Paper Fort

Stafford Readings in January

2012-01-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

William Stafford's work is both a pledge of allegiance and a request for allegiance--allegiance to "...a weather/ of things that happen too faint for headlines,/ but tremendous, like willows touching the river." William Stafford asks us to give allegiance to what's deeper than headlines, to pay attention to a deeper world. As we read his poems, we recognize this attention. As we accept his invitation to write our own poems, we begin to recognize the blessing that learning to attend can give.
- Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen, at The Oregon Cultural Trust blog

Here's a list of some upcoming readings, in celebration of William Stafford and his work:

Saturday, January 21st, 3 pm, Holy Names Heritage Center, 17425 Holy Names Drive, Lake Oswego. (Take the Mary’s Woods exit off Hwy 43 and head one block east.) Hosted by Joan Maiers. Featuring FWS Board Member Patricia Carver. Contact: Joan Maiers, jmaiers@yahoo.com or Holy Names Heritage Center 503-607-0595

Saturday, January 21st, 4 pm, Cover to Cover Books, 6300 NE St. James Road, Suite 104B, Vancouver, WA. Hosted by Christopher Luna. Contact: Christopher Luna christopherjluna@gmail.com or Cover to Cover 360-993-7777

Sunday, January 22nd, 2-4 pm, Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th, Portland. Hosted by Willa Schneberg and Robin Bagai. Featuring Ron Bloodworth, A. Molotkov, Susan Russell, Suzanne Sigafoos, Joe Soldati, and FWS Board Member Leah Stenson. Contact: Willa Schneberg, snowmntn@comcast.net, 503-248-4136

Sunday, January 22nd, 2 pm, Auditorium, Beaverton City Library, 12375 SW 5th St., Beaverton. www.beavertonlibrary.org. Hosted by FWS Board Member Don Colburn. Featuring three-time Oregon Book Award winner John Daniel who will read from William Stafford's poems and his own and talk about Stafford's life and work in relation to his own writing, both poetry and prose. Then there will be time for audience members to come forward and read a Stafford poem of their choice. Bring one! Contact: Linda Fallon lfallon@beavertonoregon.gov 503-526-2676 or Don Colburn doncolburn@msn.com 503-737-7819

Monday, January 23rd, 7-8:30 pm. University of Portland, Buckley Center 163, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland. Hosted by Herman Asarnow. Featuring Chris Cottrell, Kate Gray, Jerry Harp, Sara Jaffe, Lay-Ping (Candy) Tan, and FWS Board Member Susan Reese. Contact: Herman Asarnow, asarnow@up.edu

2012 Oregon Book Awards Finalists

2012-01-09T08:47:00.001-08:00

Literary Arts is pleased to announce the finalists for the 25th Annual Oregon Book Awards. Winners will be announced at the ceremony on Monday, April 23rd at 7:30 p.m. at the Gerding Theater at the Armory in Portland (128 NW Eleventh Ave). Timothy Egan will host the ceremony, which honors the state's finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction and young readers literature. This year, for the first time, Literary Arts will also honor graphic literature. Tickets to the ceremony are available at Brown Paper Tickets.com.

*Readers' Choice Award*: The Oregonian and Literary Arts invites you to cast your vote for your favorite book. The finalist with the most votes will be awarded the Readers' Choice Award at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony on Monday, April 23rd, 2012! Vote at: http://www.oregonlive.com/books

PACIFIC NORTHWEST COLLEGE OF ART GRAPHIC LITERATURE AWARD

Judge:Matt Madden

Graham Annable of Portland

The Book of Grickle (Dark Horse Comics)

Aidan Koch of Portland

The Whale (Gaze Books)

Sarah Oleksyk of Portland

Ivy (Oni Press)

Greg Rucka of Portland

Stumptown (Oni Press)

Joe Sacco of Portland

Footnotes in Gaza (Metropolitan Books)

KEN KESEY AWARD FOR FICTION

Judge: Phillip Lopate

Dan DeWeese of Portland

You Don't Love This Man (Harper Perennial)

Patrick DeWitt of Portland

The Sisters Brothers (Ecco)

Brian Doyle of Portland

Mink River (Oregon State University Press)

Matthew Stadler of Portland

Chloe Jarren’s La Cucaracha (Publication Studio)

Vanessa Veselka of Portland

Zazen (Red Lemonade)

STAFFORD/HALL AWARD FOR POETRY

Judge: Carl Phillips

Carl Adamshick of Portland

Curses and Wishes (Louisiana State University Press)

Geri Doran of Eugene

Sanderlings (Tupelo Press)

Emily Kendal Freyof Portland

The Grief Performance (Cleveland State University Press)

Daniel Skach-Mills of Portland

The Hut Beneath the Pine (Daniel Skach-Mills)

Ursula K. Le Guin of Portland and Roger Dorband of Astoria

Out Here (Raven Studio)

FRANCES FULLER VICTOR AWARD FOR GENERAL NONFICTION

Judge: Jane Brox

Glenn Anthony May of Eugene

Sonny Montes and Mexican American Activism in Oregon (Oregon State University Press)

Kenneth J. Ruoff of Portland

Imperial Japan At Its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire’s 2600th Anniversary (Cornell University Press)

Roger J. Porter of Portland

Bureau of Missing Persons: Writing the Secret Lives of Fathers (Cornell University Press)

SARAH WINNEMUCCA AWARD FOR CREATIVE NONFICTION

Judge: Madeleine Blais

George Estreich of Corvallis

The Shape of the Eye: Down Syndrome, Family, and the Stories We Inherit (Southern Methodist University Press)

Jennifer Lauck of Portland

Found (Seal Press)

Sarahlee Lawrence of Portland

River House (Tin House Books)

Marjorie Sandor of Corvallis

The Late Interiors (Arcade Publishing)

Lidia Yuknavitch of Portland

The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books)

ELOISE JARVIS MCGRAW AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Judge: Linda Sue Park

Nancy Coffelt of Portland

Catch That Baby! (Simon & Schuster)

Judy Cox of Ontario

Nora and the Texas Terror (Holiday House)

Eric A. Kimmel of Portland

Medio Pollito (Marshall Cavendish)

Cynthia Rylant of Portland

Brownie and Pearl Take a Dip (Simon & Schuster)

Graham Salisbury of Lake Oswego

Calvin Coconut: Hero of Hawaii (Wendy Lamb Books)

LESLIE BRADSHAW AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE

Judge: Linda Sue Park

Heather Vogel Frederick of Portland

Pies and Prejudice (Simon & Schuster)

April Henry of Portland

Girl, Stolen (Henry Holt)

Lisa Schroeder of Beaverton

The Day Before(Simon Pulse)

Jen Violi of Portland

Putting Makeup on Dead People (Hyperion)

Emily Whitman of Portland

Wildwing (Greenwillow Books)

2012 Oregon Literary Fellowship Recipients

2012-01-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

OREGON LITERARY FELLOWSHIPS

Literary Arts is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2012 Oregon Literary Fellowships to writers and to publishers. The judges named eight writers and three publishers to receive grants of $2500.

Poetry

Rodger Moody of Eugene, The C.Hamilton Bailey Fellowship

Fiction

Larry Bingham of Portland, The Walt Morey Fellowship

Mark Allen Cunningham of Portland, The Leslie Bradshaw Fellowship

Zondie Zinke of Eugene

Literary Nonfiction

Apricot Irving of Portland, The Friends of the Lake Oswego Library William Stafford Fellowship

Drama

Brian Kettlerof Portland

Andrea Stolwitz of Portland, The Women Writers Fellowship

Young Readers Literature

Sabina I. Rascol of Portland, The Edna L. Holmes Fellowship in Young Readers Literature

PUBLISHERS

Basalt of La Grande

Burnside Review of Portland

Silverfish Review of Eugene

Guidelines for the 2013 Oregon Literary Fellowships will go online in February, 2012.

Oregon Book Awards Finalists Announced in January

2011-12-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

On January 9, 2012, Literary Arts will announce the 2012 Oregon Book Awards finalists and Oregon Literary Fellowships recipients.

The Oregon Book Awards ceremony will take place April 23, 2012. A list of books submitted for consideration for the 2012 Oregon Book Awards can be found here.

Tiffany Lee Brown's Favorite Books of 2011

2011-12-15T09:31:00.001-08:00

Tiffany Lee Brown lives in Portland and is the author of A Compendium of Miniatures. She edits Plazm magazine and is the director of New Oregon Arts & Letters. An installation based on her five-year interdisciplinary artwork, The Easter Island Project, will open at Reed College Cooley Gallery's Caseworks series in January.

A Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. Memoir is tough to pull off these days. Unless you cross the Atlantic in a recycled solar bathtub or become the first African-American president of the United States, we've all heard your story before-especially if your memoir talks about your life as an addict, abuse victim, Bohemian, or (heaven forfend) a writer. Yes, this is the stuff of life and it's hecka dramatic, but that's why so many people write books about it.

We have the simplistic Eat, Pray, Love sorts of things. We have the irritating Anne Lamott who nonetheless writes poignant, universal stories. We have macho-yet-pensive travel tomes like those of Paul Theroux. We have post-Pilgrim Annie Dillard, severe and a bit pompous about the whole business of writing and living. You'd really have to elevate the form, voice, and story to stand out in the era of memoir. You'd have to make us feel the power of life's adventures and transformations anew, without losing your honesty and personality, without pumping yourself up or (far worse) mincing around in false modesty.

Lidia Yuknavitch has done it, brilliantly and passionately. She's written the real memoir of a very real writer in the real world today, without sacrificing her voice or eccentricity. I've written more about the book itself in the recent issue of Plazm magazine, so I'll stop here. The important thing is this: go get the damned book.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. When I'm not reading genius local writers, I consume middle reader and young adult fantasy fiction, with the excuse that some decade in the far future I'll actually write some myself. Somehow I skipped the popular Leviathan steampunk trilogy when it came out, not to mention Westerfeld's imaginative Pretties series. Both were excellent accompaniments to the beautiful, long winter months I spent with my newborn baby last year. Disclosure: I used to house- and cat-sit for Scott. I'd drink Scotch and stare at his view of the World Trade Center. But that's not why I had so much fun with these books.

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Dumb title, good book. Po Bronson's pretty fabulous at keeping readers entertained while discussing, like, Really Important Stuff and quoting research and, you know, whatever. Did you know telling your child she's smart is a bad idea? That all those martial arts, ballet, and violin lessons have no effect whatsoever on his future academic achievement and discipline? That sometimes corporal punishment works out fine, according to the research? Yeah, me neither. It's fun stuff for those of us who love pop neuroscience and psych research, who wonder endlessly why humans do what we do.

Runner-up: Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Carr's another guy who can talk research and neuroscience with accessible, appealing prose.

David Biespiel's Favorite Books of 2011

2011-12-13T13:28:00.000-08:00

David Biespiel is the author of The Book of Men and Women, winner of the 2011 Oregon Book Award in poetry. His other books include Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces, Wild Civility, and Shattering Air. He is the founding director of the Attic Institute and a regular contributor of poetry and prose to Poetry magazine and political opinion to Politico.

Clavics by Geoffery Hill: On the eve of his Collected Poems to be published in 2013, Hill has brought out a new collection of poems intended as a tribute to 17th century poetry and music. In its formal certainty and grave intelligence, it is a far cry from the crop of today's American pop poets who write to appease, tickle, and vanquish. The current Oxford Professor of Poetry is unrivaled in English for fusing the original with the traditional.

Confessions of a Young Novelist by Umberto Eco: An easy self-retrospective by a writer in his seventies who didn't publish his first book, The Name of the Rose, until he was in his fifties. Here he's a fabulous tour guide easing you into insights about his creative process and about the ways his imagination navigates the realms between fiction and nonfiction.

Republic, Lost by Lawrence Lessig: A clear, forceful argument about the cost of special interest money on America's electoral process, democratic faith, and the future of the republic. A professor of ethics, Lessig calls for a national mobilization against the huge amounts of money shoveled into campaigns (he even calls for a new Constitutional Convention) and urges you to reckon with the human toll of so much money devoted to so few people in the service of more and more limited causes.

Scott Nadelson's Favorite Books of 2011

2011-12-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

Scott Nadelson is the author of three story collections: Aftermath, published by Hawthorne Books in September 2011; The Cantor’s Daughter, winner of the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Fiction Prize for Emerging Jewish Writers and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize; and Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, winner of the Oregon Book Award for short fiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. He teaches creative writing at Willamette University.

The Return by Roberto Bolaño. Like a lot of people, I can’t get enough of Bolaño, and I’m excited every time a new book is translated into English, particularly his shorter works. This is the second published collection of the Chilean master’s stories, and like the previous one, the amazing Last Evenings on Earth, these stories are strange and haunting. But they’re funny, too, full of a mischievous wit that critics don’t often give Bolaño credit for. What I love about his work above all is that even the most seemingly casual, offhand tale takes us to unexpected places, to the dark center of his characters’ fears and desires.

The Professor by Terry Castle. Castle is a rare breed, a literary critic who turns the sharp lens of her scrutiny to include herself in the wide scope of her cultural investigations. These essays are a personal journey into the world of art, literature, and music, and what makes them most exciting is Castle’s exuberant, irreverent voice. Some of them are laugh-out-loud funny, including one that features a dinner party at Susan Sontag’s apartment. Others are devastating; my favorite essay in the collection, “My Heroin Christmas,” is an exploration of the life and work of the jazz great Art Pepper and his connection to Castle’s challenging California childhood.

Requiem for the Orchard by Oliver de la Paz. I don’t read as much poetry as I used to—not nearly as much as I’d like—but this collection really knocked me out. De la Paz is a Northwest poet; he grew up in Ontario, Oregon, and the poems in this collection explore his native landscape in the voice of a speaker caught between hating the hometown he’s escaped and mourning its loss. The poems are elegant elegies to childhood, to former selves, to a changing world. Their images are so vivid they stick in your mind weeks after you’ve put the book down. It’s a testament to a poet’s skill when he can turn teenagers cruising small town streets into the most unusual, evocative ritual you’ve ever encountered.

Justin Hocking's Favorite Books of 2011

2011-12-09T13:18:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year when Best Books lists abound! Today, Paper Fort steps into the fray, with our annual series on Oregon's writers and readers favorite books of the year. As most people's reading material in any one year is not limited to books published in that year, these lists can include, but are not limited to, books published in 2011.

We'll start with Justin Hocking, Executive Director of the IPRC. Here's his list of favorites:

A Simple Machine, Like the Lever by Evan P. Schneider. This unforgettable first novel effectively taps into bike culture—but on a deeper level it's about the emotional and financial deficits faced by our recession-battered generation. The climactic scene at the Oregon Coast is both cathartic and haunting. Published by local press Propeller Books, the physical book itself is beautiful, complete with French flaps. Forget about using them for bookmarks, though—you won't put this one down.

One More For the People by Martha Grover. Though this is technically a compilation of Grover's hilarious and heartbreaking zine Somnambulist, in my opinion it coheres into one of the freshest, most compelling memoirs I've ever read. Without the slightest trace of bathos but quite a lot of humor, Grover details her struggle with Cushing's Disease, whose 81 symptoms include dramatic changes to her appearance, not to mention the dreaded possibility of moving back in with her eccentric family. Published by promising upstart Perfect Day Publishing, and featuring a letterpress-printed cover, this is also hands down the best-looking book of 2011.

A Visit From the Goon Squad (paperback version) by Jennifer Egan. What more needs to be said about a National Book Award-winner? The unconventional form--it's really a collection of interconnected short stories--renewed my faith in the novel genre. More than anything, this book spoke to me about the ungraspable nature of time--especially as we drift away from the omnipotentiality of youth toward middle age and beyond. Yet, as Egan so beautifully illustrates, while our options may shrink in adulthood, the possibility of redemption never fades.

Holiday Cheer Features Jean Auel

2011-11-28T14:12:00.000-08:00

From our friends at Oregon Historical Society:

Join us on Sunday, December 4 from Noon – 4 PM, and meet some of your favorite authors,from popular children’s writer Bart King, to former governor Barbara Roberts, to famed author of the best‐selling Earth’s Children series, Jean Auel. Featuring everything from history books, to comic books, to novels, there is something for every literary taste at Holiday Cheer.

This year, we are thrilled to host award‐winning author Jean Auel, author of Clan of the Cave Bear, for a special event. Ms. Auel will be sharing stories about her research techniques, unique experiences abroad, and the final installment in the Earth’s Children series, The Land of Painted Caves.

Following the lecture (located at the First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Ave.), Ms. Auel will sign books at the Oregon Historical Society from 3 ‐ 4 PM. Admission is $10 for OHS members and $15 for nonmembers and includes admission to Holiday Cheer. Tickets are on sale now at www.ohs.org.

Admission to Holiday Cheer is $5, and is free for OHS members and children 17 and under.

Visit www.ohs.org to view a full list of the authors that will be attending this year’s event.

Oregon Authors Are Thankful

2011-11-22T13:39:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Paper Fort's third Oregon Authors Are Thankful posting. You can read previous posts from previous years here and here.

