Eastern Washington author visits Moses Lake library

MOSES LAKE — An author visiting Moses Lake next week says he's always been intrigued with the area.

"Moses Lake is very intriguing to me," John Keeble said during a telephone interview. "I don't know much about Moses Lake."

The author of several books, including the recently published "Nocturnal America," "Broken Ground," "Yellowfish" and the nonfiction "Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound," has been through before, and knows people from the area.

"Everything I've heard, it sounds really interesting," he said. "Wasn't it a World War II base which came to be built there? And now, is it Boeing and Japan Airlines that use it as a training ground, testing airplanes and so on? There's what I gather to be a very active cultural mix there. It all sounds kind of intriguing, so I'm looking forward to maybe finding out more about when I'm there. I've always been intrigued by it."

Keeble reads from his Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction-winning short story collection at the Moses Lake Library, located at 418 E. Fifth Ave., April 5 at 6:30 p.m. The day before, he reads from the Wenatchee Library, at 310 Douglas St., at 7 p.m.

A professor emeritus at Eastern Washington University, Keeble mostly devotes his time to writing, as he works on a historical novel about Western legend Kit Carson's daughter.

Keeble says he's been told it's unusual to set his work in Eastern Washington.

"When people think of writers from the Northwest, they tend to think of Seattle, Vancouver and Portland," he said. "There are some of us who are using the eastern portions of the Northwest and the interior as a locale for their work, but still, it's somewhat unusual."

Keeble lists other authors as Patrick McManus and Sherman Alexie, but cautions his writing is very different from the former's humorous writing, describing his own writing as fairly serious literary work.

"I hope that doesn't sound forbidding to people," he said. "We're working the same territory in a way, but our writing's very, very different."

He's set his work in the eastern part of the state because he's lived there for 30 years, he said with a chuckle.

"When I first got here, I came to be struck by the fact there was virtually nothing written using the interior west as a locale," he said.

Keeble said a few others have sprung up since then, so there appears to be quite a bit of writing from the region.

"And I'm one of them," he added.

Keeble hopes those who attend his reading come away with a deeper sense of the culture of the area, but he's not certain what to expect from the audience.

"It wouldn't surprise me if there are a couple people who are either writing or hope to write," he said. "If that's the case, maybe I could talk to them a little about it. Maybe I can give them some ideas.

North Central Regional Library Book Club Coordinator Paula Walters said Keeble is the first in a planned series of visiting authors. He also speaks at Chelan and Brewster libraries.

"We chose John Keeble because he's from Eastern Washington and his new book is a collection of short stories that take place in Eastern Washington," Walters said.

The library hopes to begin some programs for adults to encourage people to read and bring them into the library.

"This is really the first time we're having an adult author, and we just thought a local author would interest people in the area," she said.

The library does not plan to entirely limit itself to local authors, Walters added.

"We have not had as much programming for adults, and this is just something some of the book groups have been asking for, to bring some adult authors in," Connie Kuhlmann, Moses Lake Library branch manager, said. "So we decided we would give it a try. I don't know if we would have one a month, but we will have several this year."