When island poet and magician Tom Pruiksma and Portland writer Pauls Toutonghi get together, the unexpected often occurs. The two friends, who grew up together in Seattle, will hold a literary conversation and a short reading from Toutonghi’s new book, “Dog Gone,” at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 14, at Vashon Bookshop.
“Tom is very mysterious — you never know what will happen,” Toutonghi said in a recent interview. “I’ve witnessed so much over the years with his magic, you just never know. At his show to earn his Master of Fine Arts, people wrote a poem, put it in a hat and the (poems) ended up in a lemon in someone’s pocket. He’s the real deal.”
Pruiksma is also a writer, poet and translator, a teacher at StudentLink and performer of “Poet’s Magic,” his signature combination of poetry, storytelling and magic.
Toutonghi’s “real deal” career is as a creative writing professor at Lewis and Clark College and author of three books, the latest published by Knopf.
“Dog Gone” is a family story about losing Gonker, a beloved but sick golden retriever, on the Appalachian Trail, and the family’s heroic efforts to find the dog, all in the pre-internet days of the 1980s.
“It had all the hallmarks of a fantastic story — a clear narrative through-line, a ticking clock, reacting to a crisis and deep family love,” Toutonghi said.
The story also speaks to the idea of returning home, a common thread for both Pruiksma and Toutonghi.
“The theme of the evening will be homecoming as it features in Pauls’ work and as it pertains to both (of our) lives, having returned to the Pacific Northwest after living and working in other places around the world,” Pruiksma wrote in an email.
The two authors met in their 10th grade language arts class at Garfield High School in Seattle, which is where their magic and mischief began.
“We shared writing at the back of the school bus,” Prukisma wrote. “We had more than (our) share of adventures and misadventures, which included spontaneous road trips, cars filled with flowers and a cardboard pig signed by the late Alan Ginsburg.”