Here's how some Oregon authors responded this year to the question, what are you thankful for?

Emily Chenoweth:
I'm thankful for my wonderful family and for being able to make a living, however modest, doing what I love (which is writing--in particular, writing while in my pajamas with a giant mug of coffee by my elbow). Those are the top two, but here are a few other things I find myself giving thanks for on a regular basis: my friends, my 17-year-old cat, down comforters, toast, the Oregonian print edition, slippers, hawks, tomatoes, beans, good books, public transportation, Portland parks, New Seasons, the USPS, tea, and the great state of Oregon.

Michael Copperman:
I'm thankful for the privilege of teaching writing to bright and deserving students, who fill a cold classroom with the clamor and energy of their opinions, well-considered and ill-considered alike, and for having Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B," to teach them the proper spirit with which to turn in a paper: Teacher, this essay will change you. And I'm thankful for my two nephews, silly, wild-haired boys of six and four, who called me in the third quarter of the Oregon-Stanford game to tell me that the Ducks were the best, while the "Cardinal" (my alma mater) have a mascot that "does no push-ups, and doesn't make any sense."

Kathleen Dean Moore:
I'm grateful to the writers who are taking to the streets, going to jail, finding strong words for fledgling ideas and, in brave and beautiful ways, speaking for those who can't speak for themselves -- future generations, plants and animals, marginalized people everywhere.

Lisa Ohlen Harris:
I'm thankful for fog-streaked fields and soggy leaves composting over transplanted daffodil bulbs. I'm thankful for a warm home and for bread and soup and cinnamon sugar on toast

Henry Hughes:
I'm thankful for my loving wife and children, my generous and crazy friends;
thankful for my job, fish-filled waters, books, bourbon and vodka--oh, and food, I can't forget food and shelter. See what happens when we have so much? I am thankful. Very thankful.

Gretchen Icenogle:
I am grateful for chanterelles and rosemary. Also for the words "chanterelles" and "rosemary." For Woodford Reserve Bourbon and the friend who gave me a bottle. For sloppy kisses from my dogs and sloppier kisses from my husband. For a warm home. For a little more time.

Jennifer Richter:
I'm grateful most of all to feel healthy and loved every day.

Claire Willet:
I'm thankful I live in a city that loves writers. I'm thankful I'm a writer. I'm thankful for my Literary Arts fellowship, the first writing award I ever received; other exciting things followed this year, but you were the first institution who believed in me. I'm thankful beyond measure for all the signs from the universe I got over the past twelve months saying, "Yes, Claire, you're a real writer, keep doing this, don't give up." I'm also thankful for all the bad days over the past years, all the times when it seemed like I was just running into the same brick wall over and over again and felt like I wasn't ever going to get anywhere. The bad days make the victories and triumphs feel more real, and keep me from taking anything for granted.

Brenden Willey:
Today I'm thankful for the downsizing magazine shop that sold me four bookcases. And I'm thankful for books: for Katherine Anne Porter and her Miranda and Miranda and Rosaleen, for Ella Bend Hess's stirring up my senses and for her boorish husband's punching my gut (thereby for William H. Gass, too). And I'm thankful for David Bradley's Chaneysville Incident, for Uncle Jack's shack, setting to last night's dream of my grandfather.

Happy Thanksgiving from Paper Fort!

Also please note this is the last Paper Fort posting before the Civil War game, but as always Paper Fort remains neutral in regards to the outcome of the game. We're all winners!

OSU Press Celebrates 50 Years

2011-11-17T15:17:00.000-08:00

Oregon State University Press is celebrating 50 years of publishing this year. They are offering a free OSU Press 50th Anniversary Sampler that can be downloaded from their website. It includes work by authors the press has published, including Barbara Drake, Robin Cody, Brian Doyle and many others.

Janine Oshiro Reads Tonight at PSU

2011-11-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

Janine Oshiro was awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship in poetry in 2004. She currently lives in Hawaii, but is reading tonight, Monday, November 14, at Smith Memorial Center at Portland State University. The reading begins at 6:00.

Janine's first collection of poetry, Pier, (Alice James Books, 2011) won the first annual Kundiman Poetry Prize. The poet Mark Levine had this to say about Pier, “The poems in Pier refuse to privilege poetic craft over intensity of feeling, landscape over interiority, the mundane over the fabular, stoicism over grief. Instead, they have it all—or rather, they emerge from the spaces between contending states: ‘It came out in a child’s hand and I was / not a child.’ Oshiro’s is a new voice of antique resonances, born of an anxious apprenticeship to beauty and to pain.”

Writer's Forum With Stacy Schiff

2011-11-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

Stacy Schiff appeared last Thursday as part of Portland Arts & Lectures. Thursday afternoon before her lecture, she met with a group of local writers, including past finalists and recipients of Oregon Book Awards and Oregon Literary Fellowships, for a Writer's Forum at the Literary Arts center.

Oregon Book Awards author Pamela Smith Hill had this to say about the meeting: "As nonfiction writers, we discussed the challenges of working from both a very large archive of materials-- and a very small one; the joy and frustration of research; the struggle to find our subjects' essential stories; and the unique issues that surface when publishing nonfiction. More importantly, Stacy Schiff answered our questions about craft, perspective, and theme with candor and insight. What a rare opportunity to exchange ideas with such a gifted writer."

Oregon Book Awards author Carmen Bernier Grand also said: "Schiff's process intrigued me because I research at home, write the first draft, and then, with the gaps and questions I have, I go onsite to research further and interview the experts. In contrast, she researches and interviews before she begins to write. I never thought about interviewing the same person more than once. But how right Schiff is! Although most people are willing to be interviewed, they don’t quite trust the biographer."

Also in attendance was Oregon Book Awards author Kimberly Jensen, who commented afterwards, "For me writing is a combination of work alone in a room, whether researching in an archives or writing in my home office, and collaboration with colleagues and readers. The chance to meet with local colleagues and visiting author Stacy Schiff was an opportunity to build on the collaborative phase and to talk about the research and writing process in just the right size of a group."

Book Drive for Rural Oregon Libraries

2011-10-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

From our friends at Tavern Books:

"Please join Tavern Books in building and sustaining the poetry collections in Oregon's rural and tribal libraries. Paulann Petersen, Oregon's current Poet Laureate, has made our book drive a priority for her upcoming term as our state's poet. The libraries benefiting from this program are those who serve communities of 5,000 or fewer.

You can support this book drive by sending us your used or new poetry books, poetry anthologies, and books pertaining to poetry and poetics. No donation is too large or too small. Every book counts! We will acquire these books and redistribute them to participating rural and tribal libraries. Tavern Books is committed to making great works of poetry available to the reading public. Thank you for your support."

Please send your book donations to:

Tavern Books
attn: Carl Adamshick
20 NE 30th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97232

Oregon Authors Read Tonight in Corvallis

2011-10-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

The 18th Annual Magic Barrell:A Reading to Fight Hunger takes place tonight, Friday, October 21, at the Corvallis High School Theatre. The event features eight Oregon authors.

More from the Visit Corvallis site:

The Magic Barrel: A Reading to Fight Hunger, is held every fall in Corvallis to raise funds for Linn-Benton Food Share. The event is named after former OSU professor Bernard Malamud’s short story collection, The Magic Barrel, and features approximately eight writers from the Willamette Valley who share their fiction, poems, and works of nonfiction in brief readings. Punctuated by a “tone poem” from the improvisational jazz group, Sideways Portal, the evening begins and ends with music and food, and the excitement of hearing new works.

Suggested donation is $7 (but no one will be turned away). All money raised
goes to Linn-Benton Food Share to help alleviate local hunger.

This year's readers are:

Keith Scribner, OSU professor and author of the novels Miracle Girl, The Good Life and his latest, The Oregon Experiment.

Alison Clement, Oregon Book Award winner and author of the novels Pretty Is as Pretty Does and Twenty Questions.

Tom Birdseye, author of a dozen novels for young readers including the recently published Storm Mountain.

Jon Lewis, OSU professor and author of eight nonfiction books about cinema,including The Godfather.

Debra Gwartney, author of Live Through This, a memoir about her daughters
living on the streets as runaways that was an Oregon Book Awards and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Tim Black, author of the poetry collection Connecticut Shade.

Karen Holmberg, OSU professor, author of the poetry collection The Perseids and recent winner of the John Ciardi Prize.

Ann Staley, author of the poetry collection Primary Sources and an organizing publisher of FIREWEED: Poetry of Western Oregon.

The evening will be hosted by Mike McInally, editor of the Corvallis Gazette-Times.

Paper Fort is Live Blogging Tomorrow

2011-10-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow on Oregon Public Broadcasting's Think Out Loud, the finalists for the 2011 National Book Awards will be announced. The show will be broadcast live from the Literary Arts Center in Portland, announcing the 2011 finalists in four categories. OPB will be streaming video of the program live from their site during the broadcast as well as live-blogging the event with regular updates of the announcements. Oregon authors Vern Rutsala, Sallie Tisdale and Virginia Euwer Wolff will be announcing the finalists; they'll be joined by the author Charles Johnson and Harold Augenbraum, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation.

Paper Fort will be liveblogging at the OPB site as well, so stop by and join the conversation!

Alison Clement and E-Publishing

2011-10-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

In 2007, Alison Clement won the Ken Kesey Award for her novel Twenty Questions. In August of this year, Alison acquired the rights to Twenty Questions and made it available as an e-book.

Last month Paper Fort talked to Tina Boscha about e-publishing. This month we ask Alison some questions about her decision to offer Twenty Questions as an e-book.

Paper Fort:Can you describe how you decided to publish your book as an e-book?

I wasn’t interested in e-books until a friend, writer Sara Backer, turned me on to a Barry Eisler interview about e-publishing. At the time I had just finished writing a new novel, Watching Rhonda Honey, and was preparing for the long slog of looking for an agent. You send a query and wait. If the agent likes what you say, you send your first 50 pages and wait some more. Maybe she wants to read the whole manuscript, so you send it and wait again. The agent is probably very kind, but she doesn’t fall in love with the novel.

This doesn’t bother me. My heart is no longer broken by rejection. What bothers me is the length of time it all takes. I’m too old to wait around anymore. I feel very finite these days. And then, if you find an agent, you wait again while she shops it around. If she is unsuccessful, it’s hard to find another agent to represent your book because everyone wants a virgin. If she does sell it, you’re so grateful you don’t question money or terms.

If you’re me, you hardly read the contract because hooray! your book is being published. Maybe you hate the cover, maybe you don’t like the title, but the marketing department has the final say. They also decide how to market your book, or, quite possibly, they decide not to market it. You can’t really blame anyone. It’s hard to sell books. People are losing their jobs. Bookstores are closing down. Everything is up for grabs.

While I was going back and forth with the idea of e-publishing my new book, I got the rights back to my published novel, Twenty Questions. I published it electronically last month. One of the benefits of e-publishing is that you can sell the book so cheaply. I’m selling Twenty Questions for $4.99. E-publishing makes it possible for people to buy books inexpensively, although they are not books that give you a tactile experience or sit invitingly by your bed at night.

I’m now doing final edits for my new Rhonda Honey book and plan to e-publish it within the next couple months. Also, I should add that, because Twenty Questions was already published, it’s eligible to be offered as a print on demand book by the Author’s Guild. So I can offer it in either format. I hope writers realize this. If your book is out of print and the rights have been reverted, you can publish it, usually at no cost, through the Author’s Guild.

Paper Fort: How did you regain the rights to your book so that you could publish it as an e-book?

Alison: My former agent, who continues to be an ally, requested the rights back for both of my published novels. Simon & Schuster simply sent a rights of reversion letter—allowing all rights to the book to revert to me—and that was it. Generally, if you’re requesting the rights back yourself, you need to send a certified letter to your publisher with a request. The procedure should be spelled out in your contract. I haven’t yet been successful at getting rights reverted for my first book, but that’s a long story.

Paper Fort: What was the most satisfying about the process? Would you recommend this to other writers?

Alison: It was easy. It was immediate. I had complete control over the process. It was not expensive. Once it was formatted, I uploaded it to an independent e-book distributor, Smashwords. Publicity is the hard part, but isn’t that always true?

Can I also tell you the least satisfying part? It’s the feeling that in some way I’m betraying the independent bookstores. Barry Eisler points out that when we talk about e-books, we’re just talking about a delivery system—that it’s still story, it’s just a different way of delivering that story. I think that’s a good way to look at it. But at the same time, we don’t want our bookstores to go away. We want our libraries. We need a new model, a model that supports our writing but at the same time preserves the best of what we have now.

Annie Proulx Meets With Local Writers

2011-09-28T16:36:00.000-07:00

Annie Proulx appeared in Portland last Thursday as part of Portland Arts & Lectures. Friday morning, she met with a group of local writers, including past finalists and recipients of Oregon Book Awards and Oregon Literary Fellowships, to talk about writing fiction, getting published, and other aspects of the writing life.

Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient Norina Beck was in attendance and had this to say about the morning:

"In person Annie Proulx was as generous and wry as her prose. She made an effort to connect with each of us. She asked about our work, seeming as interested in us as we were in her. We talked about the future of publishing, the importance of curiosity, and the opportunity for human research offered by ordinary places such as airports and bus stops. “I write because it pleases me,” she told us, admitting that she has never considered herself a ‘writer.’ “I am a reader,” she told us, explaining that everything a writer needs to learn can be discovered by reading. “Read everything,” she told us, going on to describe her voluminous collection of books, including everything from plumbing manuals and pamphlets, to the classics. Leaving the discussion, I felt inspired and recharged. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Proulx, one of my literary heros."

Tracy Daugherty at the Brooklyn Book Festival

2011-09-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Tracy Daugherty appeared at the Brooklyn Book Festival last Sunday. Paper Fort was in attendance, and this is a very brief clip of Tracy talking about the success of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Tracy is the author of Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Heller.

River In The Sea by Tina Boscha

2011-09-14T09:23:00.001-07:00

In 2006, Tina Boscha was awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship. The fellowship gave her time to complete her novel, River in The Sea, an historical novel based on the experiences of her mother growing up in Fryslan, Netherlands during World War II. The fiction fellowship judge that year, Samrat Uppadhya, said of Tina's work, "I fell in love with her tender gaze at the world she creates".

Tina recently published River in the Sea as an e-book, available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

We asked Tina a few questions about writing her book and its path to publication, including her decision to self-publish it as an ebook.

Paper Fort: Can you describe your path to publication for River In The Sea?

Tina: All told, the book took a whopping ten years from the very first draft (during my MFA days) to publishing it myself. However, I did not work continuously on it - not by a long shot. I would say that if I counted all the time it took me to actually draft, revise, revise again, revise once more, and do all the work of self-publishing, it took me between one and a half and two years.

I acquired an agent in 2008 and the book made the rounds of practically every house out there. I received mixed feedback, everything from "Um, no" to "I love it but just can't buy it right now." I nearly sold the book to a wonderful small press in Canada but they turned it down on the basis that they didn't feel they could be the lead publisher for an American author. That was in December. Already the indie publishing route had taken off, and with some prodding from my husband, I decided that I didn't want to shelve the book.

Any route an author takes to get published has its merits, and for me, publishing it myself grew in appeal for many reasons.

I also should add that because the book is based on my mother, I didn't want to give up on it for her sake. She is close to 80 and her memory is failing and really, everything came down to a gut feeling that I should put the book out there.

Also, by nature I am a DIY-er. I like to knit and sew my own clothes; my husband and I bought a house off foreclosure and are still fixing it up. I like doing things on my own. In addition, it has become much, much easier (and economical) to publish your own work and have it look quite professional. Royalties are much more favorable to the writer, as well.

Finally, though, it feels the most democratic, in a sense. Readers are ultimately going to decide if my book deserves an audience and while that is terrifying, it feels like the best bottom line.

Paper Fort: What has been the most satisfying part of the process of publishing The River in The Sea?

Tina: It's still pretty new for me, but right now it's the sum total of everything. I love how much control I have over the entire process. I love that I witnessed my first sale to one of my dear friends. I love hearing directly from early readers about their reaction to the book. I love knowing that I can change and adjust any numbers of issues and see the change almost immediately. I love knowing that I can write and then directly put my work out into the world. I think maybe I finally have a word for it: freedom. I am an author and it's by my own authority. I love that!

I guess we'll miss him most of all

2011-09-08T14:15:00.001-07:00

Thank you Weiden and Kennedy!

Moving On!

2011-09-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

We're moving! We'll be closed Friday, September 9th, while we move out of our offices in the Weiden and Kennedy building.

Our new address is: 925 SW WASHINGTON, PORTLAND OR, 97205. Our phone numbers and e-mail addresses will remain the same, and our web site is still www.literary-arts.org.

Final List of Books Submitted to the Oregon Book Awards

2011-09-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

The deadline to submit books for consideration to the 2012 Oregon Book Awards was Friday, August 26, 2011. Finalists will be announced in January 2012.

