Come to the Artsmith 2017-2018 Salon Series Finale

Thursday, June 7, 6 p.m., Darvills

— from Jill McCabe Johnson for Artsmith —

The 2017-2018 Artsmith Salon Series culminates with a special reading at Darvill’s Bookstore in Eastsound, featuring highly esteemed authors Bruce Holbert, Ayn Gailey, and Samuel W. Gailey. All three authors bring insights to topics often considered dark or taboo. From substance abuse to missing children, from a brutal murder to pinning it on someone else, from strip clubs to a brothel—what these authors have in common is the ability to delve into the least of human behaviors to shed light on the best of the human spirit. The reading begins at 6 p.m. and will be followed by an audience Q&A and reception with light hors d’oeuvres.

Bruce Holbert is the author of the novels Lonesome Animals (Counterpoint Press), and the Hour of Lead (Counterpoint Press) which won the 2015 Washington State Book Award for Fiction. His most recent novel, Whiskey (Farrar Straus & Giroux), has been praised by Kirkus Reviews as “A gut punch … that satisfies on many levels,” and Booklist described it as “emotionally authentic” with “resplendent descriptions and quick-witted dialogue.”

Samuel W. Gailey is the critically acclaimed debut author of Deep Winter, a novel described by The New York Times as being “Beautifully written…” and by Esquire as “Enthralling and suspenseful, like a Michael Connelly novel, but more elegantly written.” His second novel, “The Guilt We Carry” has been released in France by Gallmeister Editions under the title “Une Question du Temps,” and will be released in the U.S. by Oceanview later this year.

Ayn Gailey’s memoirish first book Pornology: A Good Girl’s Guide To Porn (Running Press U.S.|Random House U.K.) has been published in multiple languages and is slated to be adapted into film in 2018. Ayn earned a masters from Harvard, an MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA, and has edited critically-acclaimed books and written for magazines, such as Elle, Cosmo, Alegria and Documentary. Along with Samuel W. Gailey, she is a co-founder of Orcas Pact and NovelLab.co for adult writers and its not-for-profit workshop for kid novelists, and make their home on Orcas Island.