Grass Roots Books
227 SW 2nd Street

The Soft Fall is a folkloric fantasy retelling of ancient Roman mythology with a twist of lycanthropy. 

In The Soft Fall, demon wolves roam the forest, the villagers all said. Dianna had been warned to stay away.

She didn’t listen.

Now every full moon Dianna slinks into the cellar beneath the barn. Into the cage made by her brother to protect her secret. One that would get her burned at the stake by the village leaders if discovered.
The heirs to the throne disappear just as their enemies lay siege to the empire. Famine hits the village as it struggles to survive. Dianna does what she can to hunt and help. But her secret is discovered when she transforms during an attack.

Captured and imprisoned, Dianna must find a way to escape. If she does, she has only one direction to go. Into the heart of the forest where she was cursed.

Marissa Byfield was raised in the lush woodlands of the Pacific Northwest. After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in English from Oregon State University, Marissa married her high school sweetheart and finished writing her fantasy novel, The Soft Fall, inspired by her love of mythology and wolves. 

Marissa has been a longtime bookseller and the newsletter editor at Grass Roots Books & Music, Oregon’s second oldest independent bookstore. When not writing or reading, you’ll find her practicing yoga, musing over tarot by full moonlight, shelving at her local library, and fighting hate with love. She lives in Oregon with her husband.
 

Majestic Threatre
115 SW 2nd St, Corvallis, OR 97333
 

Regional Indigenous Art

Travis Stewart, is an artist and a creator of interpretive museum displays within the Chachalu Museum for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. In this lecture, he shares information about historic and current indigenous artwork, including a recently commissioned piece for display at OSU. Though the indigenous artwork of the past has been overlooked, Travis will share modern research into historic creations, as well as impressive current Kalapuya artists. To see an example of Travis's work, click here.
 

This lecture is free and open to the public. In the past, seats have filled quickly, so you may wish to arrive early.

Corvallis-Benton Community Public Library 
645 NW Monroe Ave., Corvallis, OR 97330

Elizabeth Rush's most recent book Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore was a finalist for this year's Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. Hailed as "deeply felt" by the New York Times and “the book on climate change and sea levels that was missing” by the Chicago Tribune, Rising is both a highly original work of lyric reportage and a haunting meditation on how to let go of the places we love.

With every passing day, and every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that rising seas are transforming the coastlines of the United States in irrevocable ways. Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. Weaving firsthand testimonials and profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of vulnerable communities, Rising privileges the voices of those too often kept at the margins.

Rush was awarded an Andrews Forest Writing Residency through the Spring Creek Project in 2016, and one chapter in Rising is set at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.

This event is free and open to everyone.