Juve

ENTERPRISE — The 12th season of Fishtrap Fireside kicks off Friday, Oct. 4 with three Wallowa County writers and storytellers — Benjamin Curry, Terri Hall and Kelsey Juve.

The evening begins at 7 p.m. at Fishtrap, 107 W. Main St. Admission is free.

For those who can’t make it to Enterprise, anyone anywhere can take in Fireside. It is also streamed live at fishtrap.org and Fishtrap’s YouTube channel.

Fishtrap Fireside is a monthly reading series designed to celebrate diverse voices from local writers and storytellers. Since the program launched in 2013, more than 150 Wallowa County writers have stepped up to the podium or logged on virtually to share their work.

“Audiences have enjoyed a variety of storytelling including poems, fiction, history, humor, memoir, sci-fi fantasy, essay, travelog, food stories, comedy and much more,” said Mike Midlo, Fishtrap program director.

Light snacks are provided and drinks are available for purchase. An intermission takes place after the featured readings followed by an open mic. Five open mic spots are available and writers of all ages and experience are encouraged to sign up beginning at 6:30 p.m.

October’s Fishtrap Fireside is sponsored by The Bookloft.

Featured readers

Benjamin Curry leads a quadruple life as a husband, parent, poet/memoirist and technical writer. When he isn’t doing one of those things, he sits on his front porch in Joseph and listens to the chickadees, juncos and robins twitter in the morning. The chair of the Wallowa Land Trust board of directors, he has recent work published in Clockhouse literary journal.

Terri Hall is in her sophomore year as a resident of the Wallowa Valley, and she has written and shared at last year’s Fishtrap Fireside’s open mic and in local publications. Described as “a singer/songwriter, musician, public speaker, a defender of the developmentally challenged, a cheerleader for the underdog, community organizer, incidental fundraiser and mother — though not a grandmother as she had hoped she would be by now — Hall is a writer, not a journalist; a blogger, not a novelist; a storyteller of real life in plain words from a simple perspective.”

Raised among the quail and wildflowers of Alder Slope, Kelsey Juve embodies place and community. She has been a witness and recorder of the many joys and struggles that bloom in life. After moving back to Wallowa County, she was quick to discover it is where she wants her roots to grow and “through written word, she portrays her sense of wonderment of this magical place she is blessed to call home.”