Reading: Jan Baross: Bye-Bye Bakersfield

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Portland author Jan Baross for an in-store reading from her new novel, Bye-Bye Bakersfield.

About Bye-Bye Bakersfield:

"Don't tell anyone we're Democrats," warned Mother when we moved to Bakersfield. "And for God's sake, don't tell them you're Jewish." Bakersfield in the 1950s was redneck central. With humor and tenacity, a young Jewish girl negotiates the pitfalls of growing up as an outsider in a very strange land. A chapter from Bye-Bye Bakersfield received first place in the prestigious annual international San Miguel Writers Conference Competition for 2023.

Jan Baross was born in Oakland, CA in 1943 and raised in Bakersfield, CA. From an early age, Baross began sketching as she traveled with her mother around the world, which later translated into her illustrated travel books. By 1971 Baross had moved to Corvallis, Oregon. At Oregon State University, she taught filmmaking, got an MA in Communications, made documentaries for the University and was a film critic for The Corvallis Gazette Times. She's produced television PR, worked on feature films and co-produced music videos. As a stringer, she worked for NBC and CBS affiliates. in 1985, she moved to Portland, Oregon and continued her filmmaking, wrote optioned screenplays, and joined the board of the NW Film Co-op. In 2006 her first novel, Jose Builds a Woman, was published by Ooligan Press. It won first place for fiction in the national The Kay Snow Awards. Her second novel was Sylvia the One-Hundred-Year-Old Assassin, a political satire. Baross began her own imprint, the MPolo Press. She now publishes her illustrated travel guidebooks. Baross continues to write books and illustrate, designing posters for theatre companies in Portland and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she spends her winters.