Host Suzanne LaGrande interviews local author Floyd Skloot about his first collection of short Cream of Kohlrabi. Gathering sixteen stories from among the forty he has published since 1988, Cream of Kohlrabi explores how people people face challenges, including the challenges which come with aging, and the ways in which families can be both a blessing and a curse.

Floyd Skloot is a creative nonfiction writer, poet, and fiction writer whose work has received three Pushcart Prizes, a Pen USA Literary Award, two Pacific NW Book Awards, an Independent Publishers Book Award, and two Oregon Book Awards.

Poet-dramatist Cindy Williams Gutiérrez collaborates with artists in theatre, music, and visual art. Her CD, “Emerald Heart,” features her Aztec-inspired poetry accompanied by pre-Hispanic music. She also teaches creative writing to adults through the Attic, Annie Blooms Books, the Oregon Poetry Association, and the Stonecoast MFA Program, as well as to middle and high school students through Wordstock and Writers in the Schools. Her new collection of poetry, the small claim of bones, is forthcoming from Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe (Arizona State University).

This year she's be speaking at Wordstock, Portland's annual festival of books, writers, and storytelling on Saturday at 1 pm along with Catherine Evleshin, Alberto Moreno, and Ivonne Saed.

Poet, editor and bookseller, David Abel works across disciplines in performance, film, theater, and intermedia projects. He was a founding member of the and Four Wall Cinema (the precursor to Cinema Project). Since moving to Portland in 1997, he has been active in organizing local poetry reading events, such as the Spare Room reading series (now in its tenth year) He is the coordinator of the literary arts program at the Multnomah Arts Center, where he also teaches poetry.

For more about David Abel go to: http://www.passagesbookshop.com/

For more about readings going on in and around Portland go to: www.Portlandindependentreadingseries.com

To listen to David Abel talk about his creative process and the craft of writing poetry go to: www.kboo.fm/writersoncraft