Selfors comes to visit

Suzanne Selfors

Vault Books & Brew and Castle Rock Elementary School are excited to host award winning children's writer Suzanne Selfors. The visit was made possible from a chance encounter between Vault Books & Brew owner Jennifer Engkraf and Selfors at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Trade show late last year.

Selfors was intrigued by the small town bookshop and agreed to come do an assembly at the elementary school, as well as a meet and greet at Vault later that evening. This is the first time in several years that the elementary school has been able to host a writer. Castle Rock Elementary School Creative Learning Center Specialist Nikki Williams was instrumental in working out the details and getting the students excited about the upcoming visit.

I got the opportunity to talk to Selfors and get some more information before the assembly. When asked who her inspirations were when she was in elementary school, Selfors replied, "My favorite author was Roald Dahl, and he's still my favorite. I read James and the Giant Peach a dozen times, and Matilda is one of my favorite literary heroes. His work definitely inspires my own."

Selfors says she has been making up stories for most of her life, including plays and short stories. She loves conceptualizing the next books, diving into a new world and letting it unfold, meeting new characters and creating new worlds. "The revision part, the rounds of editing," she says, "Not so much fun."

The students overall favorite book so far has been Wedgie and Gizmo, a funny and engaging new series about a corgi who thinks he's a superhero and a guinea pig who thinks he's an evil genius. According to Selfors, Wedgie and Gizmo have "delusions of grandeur and misinterpret everything around them, and that's funny. But there's also an important storyline with the humans going on in the background--the story of two families of different cultures blending together."

The students at Castle Rock Elementary School will get to enjoy Selfors' presentation on March 2 and community members are invited to Vault Books & Brew (20 Cowlitz Street West in Castle Rock) that same day at 5:30 p.m. for a chance to meet the author and participate in a Q&A session, as well as the opportunity to get books signed.

To learn more about Suzanne Selfors, visit www.suzanneselfors.com.