168 books were submitted. Here is the final list of books submitted in each category.

Children’s Literature
21 titles submitted

Alicia Alonso by Carmen Bernier-Grand
Sonia Sotomayor by Carmen Bernier-Grand
Brownie Groundhog and The February Fox by Susan Blackaby
Patsy Ann: The True Story of a Dog by Tricia Brown
Catch That Baby! by Nancy Coffelt
The Big Wish by Carolyn Conahan
Nora and the Texas Terror by Judy Cox
Carmen Learns English by Judy Cox
Hide and Squeak by Heather Vogel Frederick
Medio Pollito by Eric Kimmel
The Story of Esther by Eric Kimmel
The Spider’s Gift by Eric Kimmel
The Forest Fire with Penny the Mustang Pony by Barbara Knight
The Secret of the Ballerinia by Joe Knotts
Confessions of a Former Bully by Trudy Ludwig
The Enchanted Ring by Steven Overton
For The Love of Music by Elizabeth Rusch
Brownie & Pearl Take a Dip by Cynthia Rylant
Calvin Coconut: Hero of Hawaii by Graham Salisbury
A Pika’s Place by Bobbie Snead
The Super Crazy Cat Dance by Aron Nels Steinke

Young Adult Literature
12 titles submitted

Bitsy’s Labyrinth by Mary Andonian
Storm Mountain by Tom Birdseye
Pies & Prejudice by Heather Vogel Frederick
Girl, Stolen by April Henry
Running Wide Open by Lisa Nowak
Exile by Anne Osterlund
Uncharted Territory by Rae Richen
The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder
Storm Runners by Roland Smith
Putting Makeup on Dead People by Jen Violi
Darius Logan: Super Justice Force by D.F. Walker
Wildwing by Emily Whitman

Creative Nonfiction
25 titles submitted

Every Writer Has A Thousand Faces by David Biespiel
A Lifetime of Small Adventures by Bill Birnbaum
The Gift Of El Tio by Larry Buchanan
Une Petite Eclaircie: A Journal of Paintings by Bets Cole
The Shape of the Eye by George Estreich
Chance of Sun by Kim Cooper Findling
A Sacred Place: Memoirs of a Female Hunter by Sherrie Gant
Remembering the Power of Words by Avel Louise Gordly
The End of Boys by Peter Brown Hoffmeister
My Teenage Werwolf by Lauren Kessler
In The Shadow Of Death: A Young Girl’s Survival In The Holocaust
by Miriam Kominkowska Greenstein
Found: A Memoir by Jennifer Lauck
River House by Sarahlee Lawrence
Shoes Full of Sand by Sue Lick
Love & The Green Lady by Matt Love
Doctor Guilt? by Everett Lovrien
In Search of Fatherhood by Kevin Renner
Pacific Coast Pirates & Spanish Galleons by Dave Sandersfeld
The Late Interiors by Marjorie Sandor

Sun-Painted Man by Philip Schuster
Crossing the Heart of Africa by Julian Smith
Fireproof Moth: A Missionary in Taiwan’s White Terror by Milo L. Thornberry
Illumination: How One Woman Made Light of the Darkness
by Sophia vanBuren
Where the Crooked River Rises: A High Desert Home by Ellen Waterston
Yeah. No. Totally. by Lisa Wells
The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

General Nonfiction
22 titles submitted

Cache: Creating Natural Economies by Spencer Beebe
On Mount Hood: A Biography of Oregon’s Perilous Peak by Jon Bell
Joyride: Pedaling Toward A Healthier Planet by Mia Birk
$1.09 An Hour And Glad to Have It by Sandy Carter
Discovering Main Street: Travel Adventures in Small Towns of the Northwest
by Foster Church
Voodoo Vintners by Katherine Cole
The Murder of the Century by Paul Collins
A Householder’s Guide to the Universe by Harriett Fasenfest
Crossings: McCullough’s Coastal Bridges by Judy Fleagle
Bong Hits For Jesus by James Foster
For Us, What Music? The Life and Poetry of Donald Justice by Jerry Harp
Ballers of the New School by Thabiti Lewis
The Happy Man Lied by Floyd Mackler
Sonny Montes and Mexican American Activism in Oregon
by Glenn Anthony May
Bureau of Missing Persons: Writing The Secret Lives of Fathers
by Roger Porter
Portland’s Goose Hollow by Tracy Prince
Oregon Hazelnut Country: The Food, The Drink, The Spirit
by Jan Roberts Dominguez
The Artists Guide to Grantwriting by Gigi Rosenberg
Imperial Japan At Its Zenith by Kenneth Ruoff
Do The Gods Wear Capes? by Ben Saunders
Caught in the Crosshairs by Rick Steber
Among Penguins by Noah Strycker

Fiction
39 titles submitted

Tears of the Mountain by John Addiego
Who Shot the Water Buffalo by Ken Babbs
Secret Memoirs of a Born-Again Preacher by Andres Berger-Kiss
Crisis in Greenville by Joe Blakely
Johnny's War by Jim Braly
The Night Season by Chelsea Cain
County Line by Bill Cameron
Mystic Summer by Gary Carter
Me and Bobby McGee by Chad Coenson
Origin Unknown by Pierre Davis
The Descent of Man by Kevin Desinger
You Don't Love This Man by Dan DeWeese
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
The Ingram Interview by K.B. Dixon
Mink River by Brian Doyle
York's Moon by Elizabeth Engstrom
Derail This Trainwreck by Daniel Forbes
Not True Stories From Oregon by Arran Gimba
Spirit of the Mountain by Paty Jager
Catching Babies by J.D. Kleinke
The Red Boots by Linda Kuhlmann
Unexpected Rain by Jason LaPier
The Cutting Room by G.B. Lawrence
Volunteer for Glory by Alice Lynn
Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris
Time Saw A Fly by Richard Norman
The Guadalupe Saints by Michael M Pacheco
Halfway to Midnight by Larry Len Peterson
The Bad Mother by Nancy Rommelmann
The Memoir of Jake Weedsong by Tim Schell
The Oregon Experiment by Keith Scribner
Wire to Wire by Scott Sparling
Chloe Jarren's La Cucaracha by Matthew Stadler
Tassy Morgan's Bluff by Jim Stinson
Mass Transportation by Scott Tienken
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
Fiona: Stolen Child by Gemma Whelan
The Driftwood Diairies by Ava Wilson

Graphic Literature
14 titles submitted

The Book of Grickle by Graham Annable
Gilmore By The Sea by Ed Cameron
Hereville by Barry Deutsch
The Green Man by Daniel Duford
The Whale by Aidan Koch
Gear School, Volume 2 by Adam Kreutz Gallardo
Ivy by Sarah Oleksyk
You Have Killed Me by Jamie Rich
Spell Checkers by Jamie Rich
Stumptown by Greg Rucka
Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
Terra Tempo: Ice Age Cataclysm by David Shapiro
Gingerbread Girl by Paul Tobin
I Thought You Would Be Funnier by Shannon Wheeler

Poetry
35 titles submitted

Curses and Wishes by Carl Adamshick
The Raccoon by Tom Blood
Red Shirts by Lon Brusselback
The Paris Poems by Suzanne Burns
Everything is Water by Greg Chaimov
Because You Might Not Remember by Don Colburn
In My Old Age by Charles Deemer
Sanderlings by Geri Doran
On Tact, And The Made-up World by Michele Glazer
The Past Is Clean by M.E. Hope
At This Distance by Bette Lynch Husted
Ballad of the Sad Young Men by Philip Charles Iosca
The Grief Performance by Emily Kendal Frey
Out Here: Poems & Images from Steens Mountain Country
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Stand On This Picnic Bench And Look North by Sam Lohmann
The Kilim Dreaming by Robert Hill Long
Dear Gilbert Sorrentino and Other Poems by Jack Lorts
Finding Compass by Carolyn Martin
Out of Refusal by Carter McKenzie
Tea Before Questions by Amy Miller
The Voluptuary by Paulann Petersen
Impulse and Warp by Dan Raphael
Undone by Maxine Scates
Crow Mercies by Penelope Scambly Schott
Taking the Scarecrows Down by Amy Schutzer
Floating Verses by Jim Shugrue
Skeleton Says by Scot Siegel
The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems by Daniel Skach-Mills
On Account of Darkness by Joseph Soldati
Root of Lightning by Michael Spring
Primary Sources by Ann Staley
Garden of Beasts by Anita Sullivan
Fast as Lightning by Toni Thomas
Walking on Water by Toni Thomas
Blue Moon by Vincent Wixon

Airlie Press Accepting Submissions

2011-08-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Airlie Press is an Oregon based, nonprofit publishing collective. You can read an interview with Jess Lamb, one of its founding members here. Donna Henderson's book, The Eddy Fence, was published by Airlie and was selected as an Oregon Book Awards finalist in poetry. This fall, Airlie Press will publish books by Chris Anderson and Cecelia Hagen.

They are currently accepting manuscripts in their open call for book-length poetry manuscripts. One or two manuscripts will be selected, to be published in the fall of 2013. The deadline to submit is September 24, 2011.

More from the press:

"Airlie Press is a nonprofit poetry collective based in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. We seek manuscripts from poets who live within driving distance of the Monmouth area (where we hold our monthly meetings) and who are willing and able to commit to a three-year term of doing the shared work of running a collective press.

Each member’s book is published in the second year of his or her term. Authors have the final say about the content and presentation of their books. All profits are returned to the collective."

Complete guidelines can be found on their web site at http://www.airliepress.org/html/join_us.html.

Playa Accepting Applications for Residencies

2011-07-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

From our friends at Playa:

Playa, a new organization committed to the natural sciences, arts and literature in Oregon’s high desert, has extended the application deadline from July 28 to August 29 for its call for Winter/Spring residency session beginning January 2012. To apply visit www.playasummerlake.org.

“Playa offered me an unparalleled opportunity to create in an atmosphere of solitude and beauty but not isolation,” said Wyoming writer Samuel Western after participating as a spring resident.

On the edge of the Great Basin, Playa offers creative individuals the space, the solitude, and the community to reflect and to engage their work. Residencies awarded at Playa provide each resident private housing with a kitchen, a studio, and all meals provisioned for individual or group preparation. The comfortably furnished and fully equipped cabins and live-work townhouses have open vistas in an expansive landscape and are free of telephone, television, and Internet. Private work studios and research spaces, adjacent or separate from the cabins, are available to residents who require them.

One, two, and three-month residencies are provided for natural scientists, artists, and writers. Those working on interdisciplinary projects or with a collaborative team that combines natural sciences and the arts are encouraged to apply. For information about residencies, visit Playa.

Oregon Book Awards Author Tour Visits Eastern Oregon

2011-07-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

Oregon Book Awards Authors Henry Hughes, Paul VanDevelder and Willy Vlautin were in La Grande and Baker City, July 8-10. The authors read at the White House in La Grande and at the Crossroads Arts Center in Baker City. On Saturday, July 10th, Paul VanDevelder presented a free workshop for Baker City residents; a brief clip from his workshop is featured in the video here. Thanks to our partners on this tour: The White House Coffee Shop, Baker County Library, The Writers Guild of Eastern Oregon, and Betty's Books!

Oregon Authors Visit Eastern Oregon

2011-06-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

As part of the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, Henry Hughes, Paul VanDevelder and Willy Vlautin will appear Thursday, July 7th at 6:00 p.m. at the White House (1702 4th St) in La Grande. They will also appear at on Friday, July 8th at 7:00 p.m. at Crossroads Art Center in Baker City. These events are free and open to the public.

In addition, Paul VanDevelder will offer a free workshop on Saturday, July 9th at 10:00 a.m. at the Baker County Library (2400 Resort Street). The workshop, called What's The Big Idea, will focus on building a book from scratch, from concept to manuscript. The workshop is free but space is limited and participants are asked to register in person at the info desk at the Baker County Library or by calling (541) 523-6419.

Henry Hughes is the author of two poetry collections, Men Holding Eggs, the winner of the2004 Oregon Book Award, and Moist Meridian. He is the editor of the anthology, The Art of Angling: Poems about Fishing, and his commentary on new poetry appears regularly in Harvard Review. He teaches at Western Oregon University.

Paul VanDevelder is the winner of the Frances Fuller Victor Award for
General Nonfiction for his book Savages and Scoundrels. He writes for Audubon, Esquire, National Geographic Traveler, and American History, and is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times.

Willy Vlautin is the winner of the Readers Choice Award and the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction for his book Lean on Pete. Vlautin is also the author of The Motel Life and Northline. He currently resides in Scappoose, Oregon.

Claire Willet Says Keep Applying!

2011-06-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

Claire Willet is a 2010 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient in drama. This month she'll be in residence at I-Park, a multidisciplinary artists' residence in East Haddam, Connecticut. Claire is a playwright, grantwriter, blogger, and Catholic youth minister from Portland, Oregon. Her most recent play, How the Light Gets In, was produced as a staged reading in Portland’s 2010 Fertile Ground Festival of New Work, and was selected as a featured festival project by critics and local media.

Claire had this advice for those considering applying for an Oregon Literary Fellowship: "Don’t give up if you aren’t selected the first time. Keep applying. I’ve been applying for fellowships, grants, and residencies for several years and never won any of them until this year. I got discouraged a number of times, but I’m grateful I didn’t give up."

The deadline to apply for an Oregon Literary Fellowship is Friday, June 24th. There is no charge to apply.

The judge for the drama fellowships, Carlos Murillo, had this to say about Claire's work:

Claire Willett's plays seek to unearth the hard emotional truths that underlie loss, grief and questions pertaining to faith. Her play How the Light Gets In centers on Molly, a reckless, self-destructive young woman who, after a suicide attempt, flees to a monastery that once sheltered her own mother. Her irreverent, trouble-making nature make her the unlikeliest of guests there. Befriending monks who knew her mother, and drawn into unsettling intimacy with the monastery librarian, Molly confronts her parents' and her own dark history, and finds renewed faith in the possibility of redemption. Willet's play frees the traditional redemption narrative from convention and cliché by setting it in the alien world of a monastery, and populating it with characters that are disarmingly frank and driven by unexpected world-views. Her dialogue is truthful, her characters fully human, and the questions she has them wrestle with provoke the kind of debate about personal history, family, faith and belief that is the substance of our strongest theatre and playwriting.

Willett is at an early stage of her playwriting career, and it is clear from this breakthrough play that she has found a resonant, thoughtful and emotionally truthful voice. I hope and anticipate we'll hear more of it for some time to come.

Claire took some time to answer the following questions, about applying for fellowships, her own work and what inspires her.

What was the easiest thing about applying for an Oregon Literary Fellowship and what was the most challenging?
The easiest part for me was choosing the scenes I wanted to include in my writing sample. Normally I wrestle with that, but for this I had a lot of ideas for what I wanted to include. The hardest part for me is always, always, always the artist’s statement – it’s hard to put such a personal thing into words that will make sense to anyone else.

Have you applied for other fellowships?
I’ve applied for several. My New Year’s resolution was to apply for one thing a month, be it a fellowship, grant, artist’s residency, or submitting a script, so that I feel like I’m always focused on moving my writing career forward with new opportunities. I’ve applied for some where I wasn’t crazy about the restrictions on the writing sample; for example, one playwriting award I applied for asked you to submit the first 15 pages of your most recently-completed script. I didn’t really feel like the first 15 pages were the strongest part of that script, and I would have felt better about having a little more control over what I was sending them that represented me as a writer. I appreciate that the Oregon Literary Fellowship application is pretty streamlined.

What are you working on currently?
Over the past year and a half, I co-wrote a play called That Was the River, This Is the Sea with a Portland actor named Gilberto Martin del Campo; we produced it as a staged reading in January at Fertile Ground. Right now we’re hashing out the logistics of trying to get a full production in Mexico; Gilberto has translated the play and we have a potential venue and director, but there are a lot of details to work out still. I’m really excited to make that work.

The project I’m going to be working on during my residency over the next month is a new play called Dear Galileo: or, “We Are Stardust,” which explores the conflict between faith and science as it connects the lives of three pairs of fathers and daughters. So one storyline follows Galileo while he’s under house arrest in Italy and working on his banned book in secret, with the reluctant assistance of his daughter Maria Celeste, who is a nun; and another follows a 10-year-old girl in Texas whose father is a very public spokesman for the creationist movement, and who grows increasingly troubled by his daughter’s blossoming love of science and the questions she starts asking about the world. The bulk of the play, though, will follow the story of Jasper Willows, a famous astrophysicist who has been working on the launch of the Vatican’s new state-of-the-art telescope being launched at a rural astronomical outpost in Arizona.

