Literary salon and open mic at Kangaroo House featuring Ann Pancake, novelist of mining devastation

Novelist Ann Pancake comes to the Kangeroo House for an Artsmith reading on March 14.

The public is invited to attend a reading by novelist Ann Pancake followed by a spoken word open mic at Kangaroo House Bed & Breakfast on Saturday, March 14 at 7 p.m.

Sponsored by Artsmith, the literary salon features author Ann Pancake whose book, “Strange as this Weather Has Been” (Counterpoint 2007), tells the story of a family devastated by mountaintop removal mining.

Raised on a West Virginia farm that had been in her family since the 1700s, Pancake says natural resource companies “swindled all kinds of people out of land in Appalachia. In the late 19th and early 20th century, coal companies would buy mineral rights to farmers’ land and tell them they could go ahead and farm the land, that they’d just be working underneath them to get the coal, so the farmers would sell. Then strip-mining started later in the 20th century, and because the deed said the companies could get the coal by “any means possible,” the companies would strip the land and the landowners were devastated.”

Pancake’s novel has been reviewed in publications from Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine to the New York Times Book Reviews, which called her writing “powerful, sure-footed and haunting.” Based on interviews and real events, “Strange as this Weather Has Been” was one of Kirkus Review’s Top Ten Fiction Books of 2007, won the 2007 Weatherford Award, and was a finalist for the 2008 Orion Book Award.

Pancake’s collection of short stories, “Given Ground,” won the 2000 Bakeless award. She has also received a Whiting Award, an NEA Grant, and a Pushcart Prize. She earned her BA in English at West Virginia University and a PhD. in English Literature from the University of Washington. She currently teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University, and makes her home in Seattle.

Artsmith is a non-profit to support the arts. Artsmith hosts literary salons, workshops, and artist residencies for writers, artists, and scholars to have dedicated time for the creation of new works.

Kangaroo House is located at 1459 North Beach Road in Eastsound. The reading and spoken word open mic begin at 7 pm. The event is free to the public. For more information, go toAnn Pancake comes to the Kangaroo House March 14 for an Artsmith reading orcasartsmith.org, or call 360-376-2175.