This node collects and categorizes international and local news, updates, and information regarding Brautigan-related events. Submit information about your news, update, or event to Brautigan.net (see "contact" in the menu above"). Use the links below to access further information and resources. Canongate is repackaging twelve of its books as "The Canons" for 2012. Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout (with an introduction by Jarvis Cocker) is among the 2012 titles. Neil Schiller, of Liverpool, has recently completed his doctoral thesis, "The Historical Present: Notions of History, Time and Cultural Lineage in the Writing of Richard Brautigan." Congratulations, Neil! Next step, find a book publisher. Before that, however, several well-deserved pints are on order. Learn more and read the introduction and four chapters from Schiller's thesis. Saltpeter, an evolving theatre company in London, seeks "to explore and create bold theatrical possibilities," several of which are inspired by Richard Brautigan.

For example, The Brautigan Book Club (BBC) meetings began in January 2012. The BBC is a "gang that aims to explore & be inspired by the complete works of Richard Brautigan." The launch event, 25 January, at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, was extraordinary: a performance inspired by Brautigan's novel The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 and its story of a library where anyone could deposit a copy of their unpublished manuscript regardless of content or quality of writing. Entitled The American Forever, etc.—A Library, the live art performance was presided over by The Librarian who was presented poems, films, and uncontrollable interjections by the ghost of Mark Twain as the evening progressed.

Saltpeter will also produce the UK premiere of Tonseisha: The Man Who Abandoned the World, a play by Erik Patterson, a play about love and love and Richard Brautigan. In this play, written mostly in haiku, a young Japanese woman is haunted by the loss of two men: her father, whom she barely knew, and Brautigan, whom she never met. Beyond the unusual setting of the play in both Japan and Montana, Saltpeter will incorporate contemporary opera pieces and the work of international artists to produce a multi-layered, immersive production that both changes and inspires the audience and the artists involved.

More information about Tonseisha in the Brautigan.NET website

More information about The Brautigan Book Club in the Brautigan.NET website Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan, the new Brautigan biography by William Hjortsberg, published by Counterpoint Press, is now available.

Order your copy through Amazon.com
Learn more about Hjortsberg's biography National Unpublished Writers' Day
Last Sunday in January
The Clark County Historical Museum
Vancouver, Washington

National Unpublished Writers' Day is a partnership between The Clark County Historical Museum, the Writing Center at Washington State University Vancouver, The Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver, and anyone else interested to partner. The event highlights The Brautigan Library Collection at the Museum, Washington-born writer Richard Brautigan who conceived the idea for a library where anyone could contribute unpublished books, regardless of content or quality of writing, and all folks who wish to create or communicate through writing (broadly defined).

Free, both in terms of admission (donations and contributions welcome, however) and in the spirit of a sixties "happening" with their multiple, simultaneous events and opportunities, National Unpublished Writers' Day will feature a series of "creative stations" and workshops around the Museum, each offering different opportunities to learn or experience something associated with different aspects or kinds of writing. These Creation Stations and workshops serve to highlight a broad approach to writing and offer a wide array of information, theory, and practice for visitors and participants.

In 2012, creation stations included, zines, editing/resume writing, writing for mobile media, Salmon Creek Literary Journal, spontaneous writing a la Jack Kerouac, comedy writing, creative writing, radio writing, digital storytelling, poetry as survival, and descriptive writing (setting a mood with words).

Learn more at The Brautigan Library website