Wait Continues For Waters’ Second Book

If you’re anxious to purchase the long-awaited second book of poetry by the late Mary Ann Waters, better calm yourself.

The wait goes on.

True, money for the proposed book - a collection of 50-some of Waters’ previously uncollected poems - has been raised. A group of Waters’ friends and former colleagues at West Valley High School raised some funds last year through a combination spaghetti feed-book sale.

And recently Auntie’s Bookstore has helped with the fund-raising by soliciting contributions. One noted donor: novelist Terry McMillan of “Waiting to Exhale” fame.

While Edie D’Arcy, an Auntie’s manager, would say only that McMillan had contributed a “sizable donation,” another source reported McMillan’s check to be in the $2,000 range.

Whatever, D’Arcy said, “We got a couple of really big donations from authors who knew her.”

“That’s a significant thing,” said James Hepworth of Confluence Press, the Lewiston-based publishing house that printed Waters’ first poetry collection, “The Exact Place.”

It’s significant for a couple of reasons. One, it demonstrates the regard that poetry-lovers still have for Waters, who died of cancer in 1994 at age 53.

Two, it might make Hepworth’s job easier. Overseeing a small press is never easy, and having a marketing advantage is a definite plus. Such a plus would be provided to Hepworth - who hopes to publish Waters’ second book as well - if McMillan, or someone of equal literary stature, were directly associated with the forthcoming book.

“We’ve just had such a struggle on our own anyway,” said Hepworth, one of whose employees recently suffered a debilitating condition. “It would be helpful to have her (McMillan) write an introduction.”

It would also help if there were more of an interest in Waters’ work. To that end, Hepworth wants to get teachers, local and otherwise, interested in “teaching her poems… (to) just use the book we have (‘The Exact Place’) to call some attention to her work.”

Hepworth is grateful to the efforts that Auntie’s owner Chris O’Harra has put forth. “Chris kind of took the bull by the horns and got it done,” he said.

Whatever happens, though, the new book - which is tentatively titled “The Names of Time” - won’t be available anytime soon.

“The book probably won’t be out for a year,” Hepworth said. “About a year from now is what I’m hoping.”

Short stuff

We go through periodic spells in which book critics and other literary observers either bemoan the death of the short story or rejoice over its rebirth.

Well, on a regional level, at least, we seem to be in the midst of a short-short renaissance. Not one, not two, but three area authors have new story collections out.

The second story collection by poet Nance Van Winckel, who teaches poetry in Eastern Washington University’s creative writing department, is titled “Quake” (University of Missouri Press, 152 pages, $16.95 paperback ISBN 0-8262-1091-0). A collection of five interconnected stories, “Quake” explores the lives of several people as - in each tale - an earthquake shakes things up. Van Winckel will read from her poetry collection “The Dirt” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 19 at Auntie’s.

Brady Udall lives northeast of Moscow in Harvard, Idaho. “Letting Loose the Hounds” (W.W. Norton, 221 pages, $22 ISBN 0-393-04033-X) is his first story collection, and it is an impressive debut. “I should have been seeking out the pure of heart,” he said in one press statement, “but instead I spent a lot of time screwing around, hanging out with joke-telling drunkards and ex-convicts with interesting stories.” Sounds likes fun. Udall will read from his book at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 21, at Auntie’s.

Great Falls, Mont., writer Pete Fromm has seen publication of three story collections. His third, “Dry Rain” (Lyons & Burford, 215 pages, $22.95 ISBN 1-55821-554-9), is getting the kind of blurb attention that borders on the ridiculous (David James Duncan, for example, has dubbed him “the Chekhov of Great Falls”). But Kirkus Reviews, which seldom gushes over any writer, says, “These tales prove Fromm to be an accomplished storyteller. A strong and distinctive vision of contemporary life in the isolated corners of the modern West.” Fromm will read from “Dry Rain” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 28, at Auntie’s.

Crutcher reschedules

Chris Crutcher, the Spokane author of such young-adult books as “Ironman” and “Athletic Shorts,” has rescheduled his reading for Spokane Public Library’s celebration of National Library Week (April 14-18).

Crutcher will read at 2 p.m. April 12 at the Hillyard Branch Library, 4005 N. Cook. For further information on Spokane Public’s week of events, call 626-5312.

The reader board

Joanna Rose, author of “Little Miss Strange,” will read from her novel at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington.

Brady Udall, author of “Letting Loose the Hounds,” will read from his book at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Law Building Courtroom at the University of Idaho in Moscow.

, DataTimes