Ruth Tenzer Feldman
Speaking and Events
“Thank you again for gifting us with your time and engaging activities. The students would LOVE to have you come back next year! “
Jennifer Hockhalter Vancouver School of Arts and Academics Vancouver, Washington |
Authors and teachers are natural allies. We want to engage children and young adults in ways that can lead to a deeper understanding and genuine enthusiasm for participating in our communities and our world. A lofty idea? Sure. Attainable? Absolutely. As a writer of both fiction and nonfiction for a wide range of ages, I offer presentations on a variety of topics, including woman suffrage, time travel, and robotic bees. Contact me. I’d be happy to work with you. Skype chats (usually 15 or 20 minutes) are free, informal, and friendly. FaceTime is fine, too.
Upcoming Events
Saturday, March 9, 2058: Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake
Well, not really. But that's the premise of Seven Stitches. In the meantime, I'm working on a new book. Yay!
Well, not really. But that's the premise of Seven Stitches. In the meantime, I'm working on a new book. Yay!
Highlights from Past Events
April 28, 2018: Annie Bloom's Bookstore
9:00 am - 6:00 pm (I popped up and read at 2) 7834 SW Capitol Hwy Portland, OR 97219 503 246-0053 Saturday, April 28, 2018 marked the fourth annual Independent Bookstore Day. Annie Bloom's offered a day-long celebration with fun activities for kids and adults, including a surprise Harry Potter-themed prize. A boatload of us authors were there for pop-up readings. |
December 3, 2017: Oregon Historical Society Holiday Cheer
12:00-4:00 pm Oregon Historical Society 1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland, OR Holiday Cheer marks its 50th year with dozens of authors eager to share their latest books with you, with a book sale and signing. I'll be there with all three novels in the Blue Thread Saga. Come and enjoy. |
November 10, 2017: All Things Kid Lit
Book lovers swarmed downtown Portland with a “literary crawl” the night before Wordstock. Kelly Garrett, Rosanne Parry, Jane Kurtz, Janet Johnson, and I represented the kid lit gang, reading from our latest books and asking kid lit trivia. Pamela Smith Hill moderated this delightful evening. Now a couple dozen readers know how kid lit author Elizabeth Rusch got her last name. |
July 22, 2017: Book signing, at Cannon Beach Book Company
Two hours of conversation, and smiles on the shaded front porch, shaded being super important on that sunny day. |
April 20, 2017: Double Header with Amber J. Keyser, at Annie Bloom's
What a dynamite evening. I read from Seven Stitches. Amber read from Pointe, Claw. We had a blast. |
March 3, 2017: Radio Interview on Arts: Live and Local!, KMUN, Astoria , Oregon
I was interviewed by Carol Newman on her Coast Radio program. The radio station is in an old house on a steep street in Astoria. Here is the interview. Thanks, Carol. What a delight! |
March 1, 2017 @ 7 pm: Diversity and Resilience, at Broadway Books
Charles (the stuffed giraffe) and I delved into the diverse post-quake world of Portland in 2059 and talked about what it really takes to be resilient. Thanks to everyone who came. |
February 20, 2017 @ 7:30 pm: The Blue Thread Saga, at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne
Thanks to the lively group at Powell’s. We talked about Seven Stitches as part of the Blue Thread Saga and meet three Miriams from 1912, 1964, and 2059. For show and tell: a blue stuffed giraffe named Charles and the Oregon Resilience Plan for the upcoming earthquake. |
February 16, 2017 @ 7 pm: Seven Stitches Launch Ooligan Press held our launch at Another Read Through, a delightful bookstore in North Portland. We packed into the loft and celebrated like crazy. The Oolies brought fresh-baked cookies in the shape of Oregon and a recipe for refrigerator pickles. Yum!
