Virginia City poet Griffin to read, sign memoir

From a Sundance Books and Music news release

A book reading and signing with Shaun T. Griffin, author of his memoir Anthem for a Burnished Land, will be held at Sundance Books and Music at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 30.

Griffin is one of the West’s highly admired poets, and his book reveals his brilliance as a memoirist and reporter of life on the rim of the Great Basin, one of the continent’s emptiest, most beautiful and most threatened places.

The vivid memoir of Griffin’s life in Virginia City is both an account of making a home in a historical monument replete with colorful characters, confused tourists and spectacular scenic beauty, and the narrative of his and his wife’s efforts to bring about social change where poverty was considered best left unseen and funds to support services were scarce.

Anthem for a Burnished Land (Southern Utah University Press, 2016) is an engaging account of life in one of America’s most storied places, full of powerful insights into the town’s past and present and often-moving stories about its varied residents.

Griffin is the co-founder and director of Community Chest, a rural social-justice agency serving children and families in northwestern Nevada since 1991. For over 20 years he has taught a poetry workshop at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center and publishes a journal of the resulting work, Razor Wire.

His latest books include This Is What the Desert Surrenders, New and Selected Poems and From Sorrow’s Well: The Poetry of Hayden Carruth. He received the Rosemary McMillan Lifetime Achievement in Art Award in 2006, awarded by the Sierra Arts Foundation, and the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1995.

Learn more at http://www.sundancebookstore.com/griffin.

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Author returned to Vietnam to search for answers

From a Sundance Books and Music news release

Sundance Books will host a book reading and signing with Michael Archer, author of The Long Goodbye: Khe Sanh Revisited (Hellgate Press, 2016) from 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 26.

The book is about Tom Mahoney, unquestionably the most popular member of his platoon, known for his quick smile, courage and composure under fire, and a perpetual concern for the safety of his fellow Marines. It was with anxious fury that his buddies fought the remainder of the day to recover his body from under the effective gunfire of a well-hidden team. As darkness began to fall, making it impossible to continue the fight, they reluctantly left their friend behind—never forgotten and always wondering what had led to his mysterious walk into oblivion.

The Long Goodbye is the story of how Michael Archer, driven by loyalty and devotion, returned to Vietnam to discover what had happened to his friend and bring him home.

Archer grew up in northern California and served as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. He lives in Reno and, in addition to his writing, is a staff member with the Senate Committee on Finance at the Nevada State Legislature.

His books include A Patch of Ground: Khe Sanh Remembered, an acclaimed first-person account of the infamous 77-day siege of that American combat base; A Man of His Word: The Life and Times of Nevada’s Senator William J. Raggio, about one of Nevada’s most courageous, honorable, and admired citizens; and The Long Goodbye: Khe Sanh Revisited.

Learn more at http://www.sundancebookstore.com/archer.