John H. Fitchen, Ingrid Kincaid, Jim Nail (Inkwater Press)

Join us for readings by three authors from the same publishing house, the first in a new monthly series.

The tales in John H. Fitchen’s Life Through the Lens of a Doctor-Birder are about two grand passions: medicine and birds. Through the eyes of a physician and a birder, we witness the glory that is nature. From a remote Aleutian Island to his own backyard, and from the research lab to the bedside, we see what makes birders tick and doctors marvel.

Ingrid Kincaid’s The Runes Revealed will challenge you to remove the tainted, distorted lens of patriarchal interpretation and start seeing the runes with clearer vision. Long before Odin, the Vikings or Christianity, the runes were. Written in a style that’s a mixture of both prose and poetry, this unconventional book about the runes presents a perspective that is challenging, thought-provoking and controversial.

In Jim Nail’s The Ballad of Johnny Arcane: A Novel, seven summers pass without a champion climbing the silo to claim the Cornfest Prize. Enter young Johnny Arcane, who brings down the hive of bees, the townspeople hefting him onto their shoulders, crying, “Arcane! Arcane!” The legend of Johnny Arcane is born, a saga of a reluctant hero on an epic journey, from his glory at Cornfest, through his shame at the Dolmens, to his most perilous quest-to cross the border between the known and the unknown worlds.

John H. Fitchen, MD, is an Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. After nearly twenty years in academics, he accepted a leadership role at Epitope, Inc., the Portland-based biotech company that developed OraSure, the first and only oral HIV test. He has published articles in The Atlantic, Birding, the New England Journal of Medicine, and dozens of other peer-reviewed medical journals. He is an avid birder and lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Ellen.

Ingrid Kincaid is the daughter of Arctic glaciers, rocky shorelines and windswept moors. She was born knowing the runes. They’re etched in her bones. They’re her lineage, her ancestry, her bloodlines. Their wisdom informs all that she does. People in the community know her as the rune woman. The Runes Revealed is a companion text to an online course of the same name. Visit her website to discover all that she have to offer: classes, rituals, online courses and private, spiritual guidance.

The Ballad of Johnny Arcane started with a song Jim Nail composed in 1973. The song stuck in his mind until, decades later, it exploded into a full novel. Nail is a songwriter, author, father, husband. He lives in Oregon with his wife and fellow author, Claire. They have two grown sons, Brendan and Devin.

[from the Another Read Through website]