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October 9, 2016: Coos History Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon
Dozens of folks turned out to discuss woman suffrage in Oregon with me. Thankfully, I remembered some of my research from Blue Thread. |
September – November 2015: Crazy8s Author Tour
Read all about it on the tour’s Website. I was in Cottage Grove on September 18 and in Salem on September 24. |
September-November 2014: 50th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement
I didn’t give any presentations or hold any book signings for The Ninth Day. I came to listen, and listen I did, to those who took part in the 1964 protests for First Amendment rights on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. I met Bettina Aptheker…finally! We’d corresponded as part of a Women’s History Month blog. I wish I could have been my characters back in 1964. |
June 21, 2014: Summer Community Day, Oregon Historical Society
Author Lois Leveen and I schmoozed with Eliza Canty-Jones (editor of the Oregon Historical Quarterly) and our audience about adventures in writing both history and historical fiction. This was the first time I’d met Lois, and I hope not the last. Her Secrets of Mary Bowser is an excellent read, and she’s got a new novel coming this fall on the Juliet’s nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Go, Lois! |
April 2, 2014: Chai Fantasy Panel, at Mittleman Jewish Community Center, Portland
What connections can we discover between religion and imagination; what links can we discern between spiritual experience and the cultivation of curiosity and creativity? Why do we find so few examples of alternative universes in specifically Jewish literature? Can there be a Jewish Narnia? These are some of the questions we debated, when I moderated a panel with authors Lisa Goldstein, David Michael Slater, poet Willa Schneberg, graphic novelist Barry Deutsch, and Judaic Studies professor Michael Weingrad. I must say we had fun. |
February 28, 2014: Radio Interview on KMUN in Astoria: Arts Live and Local
There I sat, on the other side of the microphone from host Carol Newman as she fiddled with knobs and playing CD snippets, and gave me encouraging smiles while she broadcast Arts Live and Local on KMUN Coast Community Radio, 91.9 FM. We talked about The Ninth Day and my writing life, and I almost forgot to be nervous! Here's a link to the podcast. |
December 16, 2013: The Ninth Day Launch at the Koehler House
A delight! Read Meagan Lobnitz’s blog about the event. Here’s a picture of me reading from the snake scene in Paris, 1099. That bit with the right hand? That’s the snake. I’m wearing a Free Speech Movement armband, from the Berkeley, 1964, end of The Ninth Day. Jeff Kilmer, of Kilmer, Voorhees & Laurick, gave us a tour of their law offices, aka The Koehler House, aka the Josefsohn house in Blue Thread. The house, in almost all its glory, appears again in my next book. |
December 1, 2013: Oregon Historical Society Holiday Cheer
Thanks again, to the Oregon Historical Society, for hosting about eighty of us authors at the museum. I sat near Sybilla Cook, whose new book on Walking Portland gets great reviews. Naturally, I bought a copy. |
November 12, 2013: Jewish Voices: Annual Reading by Jewish Writers and Poets, at Oregon Jewish Museum
What a night! The audience crowded into the auditorium and spilled out to the anteroom, to hear evocative poetry, essays, and snippets of prose, by David Axelrod, Kerry Cohen, Willa Schneberg, Jodi Varen, Yuvi Zalkow…and me. A bunch of us went to a Chinese restaurant after the event, and I got to hang out with National Book Award winner (and one of my favorite authors) Virginia Euwer Wolff. Joy! |
October 19, 2013: Lincoln County Historical Society, Newport, Oregon
Even though it was a gorgeous, sunny day on the Oregon Coast, a good-sized group of folks gathered at the Carriage House in Newport to talk about the “precarious entanglements” of historical fiction. Had they heard in advance that there would be pumpkin cookies? Bill Hall was in the audience. He’s the current commissioner of Lincoln County, and he’s been writing historical fiction as well. Dive in, Bill. The water’s fine. |
October 5, 2013: Wordstock
Francesca Lia Block and I shared the stage at Wordstock this year. I read from The Ninth Day, and managed to change into an awesome tie-dye jumper during the presentation. Note to self: when taking off high heels and talking in stocking feet, remember to adjust the microphone. |
April 11, 2013 : Oregon Book Awards Ceremony, at Gerding Theater, Portland
What a night —like the Oscars ceremony for Oregon book people! These were the finalists for all categories. Blue Thread won the Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature! I was blown away. As best as I can recollect, here’s my acceptance speech. |