What inspires you?
I write a lot about the people I know. I don’t write them into my plays, but somebody will say or do something that will make me think, “Ooh, there’s a story in that.” Like, my play How the Light Gets In is about Benedictine monks; I grew up surrounded by monks and priests, so it’s just an ordinary part of my world, but it’s alien to lots of people who didn’t grow up like I did. I was having lunch with a monk friend of my mother’s, Father Paschal Cheline from Mount Angel Abbey, at Esparza’s Tex-Mex Cafe, and he was just totally agog at how big the menu was. He was like a kid in a candy store. It took him forever to decide what to eat because there were so many options – there are like twenty different kinds of meat you can have in your enchiladas – and it reminded me, “Oh yeah, this guy lives in a monastery. He just eats what’s put in front of him.” And he said to me, “If I get to Heaven one day, and if it’s a mansion with many rooms like Jesus said, I want at least one room that’s totally wallpapered in restaurant menus.” And I thought, “There’s a story in that.”

There have been elements in my last three or four plays that were inspired by the teenagers I work with as a youth minister at my church, and the issues they deal with. I think the world of young people is fascinating and terrifying, and there are really powerful stories to tell there.

I think my Catholic sensibility runs through everything I write, even when I’m not actually writing about religion or spirituality. I think there’s a way Catholics view the world, a passion for drama and mystery and color and grandeur and big, sweeping stories, that is a part of everything I do. Not that only Catholics do that, but that happens to be how I instinctively think.

I also continue to be inspired by my parents; my play How the Light Gets In drew a lot from my mother, from the way she lived her life and the monks and priests she was friends with and the way her faith defined who she was. Dear Galileo is really dedicated to my dad; I hadn’t ever really written about fathers and daughters in a way that really explored all the different ways that relationship can unfold, and I wanted to play around with that. My dad is both Catholic and a science person, and he’s a very very good father to daughters, and those were all things that seemed to lend themselves to finding a lot of different, juicy stories.

Do you have a writing schedule?
I wish. Up until recently I’ve worked two jobs and tried to fit in my writing wherever there was time – the rare free Saturday morning, or, more often, from around 10 at night until 2 in the morning. I like writing at night, actually; I do a lot of my best thinking at night, when it’s quiet and the phone doesn’t ring and the world slows down a little. What I’m really excited about with my upcoming residency, though, is to explore what life is like if you’re a full-time writer; what would it be like to get up every day, have your coffee, and go to work and just WRITE all day? I don’t know! I’ve never gotten a chance to try it. Maybe it will be excruciatingly difficult and I’ll have to force myself not to procrastinate on Facebook all day, or maybe it will turn out that I write really well in the early morning. I don’t know. I’m excited to find out.

Oregon Literary Fellowship Deadline Approaches

2011-06-03T13:14:00.001-07:00

The deadline to apply for an Oregon Literary Fellowship is June 24, 2011, two weeks from today. Applications are due in our office by 5:00 p.m. that day.

There is no charge to apply for an Oregon literary fellowship. If you are a writer living in Oregon, you are eligible to apply. Fellowships will be awarded in the amount of $2500. Independent publishers are also eligible for fellowships.

You do not need to be a published writer to receive a fellowship. Here's a link to a page that answers some frequently asked questions about the fellowships.

Here's some other questions people sometimes ask:

I write young adult literature. What category should I submit it in?
If you write young adult literature, you would submit it in young readers literature.

What are the judges looking for in a fellowship application?
Our judges change every year. The fellowships are merit based, not project based. What that means is that the fellowship is awarded based on the quality of the work submitted, rather than a description of what you will spend the money on.

Can I submit work that has been published?
Yes. It should be submitted in manuscript format, though, rather than a photo-copy of the magazine or book it appeared in.

And, for those of you who are on the fence and thinking about submitting, but also noticing, that hey, the sun is out and it may never be out again, so maybe you won't apply this year, here is a list of reasons you might have for not applying and our responses to them:

If I spend my money on the application fee, I won't have money left over to spend on other things I need for my writing, like paper.
There's no charge to apply!

I have applied before and not received a fellowship.
Fellowship recipients sometimes apply several times before receiving a fellowship. The judges change every year, so your work will be read by a different person each time you apply.

I have never applied for a fellowship before and I'm not sure I know how.
It's easy to apply for a fellowship. Fill out the application, and assemble your best work. If you get stuck, call the office or email Susan Denning.

It does take time to apply for a fellowship, but many writers find they learn more about themselves as writers in the process, which can be tremendously useful.

If you are an Oregon writer, your name could be among those announced as fellowship recipients in January 2012. If you have questions about how to apply, email Susan Denning at susan@literary-arts.org or call the office at 503-227-2583.

Authors Visit Klamath Falls and Redmond

2011-05-27T14:55:00.001-07:00

John Daniel and Jane Kirkpatrick were in Klamath Falls and Redmond this week, as part of the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour. The authors gave a reading on Wednesday night at the Klamath County library.

On Thursday, Jane presented a workshop at the Klamath County library, and Thursday night both authors appeared in Redmond as part of the Central Oregon Writer's Guild meeting.

Below are two video clips from Jane's workshop on Thursday. They are also posted on our Facebook page, along with a third one and more photos from the tour! Thanks to the writers, and our tour partners in Klamath Falls and Redmond, for another successful tour.

Judge's Comments in Poetry

2011-05-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry was judged this year by Robert Pinsky. Pinsky is the author of several collections of poetry, including Gulf Music, Jersey Rain and The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996. From 1997 to 2000, he served as the United States Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. He also founded the Favorite Poem Project, a program dedicated to celebrating, documenting and encouraging poetry's role in Americans' lives. Here are his comments on this year's finalists:

David Biespiel, The Book of Men and Women

David Biespiel has mastered his own, original grand style. What’s more, he deploys it for work: the cascade of invention, the big eclectic lexicon and rich figures of sound are not for show, but for doing work, living up to this ambitious title: The Book of Men and Women. On the one hand, this is language soaring up above the earth, teasing its way beyond stolid paraphrase, but on the other hand it is always connected to “the groan of the unfinished garden” — the last phrase of “Man and Wife.” The intricate, rich but discordant music has a mocking jauntiness hard to forget, self-aware and self-critical, and in spite of itself having a jaunty if wincing good time, as in “The Crooner”: “It’s maddening,/ This measly rigmarole he’s come to, this voice, his crazy quilt.// Unadvised, pleased with the take-home pay of it all, teetotalling,/ He glimmers like a forgotten mouth, aims for the deep end of all that’s muddy and dim,/ And mocks the majesty of ringers. Same for the hay-high dandies.”

Donna Henderson, The Eddy Fence

Donna Henderson has a transforming power of sheer attention, a grave, distinguished focus, so that even grief is changed by precision, an exhilarating quality of getting it right. That precision is often a matter of the physical world—the ocean “folds and falls”; a woman before the first chemo bout touches her hair “lightly and twice . . . Then she sat back, relaxed, and offered up an arm”; caddis flies “break from their cases, sip/ and the dying salmon rise”— but sometimes the precision is a matter of introspective attention: for instance, the first poem in The Eddy Fence, “Triptych,” defines the intellectual and emotional terms of what will come, precisely:

What was mine but desire to enter the world more entirely?
What’s the self but these cuffs of self consciousness?
Entering’s obstacle?

So much you want,
So much less willing to bear—
And maybe the self’s the vibration between these poles,
its material frequency and hum.

In truth, the two kinds of precision are one: a self-aware mind sees this well, and the custom of meticulous looking—in this poet’s work— sharpens insight.

Henry Hughes, Moist Meridian

Frank O’Hara’s call for poetry “better than the movies” suggests qualities of movement, vividness, clarity and music: a high standard, met by the poems of Moist Meridian. It won’t do to exaggerate the cinematic quality of the poems, with their flashes of narrative, rapid cuts, crisp dialogue, fresh characters; the kind of thinking and the language are those of a poet— and distinctively reflective poet. The compression and swift varying of mood are those of poetry, as in the opening sentence-fragment of “Black Walnuts,”: little charred brains/ on November streets, where folks from Hope House/ lurch and bump, run rain-suited/ down to Rick’s Coffee and the market,/ over-greeting the kind and idle.” Alertness, generosity, irony and candor govern these poems, which are endlessly curious about the relations among people, with sex, friendship, marriage and alienation examples of an abiding, fearful but engaging mystery. An engaging, uneasy and clear-sighted book.

Jennifer Richter, Threshold

The mortal dance of fear and courage is Jennifer Richter’s subject in Threshold, and she sets it to a distinctive, original music, centered on the opposite risks of motherhood and illness, but not limited to them. She has cool and wit, enough of them to quote an inmate-student’s sentence—I love people but I’m scared to death of them— that summarizes an urgent search for balance at the center of the book. In an example of that mortal, strived-for balance, the sequence “Putting the Baby to Sleep: Nine Tries” is partly about a literal baby but begins with the figurative baby of a pain that must be quieted gradually, carefully, left in its calm with a ginger, tentative withdrawal. These poems at life’s various thresholds achieve a memorably purposeful, quiet intensity— as though the noise of mere rhetoric would awaken not just pain but an immensity of loss.

Zachary Schomburg, Scary No Scary

Cunningly engineered systems of reason and unreason, earth-logic and dream-logic, engage one another in the entertaining, more or less surreal creations (and negations) of Zachary Schomburg’s Scary, No Scary. The poems come in clusters that share thematic components: lab experiments or bizarre recipes or gadgets with silvery or cobwebby wheels, fiddled with in a range of permutations. Re-visions and undoings become a form of narrative, and narrative a form of introspection: “When the mob gets even closer I can see through my rooftop telescope that it is not actually a mob, but the woods on fire. And not the woods on fire but my fingers. And not my fingers but someone else’s finger pressing unmercifully against the back of my eyeball.” Appealingly, the sources of emotion are clear and more or less universal: loneliness, fear, desire, celebration and hurt all transformed by a playful, undermining imagination. Like his great predecessor in the Alice books, Schomburg brings a sense of stringency to his dark but airy towers of invention, dismantling easy assumptions. The poems are fun to read and they get below surfaces.

Write to Publish at PSU

2011-05-20T16:23:00.001-07:00

Write to Publish is this weekend at PSU!

Gretchen Icenogle and Trailing Colors

2011-05-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

Gretchen Icenogle is a 2010 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient in nonfiction. She is working on a memoir, and says, "It's a memoir, but one with a specific focus on bodily, creaturely life." She's also a playwright and her play, Trailing Colors, is currently in production at The Headwaters Theater.

Gretchen moved to Portland in 2001, while working on her Phd for University of California Santa Barbara's department of dramatic art and dance. She began writing for the stage in Santa Barbara, and Trailing Colors was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Conference.

Fellowship judge Barbara Hurd had this to say about Gretchen's memoir in progress:

Gretchen Icenogle’s work demonstrates sensual intelligence and an imagination that begins its wild excursions in the firm experience of the body. With language both precise and supple, she examines dilemmas of identity, privacy, sexuality, and grief—that “ageless juxtaposition of divine indifference and human impotence.” The power of this writing begins with compelling prose rhythms and accumulates through a lively sense of phrasing. The result is an exceptional freshness of vision. These excerpts merit high praise.

Gretchen took some time to answer a few questions from us.

What are you working on currently?
The production and direction of Trailing Colors has been all consuming in the last six weeks or so, but now that the show has opened I'm finally able to return to the memoir for which Literary Arts awarded me the fellowship, Theater of Anatomy. It's organized around parts of the body, and yesterday I took up the thread of chapter nine: Hair and Fur, Tooth and Claw. Coincidentally, it involves the same experiences in Africa that helped to inspire Trailing Colors; it's been fun (if a little disorienting) to look at them simultaneously through a fictional and non-fictional lens.

What inspires you?
A character in Trailing Colors, Rose, describes at one point her perception that Americans are like scavengers: "There is something on the ground they like, they wait until it is safe, then like a crow they snatch it up and they fly away." I'm afraid this describes my own artistic process all too well. I'm constantly on the lookout for a bit of foil here, a scrap of red yarn there; I accumulate images and ideas until they seem almost on their own to take on a suggestive shape. If I were a visual artist, I think I would work in collage or mosaic. I love the dynamic tensions among fragments placed in unexpected relation to each other, visions that are coherent but still have their seams showing. Trailing Colors began with three apparently random shards of inspiration: a snippet of a song lyric, Philip Gourevitch's stunning account of the Rwandan genocide (We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families), and my interest in the Oakland Zoo's attempts to breed African elephants.

Do you have a writing schedule?
I do have a writing routine that makes my muse very happy when I can keep it! Nothing happens on any given morning until our three dogs are walked, but then the youngest and nuttiest of them, Pazzo, accompanies me to my study and settles onto a bed at my feet. He thinks he's guarding me from assorted outside threats (the UPS man foremost among these), but in truth he's guarding me from my own restlessness. When a sentence spins out of control or my thoughts grind to a painful halt, I can reach down and give his chest a scratch and this helps me to stay put until the next word arrives. After lunch, if I have good momentum, I may go right back to what I was writing in the morning. If not, I may turn to something utterly different. Almost in parallel with the memoir, I've been writing a series of ocean fables for the entertainment of my sister's three kids, and they've been a great source of refreshment through the process.

General Nonfiction Judge's comments

2011-05-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

The Frances Fuller Victor Award in General Nonfiction was judged this year by Greg Grandin. Grandin is the author of a number of prize-winning books, including most recently Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan 2009). A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Fordlandia was picked by the New York Times, New Yorker, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and NPR for their “best of” lists, and Amazon.com named it the best history book of 2009.Here are his comments on this year's finalists:

Paul Collins, The Book of William

A wonderful, and wonderfully told, history, The Book of William traces the journey of William Shakespeare's "First Folio" - the first complete collection of his places - across the centuries, from shelf to shelf. Paul Collins paces the story with limpid, wry and witty prose, doggedly recreating the tracks of what has become one of the most valued literary artifices in the world. As he teases out the many changing meanings of Shakespeare, he also renders the history of the book, printing, and reading exciting.

Tom Krattenmakker, Onward Christian Athletes

This book is investigative journalism at its best. Onward Christian Athletes charts the unexplored, increasingly porous, border between professional sports and professional religion. His research on the evangelization of baseball and football, and its close links to what has to be called Christian corporatism, is disturbing. Krattenmakker is even handed yet not falsely balanced, putting together in a compelling book what many suspected but had not fully realized the extent: that the religious right has had enormous success in transforming professional sports into a Christian endeavor, a cultural battlefield in a larger political war.

Barry Sanders,Unsuspecting Souls

Unsuspecting Souls is a free-wheeling, sprawling examination about what it means to be human, and how nearly two centuries of rapid industrial changes have severed the relationship between ourselves and our corporal being. Learned, counterintuitive (capitalism, after all, is often credited with bringing forth the bounded, individualized self), and quirky, Barry Sanders weaves together literature, philosophy, technology, opium and drug use, zombies and other nineteenth-century "dream monsters" into an at times grim, other times exuberant, meditation on all things human. Above all, it is a cri du cour for humans to shed technological and industrial artifice, to reattach shadows to substance, and embrace the fullness of their being.

Barry Sanders, The Green Zone

The Green Zone is a focused, well-argued, precise argument that US militarism and global-grade environmental destruction are inextricably linked. Sanders meticulously documents the fact that the US military consumes more fossil fuels and emits more greenhouse gases than the majority of the world's country, and on par with countries like Iran, Indonesia and Spain. Added to this is the enormous, ultimately incalculable, damage the military's use - both in combat and training - of explosives, cluster bombs, napalm, and weapons that leave vast amounts of depleted uranium in its wake. The US military has turned vibrant ecosystems in the Philippines and Puerto Rico into wasteland. Sanders' research and argument is focused and convincing and his writing is clear and passionate.

Paul VanDevelder
The Book Of Savages and Scoundrels

In this extremely well-written history, Paul VanDevelder starts with a singular, individual act of injustice - in 1951, Louise Holding Eagle returned to her North Dakota farm to find her house, barn, husband and children gone, "legally," and suddenly, removed by the Army Corp of Engineers so to build a huge dam - and builds outward, both geographically, across America, and chronologically, back to the early days when US federal Indian Policy first took shape. This book is deeply and carefully researched and compellingly presented. VanDevelder moves back and forth in time, weaving events big and small into a tapestry of dispossession, vividly recreating, through the words, deeds, and thoughts of historical actors, a major through line of American history, the violence visited upon Native Americans in the name of empire building. The haunting story stays with you well after you have turned the last page.

John Daniel and Jane Kirkpatrick on tour in May

2011-05-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

Literary Arts is pleased to announce events in Klamath Falls and Redmond as part of the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour. John Daniel and Jane Kirkpatrick will appear Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. at the Klamath County Library (126 South 3rd Street). They will also be the featured speakers at The Central Oregon Writer's Guild meeting on Thursday, May 26th at 6:30 p.m. in Redmond at the Central Oregon Community College Redmond Campus, 2030 SE College Loop, Building 3 Room 306. These events are free and open to the public.

In addition,Jane Kirkpatrick will offer a workshop on Thursday, May 26th at 11:00 a.m. at the Klamath County library. Kirkpatrick says, the workshop, Silencing the Harpies, "is about silencing or at least transforming those negative voices -- I call them the harpies -- that keep us from moving forward to pursue our creative dreams." The workshop is free but space is limited and participants are asked to register in person at the Main Library reference desk or by calling 541-882-8894, Ex.t#18.

