About
This website is the online companion to City of Readers: The Book Lover?s Guide to Portland, which will be published by Tall Grass Press in September 2006.
The book began as my project for a Portland State University graduate course in English called Publishing Research, taught by a generously spirited writer and instructor named Kate Williams, who used the nonfiction book proposal as her framework for teaching research techniques. Bernadette Baker, a graduate student in the class who was just completing her master's degree in the innovative PSU Book Publishing program, encouraged me to pursue a publisher, and then she single-handedly secured its sale to Tall Grass Press, an independent house that was founded by Julie Steigerwaldt and Beth Caldwell Hoyt. Bernadette agreed to become my agent. She then founded Baker's Mark Literary Agency.
It really does take a village to raise a book. My wife, Jenny, who has relentlessly supported my interest in writing since we met in 1999, went so far as to marry me at Central Library and then spend our honeymoon at the Algonquin Hotel. She has never turned away a stray volume from our door. I love her madly. In the course of this book, she has sacrificed evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations - not to mention the dining room table. Fortunately for me as well, she's a talented pinch-hitting researcher and writer.
For this elegant website design and architecture I am indebted to my son, Cameron Boehmer, a fine thinker, writer and book lover who studies computer engineering at Santa Clara University, where he also plays lacrosse. Unfortunately, he's tall and handsome, too. Providing last-minute research and writing heroics were Bernadette Banker, and her partner at the literary agency, Gretchen Stetler.
For her continuing generosity of time and spirit, and for her careful reading of the manuscript, I am indebted to Carol Franks, an award-winning essayist and Portland State University English instructor who now mentors many students, current and former, from Park River, North Dakota. A special thanks is due to Don Brookhyser, who aided and abetted my early attempts at procrastination by reacquainting me with running. I'm also grateful for Don's valuable editorial suggestions.
Thank you to the many librarians, booksellers, writers, and readers who shared their knowledge and commented on the book's manuscript at various stages. In particular, I am indebted to John Henley, the dean of Portland booksellers and manager of Great Northwest Books; Brian Booth, founder of the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts and the Oregon Book Awards; Jim Carmin, John Wilson Room, Special Collections librarian at Central Library; Roger and Ilse Roberts, owners of Hawthorne Boulevard Books; Karin Anna, owner of Looking Glass Bookstore; Michael Powell, owner of Powell's Books; and my brother, Robert G. Boehmer, associate provost at the University of Georgia.
As you can see, my name really ought to appear on the back of the book's cover, applauding the efforts of all these talented people whose time, talent, and spirit put made City of Readers a dream come true for me. Bless you all.
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© 2007 Gabriel H. Boehmer, Design by Cameron C. Boehmer