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First Person: Authors Talk

First Person: Authors Talk
Host Heather HIrschi Interviews INDIE Award Winning Novelist, Alan E. Rose

Summer opens a fresh season at KALA with First Person: Authors Talk, an hour of lively conversation about all things literary. Each month, Host Heather Hirschi interviews a local writer live on the KALA stage, with questions from the audience and a few surprises. Scheduled guests include coastal novelists, memoirists, and poets who write in genres from horror to magical realism.

Julys guest is novelist Alan E. Rose. His visit to Astoria commemorates the 40th anniversary of the CDCs identification of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in July, 1981. Roses novel, As If Death Summoned, revolves around the impact of AIDS on the narrator as the virus spreads in Melbourne, Australia, and through his community in Portland. As If Death Summoned, released on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2020, won the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award.

As If Death Summoned is a first person account of one mans experience losing friends, a life partner, and his soul to the fight against AIDS. But as much as the novel accounts for the narrators experience of AIDS driven pathos, the humor-laced, erudite story affirms the beauty of life and the possibility for healing. At its heart, the book is about grief and the renewal of hope, about accepting loss and learning how to love through the embrace of mystery.

Author of four novels, Alan Rose grew up in the Pacific Northwest and has lived in Tokyo, Japan and Melbourne, Australia. He currently lives in rural southwest Washington where he organizes WordFest, a monthly gathering of readers and writers in Longview, WA. WordFest currently takes place on Zoom, free and open to the public. Rose also hosts the KLTV program, "Book Chat, in which he interviews writers of the northwest. BookChat is broadcast three times a week. Links available at alan-rose.com/bookchat/.

Join KALA and First Person for a conversation with Alan Rose on Friday, July 16. Doors open at 7:30pm, show at 8pm. Tickets: $15 Available at the door and online at www.brownpapertickets.com. Beer, Wine and Cocktails available. KALA is located at 1017 Marine Dr. in Astoria. 503.338.4878. Following current COVID-19 safety guidelines.