Pam Houston

A Writing Workshop at Tomales Bay is Back for 2013 in a New Package!

Aliza — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:48:36 +0000

Writing By Writers is excited to announce that registration for the 2013 Writing Workshop at Tomales Bay in Marin County, California is now open.

Writing By Writers@ Tomales Bay will bring aspiring writers into close community with nationally known poets and writers, to receive constructive and compassionate feedback from their teachers and their peers, and to spend four intensive days dedicated to creativity. Workshops are limited to 12 participants to ensure an intimate setting.

When: October 16-20, 2013 at Marconi Conference Center, Marshall, California, just north of San Francisco in Marin County.

The outstanding 2013 faculty includes Ron Carlson, Pam Houston, Fenton Johnson, Antonya Nelson, Carl Phillips and Cheryl Strayed. Workshops will be offered in fiction, memoir and poetry.

Space is limited to 12 participants per workshop and will fill up quickly.

Get more information or apply today!

Author Cheryl Strayed picks “Contents May Have Shifted” on 2012 Book List

Aliza — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 21:04:19 +0000

Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Highway, picked Pam’s book Contents May Have Shifted for Salon.com’s Ultimate Book Guide. This is particularly special for Pam who really admires Cheryl’s work.

Here’s the review:

Cheryl Strayed, author of “Wild”
“Contents May Have Shifted” by Pam Houston

“I fell in love with Pam Houston’s writing more than twenty years ago, when I first read her short story “How To Talk to a Hunter.” She only gets better with time. Her latest book, Contents May Have Shifted is both illuminating and impossible to put down and it’s my favorite book published in 2012. In 144 chapters that take readers around the world, Houston tells the story of one adventurous woman’s romances and friendships, sorrows and joys, with an intelligence and perception that destroyed, astonished and inspired me.”

Here’s the entire Ultimate Book Guide.

“Contents May Have Shifted” Named Best Book…

Aliza — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 08:37:29 +0000

Book Lady named “Contents May Have Shifted” as one of 10 Best Books of 2012.

This is what she had to say:

Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston: From my rave on Book Riot: I read a lot of great fiction this year, and a lot of whoa-how-did-she-pull-that-off fiction. I read some fiction that held up a mirror to my life and asked me to look at myself in a new way, and some fiction that took my breath away with its heart and emotional nakedness. I even read some really fun fiction. But I only read one work of fiction that was all those things, and it was Pam Houston’s globetrotting novel-slash-memoir-slash-sorta-kinda-connected-short-storiesContents May Have Shifted. It was one of my first reads of 2012, and it’s the only one I’ve gone back to over and over. It’s about love and friendship (Houston nails the magic of friendship between women like no one else) and travel, and how sometimes we leave home looking for things we already have. And it’s the closest thing to perfect I’ve read in a really long time.

Also, named one of the best books of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle:

Contents May Have Shifted, by Pam Houston (Norton; 306 pages; $25.95). Houston is a wonderful writer, and the graceful vignettes in her novel – about the wider sphere of romance the world has to offer – are by turns beautiful, slyly funny and heart-stopping.

Also picked as Book Riot’s Best of 2012…

3 Pam Houston Paperbacks Coming Out Late January

Aliza — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 22:32:20 +0000

Three of Pam’s books are being released January 28th, 2013 as paperbacks. Click the book images below to pre-order today!

Pam’s Upcoming 2013 Appearances

pamlhouston — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:44:53 +0000

Pam will be appearing in the following places:

MAY, 2013

May 2nd: Texas Tech Creative Writing Reader’s Series. Lubbock, Texas

May 3rd: Dallas Friends of the Library Reading Series. Dallas, Texas

May 10th: The Spa At Lake Austin, Austin, Texas

May 17-19: Northern Arizona Book Fest, Flagstaff, AZ

May 19: Peregrine Book Company, Prescott AZ

May 31-June 3: Raft the San Juan River with Pam and the Western Colorado Writers’ Forum (sign up: sandydorr@bresnan.net)

JUNE, 2013

June 7th: Launch party of the issue of the Whitefish Review that Pam guest edited, Whitefish, MT

June 16-20: Aspen Summer Words, Aspen, CO

June 30-July 5: Pam and Cheryl Strayed at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA

July, 2013

July 6-13: Pam in Queretaro, Mexico at Other Voices Conference, Queretaro, MX

July 13-19: Taos Writer’s Conference, Taos, NM

August, 2013

August 18-23: Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Mass

Also see summer teaching dates.

See more dates on the Appearances Page.

Author Houston lives and writes fearlessly (Sacramento Bee)

Aliza — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:23:17 +0000

Here’s an excerpt from a recent article about Pam that appeared in the Sacramento Bee by Allen Pierleoni.

It’s easy to confuse author Pam Houston with the “other Pam,” the one she created as the “fearless narrator” of her upcoming new novel, “Contents May Have Shifted.” As with most of her fiction, it’s highly autobiographical (“Everything begins with autobiography,” she has observed). Also, both Pams live in nearly perpetual motion, driven by the need to move through the world and be open to the changes it can bring.

Over the years, Houston has logged countless air miles getting to and from five continents – much like the other Pam. She recently returned from Mongolia and the Gobi Desert – a 50th birthday trip to herself – where “I got bitten by a dog and my hand turned black.” Her cellphone message says, “I must be traveling in a place where there are no cells, so please leave a message.”

Read more…

Pam’s Next Book: Contents May Have Shifted

Aliza — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:55:38 +0000

What’s new? Pam has a book coming in early 2012 from W.W. Norton called Contents May Have Shifted.

According to LitSeen, Pam’s new novel ”consists of 144 very short chapters, of which 132 are named with a place, and the other 12 take place “no place, in the sky, on an airplane.” You can view a video of Pam reading at The Rumpus, and read several excerpts from the book.

Here are a few more recent articles about Pam.

First Friday Author Feature: Pam Houston (paper-pencil-pen)

Superstition Review interview with Pam

Pam Houston, writer

Aliza — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:51:46 +0000

author Pam Houston; photo credit: Adam Karsten

Pam Houston is the author of two collections of linked short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat; the novels, Sight Hound and Contents May Have Shifted; and a collection of essays called A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton.

Her stories have been selected for the Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Awards, the Pushcart Prize, and the Best American Short Stories of the Century. A collection of essays, A Little More About Me, was published by W.W. Norton in the fall of 1999.

Pam teaches in the graduate writing program at University of California, Davis.