John Daniel is the 2011 winner of the Sarah Winnemucca Award for creative nonfiction for his book, The Far Corner. Daniel's other books include Common Ground, The Trail Home, Looking After, and Rogue River Journal. He lives in the Coast Range foothills north of Noti, Oregon, where he is working on a novel.

Jane Kirkpatrick is the author of A Flickering Light, which was selected as a 2011 finalist for the Ken Kesey Award in fiction. Kirkpatrick has authored twenty books based on the lives of ordinary men and women. A retired clinical social worker, she speaks often about the power of story in people's lives. For twenty-six years, she and her husband ranched in Eastern Oregon. Today they make their home near Bend, Oregon.

Creative Nonfiction Judge's Comments

2011-04-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

The Sarah Winnemucca Award in Creative Nonfiction was judged this year by Kyoko Mori. Mori is the author, most recently, of the memoir Yarn: Remembering the Way Home (2009). She has also published a book of essays, a memoir, and three novels. Her work has appeared in The American Scholar, The Missouri Review, Harvard Review and elsewhere.Here are her comments on this year's finalists:

Carol Ann Bassett, Galapagos at the Crossroads

Carol Ann Bassett’s account of her stay in the Galapagos Islands in 2007 is both spirited and thoughtful. She combines an impressive amount of historical and scientific research, present-day journalistic research, and personal narrative in a book that is as lively and complex as the eco system she explores. She is an intrepid traveler and interviewer. She also understands that no human can hope to be transparent or impact-less. As soon as she moved into her house in Puerto Ayora and encountered the swarms of mosquitoes that potentially carried dengue fever, the narrator herself was an invader encountering a more established invasive species. Ms. Bassett’s discusses the complex ethics of the situation with great clarity.

Tom Bissell, Extra Lives

Tom Bissell writes with wit about his beloved video games—one of which caused him to miss the historic presidential election of November 4, 2008. Starting with the explanation he provides to his (as yet) imaginary children about why the arrival of Fallout 3 caused him to spend seven hours in front of his TV screen with the video game instead of the election coverage, Mr. Bissell plays with, as well as parses, the distinction between the “real” and the “imaginary.” He informs the reader about the designs of various video games, the history of their popularity and their marketing. Especially compelling are his own stories about playing the games and his meditations on the human needs to be told a story and to control the outcome of the story.

John Daniel, The Far Corner

The eighteen essays in John Daniel’s The Far Corner are impressively wide-ranging. They inform us about the natural history of rivers and forests, the literary history of the Northwest, and the personal history of a writer, hiker, naturalist, son, teacher, student, husband, and citizen. Mr. Daniel’s writing is at once precise and lyrical—equally compelling in passages that present ecological facts and in those that portray the elusive workings of memory, grief, or joy. From its opening description of the daily labor of the tree fallers that “never seemed to advance very far against the front of the forest” but turned “the standing woods into pick-up sticks,” the book astonishes the reader with its complex observations about time and place, the relentless industry of humans and the forces of nature that cannot remain inviolable. Mr. Daniel writes eloquently about duality, paradoxes, and wholeness. The source of every stream on earth is a river in the sky. The fawn who survives the growing season to become “a young deer eligible for winter, a member of this country” breathes for himself and also for his dead twin—as a son practices the art of memory and story-telling learned from his mother. The book celebrates rootlessness and rootedness, the exuberant imagination of Ken Kesey’s writing and the spare beauty of Wallace Stegner’s, the solace of solitude and the rewards of community. While each essay stands alone brilliantly, the collection resembles one of its main metaphors: a river of heaven and earth, drawn from a multitude of living streams.

Lisa Ohlen Harris, Through The Veil

In writing about the years she lived in the Middle East, Lisa Ohlen Harris displays her skills as a trained ethnographic observer and as a memoirist. In one single sentence, she can present facts, evoke a sense of irony, build suspense, and communicate the absurdity of the situation: “Carrying that symbol of peace [an olivewood dove from an evangelical Christian bookstore in Jerusalem] wrapped in tissue paper, I came out of the shop and stepped off the curb to avoid an Israeli soldier with machine gun ammunition draped across his chest, like the banner of a beauty queen.” Her portraits of the women she encountered are respectful, empathetic, and yet unflinching. She does not hide her own confusion when a woman who seemed to befriend her seemed puzzlingly distant—only to write to her years later about how her departure had broken her heart. Some things will always remain a mystery, like the blue eyes of the veiled women who surrounded her in a market place in Damascus. The book leaves these mysteries intact while shedding light on all it can. In addition to the compelling portraits it offers, the book’s ultimate strength is in its ability to imagine and understand how the American narrator might have come across to the people she encountered.

Kathleen Dean Moore, Wild Comfort

In spite of the deaths of her friends and the possible near-future extinctions of the wild creatures she loves, Kathleen Dean Moore organized her book of essays into three sections: “Gladness,” “Solace,” and “Courage.” This is not to say that she avoids the topics of grief, fear, loss. “Solace” implies the presence of grief and sorrow, and “courage” is necessary only in the face of danger. Even her portrayal of “gladness” is never simple or ordinary. The book begins with the act of putting “door-sized scraps of corrugated metal roofing” along the fencerows of her property to provide shelter to snakes. Gladness is found equally in the tangle of snakes and in the nests of mice and voles—creatures that will no doubt become food to the snakes. After her father-in-law’s death, the narrator recalls the story of the make-shift snorkel he’d made as a young man from a galvanized tin bucket welded to a defunct window, a long hose, and a bicycle pump—a devise he used to walk on the bottom of a river while his friends in a rowboat pumped air into the bucket to keep him breathing. The device is an apt metaphor for the remarkably inventive nature of this book.

Fiction Judge's comments

2011-04-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

The Ken Kesey Award in Fiction was judged this year by Lydia Millet. Millet is the author of seven books, including a story collection called Love in Infant Monkeys (2009), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; My Happy Life, which won the PEN-USA award for fiction in 2003; and a novel about extinction, How the Dead Dream, the first in a series whose second installment, Ghost Lights, is coming out from W.W. Norton in fall 2011. Here are her comments on this year's finalists:

Emily Chenoweth, Hello Goodbye
This bright, well-crafted novel, set at a family gathering to celebrate a mother whose death is imminent, steers competently away from the maudlin and makes what could be a heavy-handed exploration of mortality instead an entertaining, sometimes delicate story.

K.B. Dixon, A Painter's Life
Thoughtful and drily humorous, Dixon’s portrait of a portraitist, collated through fractured journal entries and snippets of art reviews, is written in a subtle and mature idiom with a curious, half-revealed philosophical subtext.

Jane Kirkpatrick, A Flickering Light

A carefully constructed historical romance that touches on aspects of American feminism at the beginning of the 20th century, A Flickering Light is well-paced and accessible.

Scott Sadil, Lost in Wyoming

These stories of the fishing-obsessed are paeans to the last wild expanses of the interior West, with protagonists who alternate between self-awareness and self-consciousness, insight and blindness.

Willy Vlautin, Lean on Pete

This uniquely textured novel about a down-on-his-luck boy who takes a job tending racehorses, steals one to save his life and finally strikes out cross-country is forthright, sad and well-made, its believability achieved through deadpan rhythms and wry, idiosyncratic dialogue.

Oregon Book Awards

2011-04-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

Literary Arts congratulates the winners of the 2011 Oregon Book Awards

Oregon Book Awards are Monday!

2011-04-22T10:35:00.001-07:00

Photos taken last night in Corvallis at a reading at the Corvallis public library with Oregon Book Awards finalists Lisa Ohlen Harris, Jennifer Richter, Paul VanDevelder, and Kathleen Dean Moore. See more photos on our Facebook page!

And, this Saturday night in Portland:

Panel Discussion with Oregon Playwrights

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Julie S Vigeland Rehearsal Hall
Gerding Theater at the Armory
128 NW 11th Ave. Portland

Free and open to the public

Literary Arts, The Dramatists Guild of America, Portland Center Stage, and
Portland Theatre Works present a panel discussion with Oregon playwrights.

Meet some of Oregon's finest playwrights, ask questions about their work, and hear what they have to say about the dramatist's life. The panel discussion includes Wayne Harrel, Susan Mach, George Taylor, and Cynthia Whitcomb, Oregon Book Awards finalists for the coveted Angus L. Bowmer Award for Drama.

Marc Acito and Molly Best Tinsley are also finalists for the Bowmer award. The Drama panel will be moderated by nationally known dramaturg Mead Hunter. A reception will follow on the Armory's Mezzanine, and attendees are invited to enjoy free live music with Classical Revolution PDX in the lobbies from 6:30-7:15pm.

The winner of the Angus L. Bowmer Award for Drama, as well as the Oregon Book Awards winners in seven other categories, will be announced at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony on Monday, April 25th, at 7:30pm at the Gerding Theater at the Armory. Tickets are still available!

Diana Abu-Jaber on the Oregon Book Awards

2011-04-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

From Oregon Public Broadcasting's Art and Life :

Q&A with Author Diana Abu Jaber
How do book awards compare to other forms of encouragement for writers, like getting a book deal, positive reviews in literary magazine and selling books?

They're all good, but there's something a little special about a book award. I think that there's a series of gates that writers pass through, but you rarely feel like you've arrived because there's always another one. A book award makes you feel like you've gotten some sort of affirmation and acknowledgement. And usually it's acknowledgment from people you admire and that makes it all the more special.

Read more at OPB's Art and Life

Voting ends at 5:00 p.m. today for The Readers Choice Award!

Corvallis Finalists Reading April 21st at Corvallis Public Library

2011-04-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

A reading at the Corvallis Public Library with Oregon Book Awards finalists

Lisa Ohlen Harris, author of Through the Veil
Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort
Jennifer Richter, author of Threshold
Paul Vandevelder, author of Savages & Scoundrels

Thursday, April 21st
7:00 p.m.
Corvallis Public Library

National Book Foundation Lineage Event

2011-04-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

Last night, Oregon Book Awards finalists David Biespiel, Donna Henderson, Henry Hughes, Jennifer Richter and Zachary Schomburg joined Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient Crystal Williams at the Ace Hotel for Lineage: Oregon Poets Reflect on American Poetry Since 1950. The poets shared their thoughts on the lineage of American poetry, and their own influences. The poets discussed the poetry of Lucille Clifton, James Dickey, Wallace Stevens, James Tate, Williams Carlos Williams and other National Book Award authors, and shared their own work as well.

Literary Arts partnered with the National Book Foundation to produce this event, part of the National Book Foundation’s retrospective of the past 61 years of American poetry. Lineage was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, with local support from the friends of William Stafford and Ed & Sue Einowski.

More photos from the event can be found in our album on our Facebook page

Crow Arts Grand Opening This Weekend

2011-04-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

From our friends at the new Crow Arts Manor:

April 8-10th
Grand Opening

Crow Arts Manor

850 NE 81st Ave. #114

Portland

Our doors will be open to the public for the grand opening of Phase II of Milepost 5. We have some wonderful sponsors Ninkasi (beer), Grand Central Baking (bread) and Magnolia’s Corner (wine). Come by, have a snack and a drink and check our new space. Our first curated art show will be on the walls and the new workshop schedule will be out.

Friday, 7pm-10pm
Saturday, 2pm-5pm
Sunday, 1pm-5pm

April 10th, 3:30-4:30
Burnside Review, The Whiskey Edition Reading

To help kick off the newest and most inebriated of all Burnside Review issues, a reading will take place at E.A.T. on the southwest corner of the building. The event will be free and open to the public. Readers will include Zach Schomburg, B.T. Shaw, Emily Kendal Frey, Ashley Tolliver, Zedekiah Schild and Justin Rigamonti.

Finalists for the Ken Kesey Award in Fiction

2011-04-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

April 18th is the deadline to cast your vote for the Reader's Choice Award. The winner of the Readers Choice Award will be announced at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony on April 25th.

Featured below are excerpts from the five finalists for the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

Helen can hear the birds calling out to one another, and the lines of a song come to her like a gift: “Since you seem to be so sad, I will try to be your glad/ bluebird of happiness.” She should ask Abby to sing it for her; Abby knows all the old songs.

The pale light is like molten silver, and each water droplet clinging to a leaf holds the entire trembling world inside it. It seems that always there has been this moment, and her life moving toward it—a clean, bright morning, the people she loves nearby. Everything that happened before comes back to her now in such dim traces that she can hardly tell what was in sleep and what was in life; it is like a dream inside a dream of living.

She takes a deep breath. The world is beautiful, and she is so glad she has seen it. She stretches out her arms in the cool air. She hears footsteps, and she knows that her daughter and her husband are jogging up the path to meet her—and here they come, and here they are, and now they are beside her, holding her hands.

from Hello Goodbye (Random House)
by Emily Chenoweth

Christopher Freeze was born rather undramatically in Phoenix, Arizona—at the time a city in transition: a sprawling, major-league-sports-franchiseless nowhere in the middle of the Sonora desert that was fifty years and who knows how many millions of gallons of illegally diverted river water away from becoming the wealthy golf and retirement Mecca it is today.
A relatively healthy baby, Christopher endured the usual cavalcade of childhood maladies: chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough—usual with one significant exception: hospitalizations at the ages of nine and eleven for stomach ulcers, the product, it was professionally surmised, of pathological worry.

(Excerpts from the unpublished journals of Christopher Freeze)
Back in the studio this morning. I wanted to pick up where I had left off on Untitled, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t make myself care about it—not in the right way. All I could do was sit there and stare stupidly at those first 100 strokes and wonder what it was that had gotten me started, what it was that made me think I knew where this was going. It’s probably another terrible idea and I just don’t know it yet. I’ll try to get a little distance, to rejoin it, to fix it, but I won’t be able to. I’ll slap at it and slap at it and slap at it again—who knows how many times—before I give up and scrape it down, before I say to myself at the end what I am saying to myself now: that it’s another mistake, another waste of precious time.

from A Painter's Life(Inkwater Press)
by K.B. Dixon

In my favorite portrait of myself I am wearing an opaque eyelet dress, layered, with the scallop edges of the hemline barely whispering across the carpeted studio floor. It could have been worn for a christening though its lavish detail would have stolen something from an event where the child ought to be the focus. The child, wearing a long flowing white dress that could be handed down to brother and sister for each successive important day, that’s what matters at a christening. The child is what people should gaze upon at such an event, not a mother or aunt or friend wearing a too-elegant eyelet dress.
It could be a wedding dress but of course, it wasn’t.
I find so few photographs of myself that I wish to share with others but in this one, I appear taller than my five feet, two inches as I’ve chosen a hat with ostrich plumes swept up in the back and high over my head. The plumes shade my eyes with dried berries that flow out onto the hat’s white brim in a cornucopia of fruit. My hair, the color of oiled leather, is coiled up beneath the brim. (My little brother, Roy, says I have hair the color of cow pies dotting the pasture on our grandparent’s farm, but that’s the nature of little brothers born in the new century, or at least was Roy’s creative nature before the accident.) The milliner did splendid work and the white of the felted hat brim brings the eye to the dress which is what I wanted. The beauty of the dress is the real subject of the photograph.

from A Flickering Light(WaterBrook Press)
by Jane Kirkpatrick

He knows he’s in trouble when she comes out from behind the Subaru, still in her sun dress, her bare legs tapering dramatically into a pair of heavy-soled leather brogues. The dress, an unripe apple green, seemed innocent enough as they drove across the state in the dense July heat, tracing the margins of a vast smear of smoky sky fed by wildfires in the distant mountains. The straps at her sharp collarbones left her toned arms free to steer, and only once, behind his sunglasses, had he suffered several miles of foolish thoughts, lost in study of the delicate veining along the inside of her far bicep. The hem, to be sure, had ridden, on occasion, high on her thighs as she stirred beneath the wheel, forcing him to avert his eyes. But at Elgin Fischer’s age, all dresses seem short, if only because so few women wear them anymore—although there also remains, for him, the simple consideration of their remarkable, panoramic access.

It’s the shoes, however, laced beneath Eudora Cromwell’s slender ankles and trim, athletic calves, that threaten to do Elgin in. His heart, he feels, possesses no means to resist such flagrant disregard for pretense or décor. He peers over the tops of his reading glasses, set in place so that he can rebuild Dori’s leader, a collection of wind knots and brittle bloodknots from whenever she last went fishing. He fumbles with the spools of tippet material he found stashed in her fanny pack, probably the same spools, he thinks, from the last time they fished together. Hell, this could be the same damn leader, he concludes, not quite certain how many years ago he invited her to meet him for that August evening on the Deschutes.

from Lost In Wyoming(Barclay Creek Press)
by Scott Sadil

I went to Pete, put a halter on him, and loaded him. Then I went to the tack room, took my bag of clothes and sleeping bag, and put them in the cab of the truck. After that I went into the rafters and got my last couple cans of food, then took two bales of Del’s hay and set them in the bed of the truck. I got back in and circled around and drove to the main gate. The old-man security guard came out and I rolled down the window.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Del’s selling Lean on Pete,” I said. “He told me to load him and park across the street. He’s in the café finishing up playing a card game.”

