Arts and Lectures

The Modern Voices Authors Series continues its 2007-2008 season with a hilarious joint appearance by two Oregon authors, then wraps up in June with another join appearance - this of two of the nation's premiere mystery writers.

Each year, with the support of the Salem Public Library Foundation and other supporters, Salem Public Library hosts appearanced by significant contemporary literary voices.

Oregon Authors Speak!
A Night of Sex, Musical Theater and
One Tough Mother

featuring ...

Marc Acito
Author of How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater
and Attack of the Theater People, due out April 22

Gert Boyle
CEO of Columbia Sportswear and author of One Tough Mother

7 p.m. Thursday, May 22 in Loucks Auditorium
Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty St. SE

Tickets: $5 in advance/$7 at the door
On sale NOW at all Library Circulation Desks

Marc Acito’s comic debut novel, How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater won the Ken Kesey Award and made the American Library Association's Top Ten Teen Book List. It was also selected as an Editors' Choice by the New York Times, has been optioned for film by Columbia Pictures and is translated into five languages the author cannot read.

The sequel, Attack of the Theater People, comes out April 22. Author Jennifer Weiner says it is, "Jazz hands down, the funniest thing I've read this year." To enjoy a video preview on YouTube, click here .

For four years Acito shocked and amused readers with his syndicated humor column, The Gospel According to Marc which ran nationwide in 19 alternative newspapers. A former opera singer, he is now a regular commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, Acito lives in Portland, Oregon, with his long-time partner, Floyd Sklaver. The author can be contacted at www.marcacito.com where he blogs about his Quixotic quest to do something new every day.

Gertrude Boyle is the spirited matriarch and chairwoman of the board of the international outdoor apparel and footwear manufacturer Columbia Sportswear Company™. Hailed by Working Woman magazine as one of America’s Top 50 Women Business Owners — and named one of 1994’s “Best Managers” by Business Week Magazine — Mrs. Boyle is the center of Columbia’s irreverent, award-winning advertising campaign. She portrays cantankerous “Mother Boyle,” the overbearing taskmaster who enforces Columbia’s demanding quality standards. This campaign earned Columbia the coveted Marketing Innovation award at the 1997 Super Show, an international sporting goods and apparel trade show.

Boyle is the author of One Tough Mother with Kerry Tymchuk, a book detailing her transformation from housewife and mother of three to Chief Executive Officer of a highly successful sportswear company. Learn more about Gert Boyle and her company and see the current ad series here .

Popular, nationally known mystery writers
Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini
Appearing together!

7 p.m. Thursday, June 26 in Loucks Auditorium
Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty St. SE

Tickets: $5 in advance/$7 at the door
On sale beginning May 15 at all Library Circulation Desks

Marcia Muller was born in Detroit, Michigan, and received her bachelor's degree in English and master's degree in journalism from the University of Michigan. She worked as a journalist for a few years but when various editors noticed she sometimes embellished the facts to make her stories more interesting she decided to try her hand at fiction.

Her first Sharon McCone novel was published in 1977 and she has been a full time fiction writer since 1983. She is the author of 25 mystery novels featuring Sharon McCone, a San Francisco private investigator, the most recent of which, The Ever-Running Man was published in July 2007 to rave reviews. Vanishing Point (2006) and The Dangerous Hour (2005) were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of  three novels set in the fictional Soledad County on a remote stretch of the northern California coast, Point Deception (2001), Cyanide Wells (2003) and Cape Perdido (2005), which was selected by The Washington Post as one of the best mysteries of 2005.

In 2005 she was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, the highest honor the organization bestows. Her other honors include the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award; the Ridley Award; an American Mystery Award; and the Anthony Award.

She lives with her husband, the mystery writer Bill Pronzini, in northern California, where she at work on a new SharonMcCone novel, Burn Out, to be published in October 2008.

Bill Pronzini has published close to 70 novels, including three in collaboration with his wife, novelist Marcia Muller, and 33 in his popular “Nameless Detective” series.  He is also the author of four nonfiction books, 20 collections of short stories, and scores of uncollected stories, articles, essays, and book reviews; and he has edited or coedited numerous anthologies. His work has been translated into 18 languages and published in nearly 30 countries.

In 2008, he was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, the organization’s highest award. He has also received three Shamus Awards, two for Best Novel, and the Lifetime Achievement Award (presented in 1987) from the Private Eye Writers of America; and six nominations for MWA’s Edgar Allan Poe award. 

His suspense novel, Snowbound, was the recipient of the Grand Prix de la Litterature Policiere as the best crime novel published in France in 1988.  Two other suspense novels, A Wasteland of Strangers and The Crimes of Jordan Wise were nominated for the Hammett Prize for best crime novel of 1997 and 2006 respectively by the International Crime Writers Association. And his young-adult short story, Christmas Gifts, was the recipient  of the Paul A. Witty Award  presented by the International Reading Association for the best YA short fiction of 1999.