“This is the best novel I’ve ever read,” says Writers On The Edge founder, Carla Perry. “It is a luscious, magical story where the main character is named Tortugina (“Little Turtle”). She has green eyes and a terrible overbite and lives in the town of El Pulpa (“Octopus”), which is how the village survives economically. Tortugina loves the handsome Gabito, and Gabito, who wears his good luck yellow shorts when he dives, loves Tortugina back, but they are too young to do anything about it. Their  lives are plagued by shortcomings, failures and misfortune, but their love is so true and steady, it can’t be bound by life or death. In fact, Jose, Tortuguina’s son, is conceived by the jealous Gabito long after he drowns, and she has married a stranger passing through town. The stranger, Miguel Svendik, arrived on his camel, Lucinda, an animal that “sounds like a horse with a cold… a long-legged cow with a sloppy face.”

“Mexico has a magical draw that I can’t explain any more than how the mother and son saga in Jose Builds A Woman began flowing out of me one rainy day,” said Baross. “Being in Mexico inspired the kind of writing I didn’t know I could do. It is very Latin.” The book won First Place for Fiction at the national Kay Snow Awards. The book’s vibrant front cover is from a painting by Baross.

Jan Baross is the owner of Mpolo Press, which has published Baross’ illustrated travel guides, “Ms. Baross Goes to Paris” and “Ms. Baross Goes To Mexico.” She has been on the board of Artist Repertory Theatre in Portland for 20 years. Each year Baross creates a series of paintings based on the theme of one of the plays. This year her series, “Short History of Boys,” was created for exhibit during the run of the play, “History of Boys” in May and early June. She is currently working on her second novel, an historical saga that takes place in Oregon in 1906.
 
Baross grew up in Bakersfield, CA, received a BA in art and teaching credentials from San Francisco State University, and a masters in communication from Oregon State. She is also a filmmaker, having produced 40 documentaries, several animated films, numerous Public Service announcements for television, a few music videos, and six feature films. Early in her career she was a TV-film stringer for NBC and CBS. As a playwright, Baross has written fifteen plays, some of which have been produced Off Off Broadway, in the US and Mexico. She was commissioned to turn her play, Mata Hari, into the libretto for opera, which premiered in Dallas, Texas, and won an award. She is also a cartoonist, film critic, and travel and feature contributor for several newspapers and magazines. Her photographs have been published widely and exhibited in several galleries. She’s taught filmmaking at Oregon State University, Seattle University’s Upward Bound, and for Portland Artists in the Schools; and art in pre-schools in Seattle and San Francisco.
 
Copies of Jose Builds A Woman will be available for purchase and autographing courtesy of Ulrike Bremer of Nye Beach Books. Following a brief intermission and book signing, the Nye Beach Writers Series’ open mike will take place. The first ten people who sign up can read their original work for up to five minutes. Open mike readers are welcome to display and sell copies of their own books and CDs. Light refreshments, wine, and coffee will be available.