The security guard turned on his flashlight and looked in the back of the trailer and then shined the light on him.

“Alright,” he said. “Just sign here.”

I signed where he told me to, then he opened the gate, and I drove out. I had the truck in first. It was hard to get it in second but I did and drove down the road towards the freeway. I didn’t mean for all of it to happen like that, I really didn’t. But I could tell by the looks of the other men at the card game that Del was going to sell Lean on Pete to what the people at the track called the killers. I knew sooner or later he would be in a stock trailer full of other horses he didn’t know heading for Mexico.

from Lean On Pete(Harper Perennial)
by Willy Vlautin

Poetry Event at the Cleaners

2011-03-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

David Biespiel
Donna Henderson
Henry Hughes
Jennifer Richter
Zachary Schomburg
Crystal Williams

Thursday, April 7th 7:00 p.m.
The Cleaners at the Ace Hotel
(430 SW 10TH)

This event is part of the National BookFoundation’s retrospective of the past 61 years of American poetry. The 2011 Oregon Book Awards finalists and Oregon Poetry Community Fellowship recipient Crystal Williams will share their work and reflect on their influences and the lineage of American Poetry. Free and open to the public.

Lineage is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, with local support from the friends of William Stafford and Ed & SueEinowski.

Creative Nonfiction Finalists

2011-03-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

April 18th is the deadline to cast your vote for the Reader's Choice Award. The winner of the Readers Choice Award will be announced at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony on April 25th.

Featured below are excerpts from the five finalists for the Sarah Winnemucca Award For Creative Nonfiction

I first visited the Galápagos in 1990 as a young journalist on assignment for a national magazine. Like most visitors, I felt that I was entering a primordial dreamscape where time and space had stood still. From the shore of Floreana Island, I watched a school of spotted eagle rays wing through the waves like butterflies. In the darkness of night, bottlenose dolphins frolicked beside our tour boat, their fins sparkling with bioluminescence—living light from microscopic organisms. I quickly realized that I had come to Las Encantadas (the Enchanted Islands), as the early Spanish explorers called the archipelago. In the skies above North Seymour Island male frigate birds floated on thermals, their throats puffed out like giant red balloons to attract mates. But what struck me most was the baby sea lion on Santiago Island that trailed me like a puppy and sniffed at my shoes, not knowing what to make of me. As I gazed one day out to sea I spotted a lone sea turtle plowing through the waves like a dark leviathan. Perhaps this is what Darwin saw when he wrote that in the Galápagos, “both in time and space, we seem to be brought near to that great fact—the mystery of mysteries—the first appearance of new beings on this earth.

from Galapagos at the Crossroads(National Geographic)
by Carol Ann Bassett

 I . . . often ask myself why I like [video games] as much as I do, especially when, very often, I hate them. Sometimes I think I hate them because of how purely they bring me back to childhood, when I could only imagine what I would do if I were single-handedly fighting off an alien army or driving down the street in a very fast car while the police try to shoot out my tires or told that I was the ancestral inheritor of some primeval sword and my destiny was to rid the realm of evil. These are very intriguing scenarios if you are twelve years old. They are far less intriguing if you are thirty-five and have a career, friends, a relationship, or children. The problem, however, at least for me, is that they are no less fun. I like fighting aliens and I like driving fast cars. Tell me the secret sword is just over the mountain and I will light off into goblin-haunted territory to claim it. For me, video games often restore an unearned, vaguely loathsome form of innocence--an innocence derived of not knowing anything. For this and all sorts of other complicated historical reasons--starting with the fact that they began as toys directly marketed to children--video games crash any cocktail-party rationale you attempt to formulate as to why, exactly, you love them. More than any other form of entertainment, video games tend to divide rooms into Us and Them. We are, in effect, admitting that we like to spend our time shooting monsters, and They are, not unreasonably, failing to find the value in that.

from Extra Lives(Pantheon Books) by Tom Bissell

It’s a tough thrash up the last few feet of the tallest trees, squeezing through thickets of small limbs, getting scratches on my arms and bark bits in my eyes, my hands blackened with redolent pitch. I can’t climb to the very top, because at the top there is no tree—only a limber sapling dripping with pitch, sometimes studded with clenched green cones. Eleven feet in circumference near ground level, the tree rises half the length of a football field to top out in a singular needled spire, of the kind you cap with an angel at Christmas time. The tree does not leave its youth behind. The tree preserves and exalts it, lifts it skyward as the center of its great candelabra crown. To spend a moment just short of the top—the loftiest landing my body can reach, the highest limit of my home ground—looking down on roof and garden and stream bottom, on neighboring fields and scalped and wooded ridges beyond, is to sense again my own young self, to find him smiling within the aches and stiffness and rutted habits of my sixty years.

from  The Far Corner (Counterpoint Press) by John Daniel

 Miriam helped me arrange the black robe over my shoulders and head. I’d worn a scarf but hadn’t thought to wear long sleeves, so the attendant loaned me a wad of fabric that unfolded into a hooded robe. Every other woman visiting the mosque that day wore her own street clothes. I tried to blend in, but somehow I always missed Islamic propriety by an inch of sleeve or the slip of a scarf. The borrowed robe singled me out as the foreigner, the outsider. Instead of covering and equalizing, the black fabric exposed me. I was not a Muslim. In bare feet we followed the cold tile corridor to the mausoleum where it is said the martyr’s bones lie enshrined. The only furnishing in that vast room was Saida Zainab’s tomb. It stood like a great throne in the sweeping hall where icy white and blue tiles covered the many arches, walls, and supporting pillars. Chandeliers hung from the high domed ceiling. Steel grillwork made up four sides of the structure, as large as a Bedouin tent, and a lone worshiper stood next to it, a woman wearing an embroidered robe like one of Aaron’s priests, her lips moving in silent supplication. Instead of the Ark of the Covenant, she tended a casket. When she reached out to touch its holiness, she did not die.

from Through the Veil (Canon Press) by Lisa Ohlen Harris

Now, back home in my ordinary little house, roof ticking under the usual spring rain, I’m thinking about sardines. To see the blue flash of sardines for the first time, to see it with new eyes—there is no escaping the wonder of it. But doesn’t the world offer more? What if I could see the familiar world as if I had never seen it before, even if I see it every day—with that wonderment and surprise? Or what if I could see it as if I would never see it again? Then imagine the glory. I’m thinking it’s a paltry sense of wonder that requires something new every day. I confess: wonder is easy when you travel to desert islands in search of experiences you have never imagined, in search of something you have never seen before, in search of wonder, the shock of surprise. It’s easy, and maybe it’s cheap. It’s not what the world asks of us. To be worthy of the astonishing world, a sense of wonder will be a way of life, in every place and time, no matter how familiar: to listen in the dark of every night, to praise the mystery of every returning day, to be astonished again and again and again, to be grateful with an intensity that cannot be distinguished from joy.

from Wild Comfort(Pantheon Books) by Kathleen Dean Moore

Authors Visit North Bend

2011-03-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, March 10th, the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour visited the North Bend Public Library. Oregon Book Awards finalists Jennifer Richter and Carol Ann Bassett offered free workshops at the library on Thursday afternoon. On Thursday evening, they were joined by Oregon Book Awards finalist Henry Hughes (pictured at left) for a reading at the library.

During her workshop, Carol Ann Bassett showed slides from her visits to the Galapagos, and participants had the chance to write about nature and share their writing with the group. Jennifer Richter led workshop participants in writing poems about mothers and other family members. In the videos shown below, each of them talk briefly about the focus of their workshops.

After the 7:00 p.m. reading, audience members asked all three authors questions about their work and their writing lives, and stayed to buy books and continue their conversations. Thanks to the North Bend Public Library for their support for this tour!

A Galapagos sea turtle, in a slide from Carol Ann Bassett's presentation.

2011 Oregon Literary Fellowships Applications Online

2011-03-08T13:53:00.001-08:00

The 2011 Oregon Literary Fellowships applications are online now. The deadline for writers and publishers to apply is June 24, 2011. There is no application fee.

Tracy Kidder Meets With Local Writers

2011-03-04T14:45:00.001-08:00

by David Kroman
- David Kroman is a local writer and intern at Literary Arts

On Thursday, March 3rd, Tracy Kidder met with local writers, including past and present Oregon Literary Fellowship recipients. Literary Arts arranged the meeting, which coincided with Kidder's appearance that evening at Portland Arts and Lectures.

It actually took me a moment to realize I was talking to Tracy Kidder. I’d only seen one picture and didn’t recognize him. This should have been embarrassing, but Kidder’s presence was warm, grounded and unconcerned with notoriety. He steeped a bag of tea and asked me, “What’s that one song about chamomile?” Neither of us knew.

Tracy Kidder is known for authoring up-close, non-fiction profiles – indeed he’s won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for doing so. His subjects range from a team of carpenters building a home to the life of Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health. His journalistic approach matched with his fiction beginnings mean Kidder’s narratives allow readers an unmatched level of intimacy with the figures in his books. For Kidder, nobody is too ordinary and nobody is too extraordinary.

And as he drank his tea and sat before a room of writers, one could see how he’s so successful. Yes, he set the topic for the afternoon– structure and how to choose the right one – but his tone and body language put the room at ease. What started as a talk turned into a conversation; even the youngest students comfortably spoke without needing permission. This, I remember thinking, must be how he does what he does – allowing other people to speak and listening to what they say. At one point someone asked about moral intent. After all, she suggested, a book like Mountains Beyond Mountains has certainly caused positive ripples. To that, Kidder responded: “I don’t try to do good. I just like to tell good stories.” His passion for stories and people and writing just prove that words matter, even if the author didn’t foresee their results.

Kidder had two more cups of tea. “The real shame of these tours,” he said, “is that I do all the talking. I don’t learn very much from other people.” When the conversation needed to be cut short for his busy schedule, Kidder seemed genuinely regretful. “I’d love to do this all afternoon,” he said. And with more than a little irony, it became apparent how much he loved talking with, listening to and getting to know people as he walked out the door.

Attic Atheneum is Accepting Applications

2011-03-03T11:19:00.000-08:00

From our friends at the Attic Institute:

An 11-month certificate program, the Attic Atheneum melds independent study under close faculty supervision, student receptions, public readings, and other special Atheneum events created around good food and great conversation, dialogue, and literary community.

Running for just under a year, the Atheneum is designed to advance your writing and seed your new literary life in the city.

Faculty for 2011-2012: David Biespiel, Kathleen Halme, Merridawn Duckler, G. Xavier Robillard, Cheryl Strayed, Karen Karbo

APPLICATION DEADLINE FOR THE ATHENEUM CLASS OF 2012
April 30

And, if you're interested in learning more:

Friday, March 18, 3pm, at the Attic Institute
Register now for this free information meeting. Find out what the Atheneum year can mean for your creativity and writing.

For Writers, by Lisa Madigan

2011-02-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

"There are lots of books out there about writing. How to begin … how to keep going … how to plot … how to create memorable characters … there’s probably a book out there on how to write interesting website copy. I should have looked for it!

It’s good to read those books, but don’t feel guilty if your process is different than what they advise. The main thing is to WRITE. Some days it might be 2000 words. Some days you might tinker with two sentences until you get them just right. Both days belong in the writing life. Some days you may watch a “Doctor Who” marathon or become immersed a book that is so good you can’t stop reading. Some days you may be in love or in mourning. Those days belong in the writing life, too. Live them without guilt." - L.K. Madigan

Free Writing Workshops at North Bend Public Library in March

2011-02-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

As part of the next Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, Carol Ann Bassett, Henry Hughes and Jennifer Richter will be reading at the North Bend Public Library on Thursday, March 10th at 7:00 p.m.

In addition, Jennifer Richter and Carol Ann Bassett will be offering free writing workshops at the North Bend Public Library, on Thursday, March 10th. Please contact the library to pre-register.

Thursday, March 10th
12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Getting Your Feet Wet
A poetry workshop with Jennifer Richter, Oregon Book Awards finalist
and author of Threshold

This workshop offers a chance to dip into the river of poetry and see what surfaces.Become inspired by a variety of published poets and in the workshop’s supportive atmosphere, write a poem and leave with ideas for more.

Thursday, March 10th
3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
A Sense of Place: The Personal Nature Essay
A writing workshop with Carol Ann Bassett, Oregon Book Awards finalist
and author of Galapagos at the Crossroads

This workshop will include a brief slideshow on the rare life forms and landscapes of the Galapagos, and techniques on how to capture the essence of a place and bring it to life. Students will do an in-class 20-minute free-write on a subject of their choice, then read their work aloud for constructive feedback from the instructor and class participants.

Emily Chenoweth in Manzanita

2011-02-21T14:20:00.000-08:00

Emily Chenoweth reading in Manzanita on February 19, 2011 at the Manzanita Writers Series.

More photos from the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour to Manzanita can be found on our Facebook page!

Lisa Ohlen Harris in Manzanita

2011-02-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

Emily Chenoweth, K.B. Dixon and Lisa Ohlen Harris appeared in Manzanita on Saturday, February 19th, at the Manzanita Writers Series as part of the Oregon Book Awards author tour.

In this video, Oregon Book Awards finalist Lisa answers two questions about her book, THROUGH THE VEIL.

K.B. Dixon in Manzanita

2011-02-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

Oregon Book Awards finalist K.B. Dixon answers two questions about A PAINTER'S LIFE. Recorded in Manzanita on Sunday, February 20th, at the Bread and Ocean bakery!

Emily Chenoweth in Manzanita

2011-02-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

Oregon Book Awards finalist Emily Chenoweth answers two questions about HELLO GOODBYE. Recorded in Manzanita on Sunday, February 20th, at the Bread and Ocean bakery!

Get Into the Whale Tonight with the IPRC!

2011-02-11T14:44:00.001-08:00

From our friends at the Independent Publishing Resource Center:

Herman Melville's Moby Dick is among the most daring novels of all time. It's a book for the ages: although published in the 1850's, the story has uncanny resonance with our contemporary ecological, political and spiritual conditions. And the fact that Moby Dick was a commericial flop during its own conservative era speaks volumes to the current imperiled state of the publishing industry, as traditional structures of literary authority crumble and more independent voices arise in print and online.

In the spirit of adventure and artistic independence--and as a means of bringing this epic, polyphonic book alive--we invite you to join us tonight for Take To the Ship--a 24-hour live reading of Moby Dick. Powell's Books will host the first five hours of the reading; readers include Arthur Bradford, Monica Drake, Jon Raymond, Laura Gibson, Kevin Sampsell, Scrappers, Sarah Mirk, A.M. O'Malley, Justin Hocking, Viva Las Vegas, BT Shaw, Alison Hallet, Mykkle Hansen, Carrot Quinn, Chris Haberman, Erik Henriksen, Courtenay Haymeister and more.

The second half of the event will take place at a private residence, open to IPRC members and confirmed readers only. To find out the secret location, please present your IPRC membership card at the IPRC volunteer table at Powell's this evening. If you're not currently a member, you can join right now on the IPRC website; 3-month trial memberships are only $25.

Take To the Ship Reading
Begins 5pm, February 11, 2011
@Powell's Books on Burnside (5pm-10pm; open to public)
PLUS a Location TBA (10pm-5pm; IPRC members only)
Free; Donations Welcome
For more info visit taketotheship.com

2011 Oregon Literary Fellowships Recipients

2011-02-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

Pictured above are the 2011 Oregon Literary Fellowships recipients
Row 1: Gretchen Icenogle, Barbara Liles, Michael McGregor, Jennifer Richter
Row 2: Grove Review, Claire Willet, Brenden Willey, Crystal Williams, Octopus Books

Fellowships to Writers

Poetry

Michelle Penaloza of Eugene, The Women Writers Fellowship
Jennifer Richter of Corvallis, The C.Hamilton Bailey Fellowship
Crystal Williams of Portland, The Oregon Poetry Community Fellowship

Fiction

Brenden Willey of Portland, The Walt Morey Fellowship

Literary Nonfiction

Gretchen Icenogle of Portland, The Friends of the Lake Oswego Library William Stafford Fellowship
Michael McGregor of Portland, The Leslie Bradshaw Fellowship

Drama

Claire Willett of Portland

Young Readers Literature

Barbara Liles of Portland, The Edna L. Holmes Fellowship in Young Readers Literature

Fellowships to Publishers

Presses and magazines demonstrating a commitment to literary publishing receive these fellowships.

Grove Review of Portland
Octopus Books of Portland

Women Writers Fellowship

The Women Writers Fellowship is a limited, special fund, endowed by the Ralph L. Smith Foundation and administered by Literary Arts, for women writers living in Oregon. Of special interest to the grant makers are perspectives that are traditionally not well represented, including those exploring experiences of ethnicity, class, physical disability or sexual orientation. Michelle Penaloza is this year’s recipient.

