It’s hard to imagine anyone who embodies the term “literary man” more than Portland author and habitué Kevin Sampsell. Not in the old stuffy sense, but in a 21st century do-it-all, do-it-your-way, live-to-write-and-champion-books sense.
Among the astonishing variety of works Sampell has authored or edited are: A Common Pornography, a memoir Booklist calls “shards of memory fused into a compelling concretion of moments”; This Is Between Us, a novel Publishers Weekly describes as full of “telling moments and epiphanies rendered in precise, poetic prose”; and his latest, Sean the Stick, a tale about, yes, a stick meant to appeal to all ages.
Given his love for his adopted hometown and his decades of working at Powell’s Books as an events coordinator and in other positions, it was a no-brainer for Sampsell to be picked to edit the anthology Portland Noir. Besides his deep connection to the city, his writing is often gritty, sexy, and searching. It is also earnest and surprisingly tender.
But Sampsell is more than just an author or editor. He’s also the founder and publisher of Future Tense Books, an accomplished collagist, and a popular champion of small presses and small-press authors.
In author circles, you sometimes hear someone called a “literary citizen,” which means a writer who doesn’t only promote himself but shines a light on other author’s works and accomplishments and helps in any way he can. Sampsell is a literary citizen par excellence. Portland and the Northwest are full of writers he has helped in some way.
When the history of Portland as a literary city is written, Sampsell will play a central part in the story. Read his answers to Writing the Northwest’s questions below. Then give yourself a treat by clicking on some of the links at the bottom. Kevin Sampsell and his work epitomize what this site is meant to celebrate: Northwest writers and writing.
For a full bio, see below.
Kevin Sampsell
WNW: What aspect of the Northwest do you feel hasn’t been adequately addressed in writing yet?
KS: I would love to read something about a polyamorous couple in the art scene who see their secondary partners in public all the time, prompting awkward moments and funny misunderstandings. Throw in some lush descriptions of local cuisine and cool moments involving the music scene and basketball.
WNW: How would you characterize your approach to the Northwest in your own writing?
KS: For a long time, I tried to avoid naming places or having recognizably Northwest-y things in my writing but then I realized that it was really fun to directly name places and things—not just for me, but for the reader as well. When I was putting together the Portland Noir anthology, that sense of place was definitely front of mind, to put the reader in these various neighborhoods and locations—at Holman’s Bar & Grill or on Southeast 82nd Avenue or walking on train tracks or specific nature trails. The city becomes a sort of character that looms over those stories.
For my own writing, I think I started to see the value of setting and place when I was writing my memoir, A Common Pornography, because Kennewick (Washington) was the backdrop for most of that and there are just certain vibes that come from those kind of Northwest small towns. Not just the physical places, but also the people in these places and how they behave and interact in their world.
That mysterious mood and unspecifiable Northwest aura is something I also appreciate in the David Lynch TV show and film Twin Peaks. The sort of mundane everyday life of that “all-American” small town that contains all this hidden darkness in it. Same thing goes with his movie Blue Velvet, which, technically, is set somewhere in North Carolina, but because Lynch lived in Spokane, Washington as a child, I always thought the town in that movie was secretly supposed to be Spokane. I can imagine someone finding an ear in a field in Spokane.
WNW: What is your favorite book about the Northwest and why do you like it?
KS: Willy Vlautin’s novels Lean on Pete and The Night Always Comes are both so somber and powerful in the way they portray Portland, which often feels like a city draped in sadness and fog. Willy is able to take these desperate and gritty stories and break your heart in a way that is both tender and shattering. My gosh, I love Willy so much.
WNW: What is one of your favorite passages about the Northwest from your own writing?
There’s a funny part toward the end of This Is Between Us where the narrator and his girlfriend are taking the bus home after a Blazers game and they draw stick figures on the bus windows and one of them has a word bubble saying, “Brandon Roy got me pregnant.” Also, in the anthology, City of Weird (Forest Avenue Press), I have a story about various funny (and WEIRD!) moments on the city busses and MAX train. Public transportation is like a tiny microcosm of the community and it’s often inspiring, for better or worse.
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Kevin Sampsell is a bookseller (Powell’s Books), publisher (Future Tense Books), collage artist, and author or editor of several books including the novel This Is Between Us (Tin House Books), the memoir A Common Pornography (Harper Perennial), I Made an Accident: Poems and Collages (Clash Books), and most recently, a book for all ages, Sean the Stick (illustrated by Emma Jon-Michael Frank). His next novel, Baby in the Night, is due out later this year.
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Other Links:
Kevin Sampsell’s collages on Tumblr
Kevin Sampsell Interview – Gertrude Press
A page full of links to Kevin Sampsell’s short fiction
A page full of links to Kevin Sampsell’s nonfiction
Wikipedia entry on Kevin Sampsell
Bookshop.org link for This Is Between Us, a novel by Kevin Sampsell
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