• Can the techies save the news? – If  the scene at the recent BarCampPortland III meet up was any indication, that could very well be the case.
• The Smalltown News – Small newspapers are in a better shape than big ones to survive the recession and changing news business, according to this story I did for Oregon Business magazine.
• Room to write – No office space at home but hate working in coffee shops? Portland’s got plenty of communal workspaces for writers, part of a nationwide trend of shared workplaces.
• WordPress user group forms - The more writers take to blogging, the more call there is for places they can go for training, and this group is one of them.
• Portland is for word lovers – It only follows that the city with the country’s best independent book store and most active public library system would host a rockin’ annual book festival. Wordstock is it.
• City debates whether bloggers are reporters – In a scene that’s starting to repeat itself across the country, the Portland suburb of Lake Oswego debates whether to allow a local blogger into city meetings.
• While other papers sink, the Oregonian swims – I wrote this before the paper’s latest rounds of job cuts and salary reductions. But Portland’s daily is still publishing seven days a week, isn’t in bankruptcy and has managed to keep some of the country’s top feature writers and sports columnists – these days, that’s saying a lot.

But come Nov. 8, the best name will be Portland is Wordsville.

That’s the day the annual Wordstock literary festival begins and Portlanders renew their passion for words.

Now in it’s fourth year, Wordstock is a two-day celebration of writing and reading in all its forms. The event, which takes place at the Oregon Convention Center, features 10 author stages, a book fair, children’s play area and special children’s author stage and a special broadcast of Live Wire, the Portland-based radio variety show, devoted to the festival. True to Portland’s quirky nature, there’s even a Text Ball, sponsored by the Independent Publishing Resource Center, on Saturday night, where people are encouraged to dress with text as part of their evening attire to show their love of words.

Writers can sign up to attend workshops on a variety of fiction and non-fiction subjects that run throughout the weekend. Workshops are $50 for one, $80 for two, and $20 for each additional workshop.

You can follow the build up to the event at the Wordstock blog.

Wordstock runs Nov. 8 and 9, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets are $5 a day and available at the door. Children 17 and under get in free.