Judging

Publishers fellowships were judged by Stephanie G’Schwind, editor of Colorado Review and Director of the Center for Literary Publishing.

Fellowships to writers were judged by a panel consisting of Patrick Somerville, fiction writer and author of The Cradle (Little, Brown and Company) ; Alex Lemon, author of three poetry collections, including Mosquito (Tin House Books) and Hallelujah Blackout (Milkweed Editions) and the memoir Happy (Scribner); and Barbara Hurd, the author of a trilogy of creative nonfiction works from University of Georgia Press, Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination, Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling through the Dark and Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shift and What Remains, as well as two volumes of poetry. The judge for young readers literature was An Na and the judge in drama was Carlos Murillo.

Oregon Book Awards Tour Kicks Off in Manzanita

2011-02-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

Literary Arts is pleased to announce the first event of the 2011 Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, featuring Oregon Book Awards authors. Three Oregon Book Awards finalists will be reading in Manzanita, on Saturday, February 19th at 7:00 p.m. at Hoffman Center Annex. The reading is part of the Manzanita Writers Series.

Authors appearing will be:

• Emily Chenoweth of Portland, finalist in fiction for her novel, Hello Goodbye (Random House). The writer Alice Sebold called Hello Goodbye, "a beautiful novel about a family on the brink of loss." Emily Chenoweth is a former fiction editor of Publishers Weekly. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Bookforum, and People, among other publications

• K.B. Dixon of Portland, finalist in fiction for his book, A Painter's Life (Inkwater Press). The Oregonian called A Painter's Life "a slyly funny and perceptive take on creativity and the artist's life, and a gentle skewering of the art establishment and critics." Dixon's work has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and journals. He has written on the visual arts for The Oregonian, and is the author of My Desk and I, a collection of short stories and The Sum of His Syndromes.

• Lisa Ohlen Harris of Newberg, finalist in general nonfiction for her book, Through The Veil (Canon Press).The book is a collection of essays about life in the Middle East. Harris lived in Syria and Jordan in the 1990s, and her work has been published in journals like River Teeth, Arts & Letters, and The Laurel Review.

Oregon Book Awards Finalists and Literary Fellowship Recipients Announced

2011-01-25T22:53:00.000-08:00

Literary Arts congratulates the 2011 Oregon Book Awards Finalists and Fellowship Recipients

Ken Kesey Award For Fiction
Judge: Lydia Millet

Emily Chenoweth of Portland, Hello Goodbye (Random House)
K.B. Dixon of Portland, A Painter’s Life (Inkwater Press)
Jane Kirkpatrick of Moro, A Flickering Light (WaterBrook Press)
Scott Sadil of Hood River, Lost in Wyoming (Barclay Creek Press)
Willy Vlautin of Portland, Lean on Pete (Harper Perennial)

Stafford/Hall Award For Poetry
Judge: Robert Pinsky

David Biespiel of Portland, The Book of Men and Women (University of Washington Press)
Donna Henderson of Monmouth. The Eddy Fence (Airlie Press)
Henry Hughes of Falls City, Moist Meridian (Mammoth Books)
Jennifer Richter of Corvallis, Threshold (Southern Illinois University Press)
Zachary Schomburg of Portland, Scary No Scary (Black Ocean)

Frances Fuller Victor Award For General Nonfiction
Judge: Greg Grandin

Paul Collins of Portland,The Book of William (Bloomsbury)
Tom Krattenmaker of Portland, Onward Christian Athletes (Rowman & Littlefield)
Barry Sanders of Portland, Unsuspecting Souls (Counterpoint Press)
Barry Sanders of Portland, The Green Zone (AK Press)
Paul VanDevelder of Corvallis, Savages and Scoundrels (Yale University Press)

Sarah Winnemucca Award For Creative Nonfiction
Judge: Kyoko Mori

Carol Ann Bassett of Eugene, Galapagos at the Crossroads (National Geographic)
Tom Bissell of Portland, Extra Lives (Pantheon Books)
John Daniel of Elmira, The Far Corner (Counterpoint Press)
Lisa Ohlen Harris of Newberg, Through the Veil (Canon Press)
Kathleen Dean Moore of Corvallis, Wild Comfort (Trumpeter Books)

Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award For Children’s Literature
Judge: Kathi Appelt

Dale E. Basye of Portland, Rapacia:The Second Circle of Heck (Random House)
Dawn Babb Prochovnic of Portland, The Nest Where I Like to Rest (Magic Wagon)
Graham Salisbury of Lake Oswego, Calvin Coconut: The Zippy Fix (Wendy Lamb Books)
Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen of Hines, A Small Brown Dog A With Wet Pink Nose (Little Brown and Company)
Barbara Kerley of Portland, The Extraordinary Mark Twain (Scholastic Press)

Leslie Bradshaw Award For Young Adult Literature
Judge: Kathi Appelt

Scott William Carter of Salem, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys (Simon and Schuster)
Kerry Cohen Hoffman of Portland, It’s Not You, It’s Me (Random House)
Anne Osterlund of Ione, Academy 7 (Penguin Group)
L.K. Madigan of Portland, Flash Burnout (Houghton Mifflin)
Emily Whitman of Portland, Radiant Darkness (Greenwillow/Harper Collins)

Angus L. Bowmer Award For Drama
Judge: Paula Cizmar

Marc Acito of Portland & C.S. Whitcomb of Wilsonville, Holidazed
Wayne Harrel of Portland, Second Bloom
Susan Mach of Portland, The Lost Boy
George Taylor of Beaverton, Good Citizen
Molly Best Tinsley of Ashland, Glacial Genes

Oregon Literary Fellowships

Fellowships to Writers
Fellowships to writers were judged by a panel consisting of Patrick Somerville, fiction writer and author of The Cradle (Little, Brown and Company) ; Alex Lemon, author of three poetry collections, including Mosquito (Tin House Books) and Hallelujah Blackout (Milkweed Editions) and the memoir Happy (Scribner); and Barbara Hurd, the author of a trilogy of creative nonfiction works from University of Georgia Press, Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination, Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling through the Dark and Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shift and What Remains, as well as two volumes of poetry. The judge for young readers literature was An Na and the judge in drama was Carlos Murillo.

Poetry
Jennifer Richter of Corvallis, The C.Hamilton Bailey Fellowship
Crystal Williams of Portland, The Oregon Poetry Community Fellowship
Michelle Penaloza of Eugene, The Women Writers Fellowship

Fiction
Brenden Willey of Portland, The Walt Morey Fellowship

Literary Nonfiction
Gretchen Icenogle of Portland, The Friends of the Lake Oswego Library William Stafford Fellowship
Michael McGregor of Portland, The Leslie Bradshaw Fellowship

Drama
Claire Willett of Portland

Young Readers Literature
Barbara Liles of Portland, The Edna L. Holmes Fellowship in Young Readers Literature

Fellowships to Publishers
Presses and magazines demonstrating a commitment to literary publishing receive these fellowships. Publishers fellowships were judged by Stephanie G'Schwind, editor of Colorado Review and Director of the Center for Literary Publishing.

The Grove Review of Portland
Octopus Books of Portland

Oregon Book Awards & Literary Fellowships Announced Tomorrow

2011-01-24T10:05:00.000-08:00

The finalists for the 2011 Oregon Book Awards and this year's recipients of Oregon Literary Fellowships will be announced tomorrow evening at the Elizabeth Strout lecture. They will be listed on Paper Fort and on our website tomorrow evening, following the Strout lecture. A press release announcing the finalists and fellowship recipients will be sent out later this week.

Spare Room Hosts Marathon Maximus Reading

2011-01-14T12:17:00.000-08:00

This weekend Spare Room is hosting a three-day, three-location marathon reading of Charles Olson's book-length epic Maximus.

Charles Olson, who William Carlos Williams called "a major poet with a sweep of understanding of the world", was born December 27, 2010, and there have been a series of events across the country in recent months to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth.

The readings in Portland take place:

Friday, January 14, 4:00 - 9:00 pm
Switchyard Studios 109 E Salmon Street
Readers: Jacqueline Motzer, Jesse Morse, Zachary Schomburg, Christopher Luna, Dan Raphael, Laura Feldman, Michael Weaver, David Abel

Saturday, January 15, 2:00 - 7:00 pm
galleryHOMELAND 2505 SE 11th Avenue
Readers: Alicia Cohen, Sam Lohmann, Jennifer Bartlett, Jaye Harris, Donald Dunbar, John Hall, Susan Rankin, Dan Raphael, Rodney Koeneke, Endi Hartigan

Sunday, January 16, 2:00 - 7:00 pm
YU 800 SE 10th Avenue
Readers: Lisa Radon, Linda Austin, Tim DuRoche, Patrick Hartigan, Meredith Blankinship, Joseph Mainz,
Jamalieh Haley, David Weinberg, Castle, Paul Maziar, Drew Swenhaugen, James Yeary

And here's the opening lines of Maximus, to get you started:

Off shore, by islands hidden in the blood
jewels & miracles, I, Maximus
a metal hot from boiling water, tell you
what is a lance, who obeys the figures
of the present dance.

Mountain Writers Series Offers Workshops

2011-01-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

I have no idea how today's photo got here. Just go with it!

From our friends at Mountain Writers:

Mountain Writers Series is now enrolling participants for three winter 2011 writing workshops led by three acclaimed Northwest writers.The initial line-up for Winter 2011, Three Poets:Three Workshops, will feature Christopher Howell and Oregon Book Awards authors Vern Rutsala and Kathleen Halme, each teaching single-session writing workshops. More information is available on their web site.

Oregon Book Awards Finalists Announced in January

2010-12-22T13:29:00.000-08:00

On January 26, 2011, Literary Arts will announce the 2011 Oregon Book Awards finalists and Oregon Literary Fellowships recipients.

The Oregon Book Awards ceremony will take place April 25, 2011. A list of books submitted for consideration for the 2011 Oregon Book Awards can be found on our web site.

The guidelines for the 2012 Oregon Literary Fellowships will go online in February 2011, and the guidelines for the 2012 Oregon Book Awards will go online in May 2011.

Happy Holidays! Doesn't Jon Raymond make a good Santa?

Margaret Malone's Favorites of 2010

2010-12-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Margaret Malone, who is one of the 13 recipients of the Oregon Arts Commission's 2011 Individual Fellowships. Margaret received an Oregon Literary Fellowship in January of 2010.

Here's some of the books Margaret read and enjoyed this year:

My Abandonment by Peter Rock. What I loved about this book was the voice of the narrator. I was instantly inside the head of a 13-year old girl living in the woods with her father in Forest Park. The book will be fascinating for many Portlanders because the author, a local writer who teaches at Reed, took a real-life news story and used it as a jumping off point for a fictional narrative. The details are so provocative you feel your own bare feet running the trails of the forest. Sweet, heart-breaking and beautifully written, this is one of those books that continues to stay with me.

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. This is a book from several years ago that other writers would recommend, but I didn't pick it up until this year. It tells the story of a big ramshackle house in Perth, Australia and the two big families who, by financial necessity and circumstance, end up sharing it for decades. Winton is able to flawlessly jump from one character's head into another and into another in the span of a single page. His sentences are chock full of detail and beauty and heart in a way only a handful of writers can manage successfully. It's a book about the ways we both love and hate where we come from. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Almond Blossoms and Beyond by Mahmoud Darwish. Darwish was a Palestinian poet who died in 2008. This was his last book of poetry translated into English as far as I've been able to tell. Forced into exile at a very young age, many of his poems are about displacement and the importance of being grateful if you live in a place where you are able to walk down the street and survive. His poems manage to be both sensual and filled with loss - what we have lost, what we could lose, what we will all lose eventually. When Darwish died in August 2008, thousands and thousands of people filled the streets of Ramallah and wept as they watched his body carried to its burial site. Reading this book reminded me of how small the world is and how we all have the grief of exile in common.

Matthew Dickman Makes A Hot Toddy

2010-12-16T13:38:00.000-08:00

a recipe for your Holiday parties!

Donna Matrazzo's 2010 Reading

2010-12-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

Today Donna Matrazzo is our guest blogger, discussing some of the books she read in 2010:

Not since I was a kid lugging home armfuls of Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books have I so pleasantly delved into a book series -- three, to be exact. This summer I read a dozen or so books in Alexander McCall Smith's No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series, Isabel Dalhousie Series, and 44 Scotland Street Series. The stories have the slightest twist of mystery but their real charm is in the smart, sassy, generous-hearted characters. The Ladies' Detective Agency books also display the spirit and beauty of Smith's native Botswana.

A friend sent me a copy of Woodswoman: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness by Anne La Bastille. I was awed by her guts and prowess in moving to wilderness, building a log cabin and truly walking her talk as an ecologist. Her writing is lovely and I followed up with her second book, Beyond Black Bear Lake.

Donna Matrazzo's book Wild Thing: Adventures of a Grassroots Environmentalist was selected as 2009 Oregon Book Awards finalist.

David Axelrod's Favorite Books of 2010

2010-12-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year when Best Books of the Year lists abound! Today, Paper Fort steps into the fray, with our series on Oregon's writers and readers favorite books of 2010. As most people's reading material in any one year is not limited to books published in that year, these lists can include, but are not limited to, books published in 2010, as our first author's list illustrates!

Here's what the poet David Axelrod had to say about his favorite books of 2010:

Summertime by J.M. Coetzee — I thought I would never laugh out loud at
anything Coetzee wrote...until now.

Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew by John Felsteiner —A very good, even accessible, reading of this very inaccessible poet.

The Land of Green Plums by Herta Mueller— A grim portrayal of the moral
inertia of a society corrupted by ideology.

Nox by Anne Carson—A beautiful facsimile of a handmade book, and smart, emotionally satisfying elegy to the fragments of a sibling's life.

The Melancholy of Reistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai. — "[A] slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type." And so much more! It's Herta Mueller meets Beckett during the coldest week of the year.

and:

Through Naked Branches by Tarjei Vesaas, The Silence Afterwards by Rolf Jacobsen, The Procession of Memories by Harry Martinson, and Under the Iron of the Moon.— All are mid-century European poets I've returned to this autumn after reading a Facebook post (yes) in which a contemporary poet "re-discovered" Robinson Jeffers and how "odd" and "scary" he seemed. I like these poets as they still live at a considerable distance from our rapidly "denaturing" consciousness. Think cold, salted cod,mud, fallen fruit, wild animals, darkness at noon.

Jessica Johnson Reading Friday

2010-12-08T10:43:00.000-08:00

Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient Jessica Johnson is reading on Friday, December 10th at 7:00 p.m. at Looking Glass Books (7983 SE 13th Ave.) in Portland. She'll be reading with Seattle poet Megan Snyder-Camp, whose book The Forest of Sure Things was published this year by Tupelo Press.

Keeping Kesey in Eugene

2010-12-03T14:11:00.001-08:00

Last night in Eugene there was a fundraiser featuring several Oregon writers reading original works by Ken Kesey. Cecelia Hagen, Miriam Gershow, Paul Calandrino, Cai Emmons, Lauren Kessler, and Max Rayneard all read from original Kesey documents. The event was a fundraiser for the University of Oregon Library's special collection department.

According to the University of Oregon library, "The Ken Kesey Collection contains irreplaceable typewritten manuscripts, artwork, collages, photographs, and correspondence, dating from 1960 to 2001. This rich archive is a resource for students and scholars interested not only in Ken Kesey and his writing but also in the literature and culture of the 1960s."

Lisa Manotti, the Library's Development Director, says the evening raised around 900 dollars, and added, "The Kesey family has not given us a specific deadline for purchasing the collection. We have a verbal agreement that they would like it to remain at the University of Oregon and we will do everything possible to raise the money. The collection was appraised at just under $3 million, so we have a ways to go."

Brian Doyle In Corvallis on Thursday

2010-11-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

Brian Doyle will be appearing at the Troubadour Music Center ( 521 SW 2nd Street) in Corvallis on Thursday, December 2nd at 7:00 p.m. He'll be reading from his novel, Mink River, which was published by Oregon State University Press in October.

Penelope, Mary and Paulann

2010-11-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, November 20th, at 5:00 p.m., Penelope Scambly Schott will be reading at Tsunami Books in Eugene. Penelope's book Crow Mercies was selected as the winner of the Sarah Lantz Memorial Poetry Book Prize, sponsored by Calyx Press. In 2008, Schott won the Stafford/Hall Award for her book A is For Anne: Mistress Anne Disturbs the Commonwealth.

Sunday, November 21st at 7:30 p.m, Mary Rechner will be reading at Powell's Books in Portland. Mary is a previous Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient and the director of the Writers in the Schools Program. Mary will be reading from her book Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women.

Monday, November 22nd at 7:30 p.m., Oregon's Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen will be reading at Annie Bloom's books. Paulann will read from her new book The Voluptuary. On Tuesday, November 23rd at 7:00 p.m., she'll be reading at Broadway Books in Portland.

