm… and if you wanted to do any joint workshops or publicity type things in the bay area, I’d love to brainstorm some ideas and possibly work with you! I live in Sonoma County (an hour+ north of SF) and have a guest bedroom on the farm that always welcomes like-minded visitors. I wonder if maybe a few of us farm/homestead/writer types could get together and make some kind of mini, Daily Acts-esque workshop series around the bay area. (Daily Acts is a local non-profit that hosts well-attended sustainability and homestead workshops throughout the year.)

    I know Dog Island Farm in the East Bay is featured in a book written by someone in Petaluma, so maybe they would be interested in participating? Of course there’s Novella Carpenter, but I don’t know her personally. And there are greenhorns floating around everywhere, who are affiliated with the Greenhorn organization, documentary, and future book.

    Anyway, maybe the thought is entirely ridiculous and far-fetched, but I always believe that the more the merrier: cross pollination could potentially be beneficial to all involved. (It works for the bees and the fruit trees, at least.) Might even make the workshops a bit news-worthy and help with attendance. And how fun would it be to see other folks’ farms! I don’t get out and visit other farms nearly enough.

    By the way, I was born and raised in San Diego, and some corner of my heart will always belong to Southern California 🙂 It’s been fun to read your blog and see everything you’re doing in LA… My husband and I just started following it a few weeks ago.

    -Lynda

  5. I grew up in Sonoma County, so Sonoma County (Petaluma and Sebastopol in particular) are great places to visit.

    Any thoughts on Sacramento? We have a co-op here that would probably be interested in having you both speak.

  6. Autopia Biofuel in San Mateo, CA (15 mins South of SF) carries your first book, and has a great area for collecting and sharing information in their eco-store. It’s a fun venue with friendly people!

  7. Olympia, WA. Orca Books & the public library partner up with some regularity to bring authors to town. The Evergreen State College also has a garden, and there’s GRuB – Garden Raised Bounty – who works with youth and low-income people to start edible city gardens. http://www.goodgrub.org It’s a very food/garden-positive place, for a small town.

  8. Kings Books in Tacoma, Washington regularly holds talks and workshops on local food, DIY and permaculture. I work for the Pierce County Library System in WA and would love to help get a program going at one of our branches.

  9. You would be welcome to stay overnight (and give a talk if you like) at our co-housing community 2 hours south of Portland. We have a guest room, and a group (resilience network) which would be interested in the book and a talk. Email [email protected] and ask for Nancy.

  10. Seattle Tilth would be the first group to talk to. They have an edible plant sale on May 8th and 9th which brings out a lot of people. There are stages with talks, booths for selling starts, music, ect. If you’re into radio, KUOW 94.9 tends to attract like minded folk and has a regular garden show on tuesdays which tends to digress. Elliot Bay Book Company is another good place for a talk.

    That’s the beaten path. Beyond that, there are occasionally events at one of the architectural salvage shops in town focused on sustainability. Also, there’s a 300 acre dairy farm an hour northeast of the city that’s been converted into a non-profit artist farm and meeting place. Christy and I could probably set up some sort of talk or weekend there with good folks. If you’re sick of the road, you’re obviously welcome at the Yome!

  11. If you don’t already know annette cottrell at Seattle urban farm co-op you should really touch base with her. Lots of innovative things going on, including “community owned agriculture” (as opposed to community supported). She blogs at sustainableeats.com.

  12. In Seattle: The UW Farm is a group of students who run a ‘farm’ on UW campus. They are very Do it yourself and have a lot of energy due to the large number of students in the group. They also have access to rooms at UW for lectures, etc. You can email them at [email protected]

  13. Hi from Seattle. A few ideas… as others have said, Tilth is a great point of contact in Seattle, and the spring edible plant sale is a big event. Alleycat Acres are your kind of urban farming collective, and the various neighborhood “sustainable” groups (Sustainable Ballard, Sustainable West Seattle) might also be good. I’m trying to think of like-minded local authors, it would be really fun to team you up with Lyanda (paperback coming out in April) and Langdon Cook (Fat of the Land) and maybe others for some kind of spring urban nature/farming/sustainability/beekeeping/foraging shindig. Get in touch directly if you want to scheme more…

  14. If you’re driving, you should really consider a stop in Southern Oregon, say, perhaps Ashland? We would really appreciate it, as our neck of the woods often gets looked over….

  15. If you go through Humboldt County I’m sure HSU would host a talk at the school in Arcata, I’d love to go. 🙂

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