Soapstone Residencies Ending

2010-11-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

Soapstone is discontinuing its residency program on December 31, 2010. Judith Barrington and Ruth Gundle began Soapstone in 1991. The message on the Soapstone web site states:

After six months of discussion, research, and many consultations with nonprofit professionals, the Soapstone Board has decided to end the residency program. Soapstone, however, will continue, and we are excited to consider new ways we can use Soapstone’s resources to support women writers

Soapstone has provided residencies to over 350 writers since 1998, and previous residents include Cheryl Strayed, Marjorie Sandor, Cecelia Hagen, Jessica Lamb and Barbara LaMorticella. We look forward to hearing about Soapstone's next incarnation!

There's another residency opportunity for writers in Oregon, from the H.J.Andrews Experimental Forest near Corvallis. The deadline to apply for Spring 2011 residences is December 1, 2010, and this is not a postmark deadline! Information on their web site includes:

Creative writers whose work in any genre reflects a keen awareness of the natural world and an appreciation for both scientific and literary ways of knowing are invited to apply for one-week residencies at the H.J.Andrews Experimental Forest. Residents are provided with a three-room apartment, which includes kitchen facilities, access to the forest research site, and a $250 stipend.

November 15th is the postmark deadline for application to the Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant for Individual Artists. Applications are available on their web site and include this information:

Career Opportunity Grants support individual Oregon artists by enabling them to take advantage of unique opportunities to enhance their careers through the development of arts, business or professional skills; expanded marketing capacity and/or the further development of the nature or quality of their artwork.

Eligible artist applicants must be a current Oregon resident, 18 years or older, been an Oregon resident for one full year prior to the application deadline date, and not have received funding from the Oregon Arts Commission in the past twelve (12) months from the application deadline.

The program is open to both emerging and established artists. Career Opportunity Grants range from $300 to $1,500 depending on the scope and nature of the activity.

Willamette Week Give Guide Launches Today!

2010-11-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

Willamette Week's Give Guide is back, and Literary Arts is one of the participating nonprofits. Literary Arts is offering several incentives for giving this year, including a visit to your book group from Oregon Book Award winner Jon Raymond. Other incentives include a signed hardback copy of Barry Lopez’s Resistance, a night at the Heathman, and two premium tickets to Bill Bryson on November 18, 2010.

The End of Boys

2010-10-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

Peter Brown Hoffmeister was awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship in 2006. In 2011, Soft Skull Press will publish his first book, a memoir, The End of Boys.

We asked Peter a few questions about his writing life and his path to publication:

Paper Fort:What was your process for writing The End of Boys?
Peter: After my first daughter was born, I committed to being tired. I thought, if I'm already going to skip sleep, I may as well skip a little more sleep to get up early and write every single day. And then, with all this new writing time, I wrote a big, long, horrible novel. It had every cliche coming-of-age-first-novel convention: The wise friend, the father-son issues, the near-death experience for the protagonist. But I spent two years writing and revising that manuscript, and I didn't even know how bad it was. Then my writing partner at the time, Jose Chaves, told me to stop. To not go forward with that book. That I couldn't. It was embarrassing.

I had this real, true, dark story in my past, a story of three years that nobody in my family wanted to relive. And Jose encouraged me to face that story, to start now that I had a novel warm-up.

I talked to my wife, Jennie, and she said she'd support whatever I chose to do. She's incredibly supportive that way. So I started writing the real story, my memoir, the one I was afraid of, the book I had to get past before I could move on.

From there, the book was therapy. I relived the scenes so many times that they now hold no emotional power for me. I know they'll be difficult for my family to read for the first time, but the individual scenes don't mean much to me anymore. Thirteen drafts and six years later, I'm trying to perfect imagery in The End of Boys.

Can you describe its path towards publication?
I just read an interview in Poets and Writers about Major Jackson, how everything went the way he wanted to, how he was given a lot of support early on, both financially and emotionally. Everyone helped with his craft, and he won every fellowship and grant.

That wasn't me. I failed a lot. I continue to fail. Even with a book coming out, a fiction fellowship from Literary Arts, and an excellent agent (Adriann Ranta at Wolf), I still get rejected by literary journals 50 or 60 times a year.

This book was no different. After draft number eleven, I researched agents who represented modern memoirs, and chose fifteen to query. Then I wrote and revised a query letter until it was perfect - followed all the rules but still demonstrated my style. After sending it off, I received four requests for partials, and three ended up being interested. Two were very interested, and I chose between those two. But I chose poorly.

Another revision, 10 months, and 15 book rejections later (including rejections from all the big houses), I realized that I might not be with the right agent. She didn't reply to me when I emailed questions. She was distant. I felt her drifting away as a high school girlfriend might drift away.

So I fired her and started over, and that was probably the low point in the process. If the whole book publishing experience is a hero's journey, then that was the abyss. I was alone down there in the volcanic gasses, without an agent, holding the twelfth draft of a many-times rejected book.

But I'd kept in contact with the junior agent at the agency I'd not chosen the year before. Adriann had just joined Kirsten Wolf's new agency and started recruiting her own clients. I liked her style, her attitude, and how well she communicated. So we went forward and signed an agreement.

Adriann got the manuscript to her editor friend Siri Comeau who read and and helped me with draft thirteen, the lucky draft. On the next submission round, we got two offers of publication, and we chose Soft Skull and Denise Oswald as the editor.

You teach high school full time. How do you juggle the demands of your writing and teaching life?
Not well. For a while, it was okay. I wrote one hour each morning, then left for school. Simple. But as I'm asked to write more and more (for magazines, etc.), and I also want to finish my novel and short story collection, I'm struggling with the time constraints. I've recently started writing at night as well, but I don't want to lose all my family time. So eventually, and perhaps soon, I'm going to have to cut back and teach half-time. Write three of four hours a day.

Any tips for aspiring writers?
Enjoy failing. Make it funny. Tell stories of rejection. Become a survivor. As Laurence Gonzales writes, "Don't whine, complain, or blame. Have an internal locus of control."

This culture is not built on quality writing. Notice the bestsellers, authors who get million-dollar advances for first drafts. Or average movie writing. Television scripts. Mostly awful, embarrassing. But our culture champions quick mediocrity. And literary writing can't be produced at the speed essential to make money. If it's not fast, it's not lucrative. So good writing is a subversive act, counter-culture, and perhaps insane.

Take too much time. Revise repeatedly. "Perfect" is a verb. An action.

Peter's web site can be found at peterbrownhoffmeister.com

Oregon Authors Meet with Trethewey

2010-10-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Natasha Trethewey appeared in Portland last Thursday as part of Portland Arts & Lectures. On Thursday afternoon, she met with a group of past finalists and recipients of Oregon Book Awards and Oregon Literary Fellowships to talk about poetry, history, form and other issues of craft. Paper Fort asked two of the participants, Cecelia Hagen and John Morrison, to share their thoughts on the afternoon.

Cecelia Hagen:

When someone asked about the music inherent in her work, Trethewey asked whether any of the poets present had music playing while they wrote (only a few did). Trethewey then told a story about walking in New Orleans with her father, who is also a poet, and saying to him, “Oh, I wish I could sing.” He said, “How can you be a poet if you can’t sing?”

Because her latest book, Beyond Katrina, combines prose and poems, there was also talk about memoir and her approach to writing about family as well as historical events. Trethewey told the poets she uses form to help her resist her inclination to be narrative, or to have the poem travel a straight line to its conclusion.

John Morrison:

Besides feeling very lucky (plucked by luck, almost) to be in a room with so many fine poets, we all were grateful and, well, a bit star-struck to have Natasha Trethewey join us at the table. It wasn’t hard to feel for her. She had just arrived from Madison High School where she, no doubt, spent precious energy reading and encouraging the young writers toward poetry, and when she left us, she would have only an hour to prepare for her Arts & Lectures event. Meanwhile, she was at a table of mostly strangers who might expect her to hold court.

However, as interested as we were in her poetry and numerous, heady accomplishments, she wanted to hear from us on a few, grand literary issues, but also on the nuts and bolts we all contend with: the labor that goes into and the balance we seek when researching a historical poem; the responsibility to truth and art in memoir or honest poetry; how to avoid our “navel-gazing” and write poems beyond the pedestrian. We even held forth on whether poets could listen to music (some do) or settle into a coffee shop (some do) to write their poetry.

One wise fiction writer among us asked whether form might be equivalent to plot in the fiction analogy: Plot is the bone you throw the dog so you can rob the house. Maybe. Maybe form is the bone. We could’ve gone on all day, talking bones and navels. We will carry Natasha Trethewey’s good humor, dedication, and generosity as an artist with us for a long time to come.

Paulann Petersen Tonight

2010-10-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

Join Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen and poet and journalist Don Colburn for an evening of talking about writing. They'll talk about poetry, prose and the news, and both authors will read.

Bring your questions and enjoy a delicious evening of food, culture, and company. Sponsored by the George S. Turnbull Center, University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication; the University of Oregon Portland Library and Learning Commons; and the University of Oregon Continuing Education; and Literary Arts. This event is free and open to the public.

6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, October 18th
University of Oregon in Portland
White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch St.
Portland

Wordstock is This Weekend!

2010-10-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

Literary Arts is looking forward to Wordstock. You can find us at the following events:

Panels:

The State of the Story
with Trevor Houser, Maile Meloy, Mary Rechner, Lan Samantha Chang
Saturday at 4pm - M Stage

Capturing the Regional Voice
with Robin Cody, Matt Love, Benjamin Percy, and Brian Doyle (moderated by Susan Denning).
Saturday at 4pm - WK Stage

First Book, First Person
with Wendy Burden, Sarahlee Lawrence, and Gemma Whelan
(moderated by Andrew Proctor).
Sunday at 1pm - WK Stage

And that's not all ...

Several Oregon Book Awards authors and Oregon Literary Fellowships recipients will be reading at Wordstock, including:

Carl Adamshick
Judith Arcana
Emily Chenoweth
Robin Cody
Brian Doyle
Monica Drake
Heather Vogel Frederick
Michele Glazer
April Henry
Kerry Cohen Hoffman
Lauren Kessler
Barbara Lamorticella
Phillip Margolin
Judith Montgomery
John Morrison
Paulann Petersen
Jon Raymond
Mary Rechner
Vern Rutsala
Penelope Scambly Schott
Floyd Skloot
Kim Stafford
Loretta Stinson
Crystal Williams

Check the Wordstock schedule for details! We'll be at table 1007 - come see us!

Hitchcock Memorial October 3rd

2010-09-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

There will be a memorial celebration for George Hitchcock at Tsunami Books (2585 Willamette St) in Eugene on Sunday, October 3rd, at 4:00 p.m.

George Hitchcock was the recipient of the Charles Erskine Scott Wood Distinguished Writer Award from Literary Arts in 2003. His obituary on the Poetry Foundation web site states in part:

George Hitchcock, the influential editor of kayak magazine (1964-1984) has passed away at the age of 96. Hitchcock supported an array of up-and-coming poets, many of whom went on to major success: Simic, Tate, Atwood, Kizer, Carver, Levine, Merwin, and McGrath, to name a few.

The New York Times, in a recent article, described kayak as "one of the most distinctive, eagerly read literary journals of its time" and quoted Harold Junker, the editor of Zyzzyva: The Journal of West Coast Writers and Artists as saying Hitchcock "was the pre-eminent maverick independent magazine publisher ... open in his tastes, unflagging in his energies ... knew everyone and kept the thing going against all odds.”

Call for Manuscripts

2010-09-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

From our friends at Airlie Press:

Airlie Press is currently accepting submissions of book-length poetry manuscripts. The deadline for our open call is September 24, 2010.

We are seeking manuscript submissions from poets who live within a reasonable driving distance from the Monmouth area, where the press business is conducted.

Authors whose manuscripts are selected by Airlie Press must commit to responsibilities of the collective for a period of three years, including attending monthly meetings, and contributing at least ten hours a month to the collective-related work of editing, book production, and promotion. Authors’ books will be published during the second year of their commitment to Airlie Press, and will involve more time commitment from the authors. Authors have final say regarding the content and presentation of their books. All book profits will be returned to the collective.

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit two copies of your manuscript, which must be postmarked no later than September 24, 2010. Manuscripts received after that date will not be read. Manuscripts cannot be returned.

Manuscripts must be 65-80 pages in length. Manuscripts must be paginated, with a title page, a table of contents, and an acknowledgments page.

Your name and contact information must not appear anywhere on your manuscript. We are accepting blind submissions only.

For more information, visit the Airlie Press website.

In Memoriam

2010-09-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

The One Whose Reproach I Cannot Evade
by George Hitchcock

She sits in her glass garden
and awaits the guests -
The sailor with the blue tangerines
the fish clothed in languages
the dolphin with a revolver in its teeth.

Dusk enters from stage left:
its voice falls like dew on the arbor.
Tiny bells
sway in the catalpa tree.

What is it she hopes to catch in her net
of love? Petals? Conch-shells?
The night-moth? She does not speak.
Tonight, I tell her, no one comes;
you wait in vain.

Yet at eight precisely
the moon opens its theatric doors,
an arm rises from the fountain,
the music box, face down
on her tabouret, swells and bursts
its cover - a tinkling flood of
rice moves over the table.

She smiles at me, false believer,
smiles and goes in, leaving
the garden empty and my thighs
half-eaten by the raging twilight.

from The Wounded Alphabet, Poems Selected and New: 1953:1983

George Hitchcock was the recipient of the Charles Erskine Scott Wood Distinguished Writer Award from Literary Arts in 2003. He died this week at his home in Eugene.

George's obituary on the Poetry Foundation web site states in part:

George Hitchcock, the influential editor of kayak magazine (1964-1984) has passed away at the age of 96. Hitchcock supported an array of up-and-coming poets, many of whom went on to major success: Simic, Tate, Atwood, Kizer, Carver, Levine, Merwin, and McGrath, to name a few.

Tomorrow is the Deadline!

2010-08-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, Friday, August 27th, is the deadline for submitting books for consideration for the Oregon Book Awards. As these photos indicate, many books have already arrived. Books can be hand delivered to our office, at 224 NW 13th, with the application form, until 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. Finalists will be announced in January, 2011.

Oregon Book Awards Deadline

2010-08-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

The deadline to submit books for consideration to the 2010/11 Oregon Book Awards is Friday, August 27, 2010.

Eligibile books must have an original publication date between April 1, 2009 and July 31, 2010. The submission guidelines are on our web site. Please contact Susan Denning if you have questions.

A list of books received for submission to the Book Awards as of Thursday, August 12, 2010 can be found on our web site. This list will be updated after the submission deadline, when all submitted titles have been received.

My Teenage Werewolf

2010-08-10T14:20:00.001-07:00

Lauren Kessler's book, My Teenage Werewolf:
A Mother, A Daughter, A Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence has just been published. Kessler won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2008 for her book Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's.

Kessler will be appearing at Cloud and Leaf Bookstore in Manzanita on August 20th and Powell's Bookstore in Portland on September 13th.

Loretta Stinson's Little Green

2010-08-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

In 2008, Portland author Loretta Stinson was awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship in fiction. Fellowship judge Dinty Moore wrote, "Loretta Stinson’s short story, “Rolling One-Handed,” opens a window onto the world of lost teenagers, afternoon beer, tattoos, and inevitable trouble. Marvel, the narrator, is charming and wise beyond her years. “North” follows up with the reckless, panhandling Peaches, another lost soul wandering the contemporary wilderness. Stinson documents these “broken people” and gives them voice, and she does it with precision, power, and flawless voice."

Loretta received her Masters in Publishing from Portland State University in 2007 and her MFA in Creative Writing from PSU in 2009.

This June, Hawthorne Books published Stinson's first novel, Little Green. A review in Booklist said, "Stinson’s first novel is a brutal but ultimately empowering story about the long road one girl has to travel, literally and figuratively, before she can find out who she is."

Loretta recently took the time to answer some questions for us about her writing and her path to publication.

Paper Fort: How long did it take you to write Little Green?
Loretta: It took me about ten years start to finish to write it. The book began as a short story I wrote in an Intro to Fiction writing course when I was an undergraduate at Portland State. I had never written fiction before, though I did keep extensive journals from the time I was a young teen. In the class I took the instructor gave a list of objects to use and those objects took me to abuse I'd experienced. As I wrote the story, it lost its power to hurt me.

In sharing the story with my classmates, I realized how violence is often glamorized and unrealistic. It became important to me to write what I knew to be true of what it's like to live with violence and addiction and the best way for me to tell that story was to write it as fiction.

I first wrote many, many, many bad short stories but received support and encouragement from my professors at PSU.

Paper Fort: How did you find a publisher for Little Green?
Loretta: The summer I graduated with my MS in Publishing I attended the Willamette Writers conference and used what I knew from my courses to approach agents. I hired an agent and eventually--about a year later--my book was sold to Hawthorne Books here in Portland! I worked on revision with the skilled editor Rhonda Hughes to polish the manuscript and make it the best it could be.

PF:Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Loretta: I would tell aspiring writers to make writing their practice--nothing special just a part of daily life. And read the kind of books that you want to write--and practice with short stories before you attempt a novel. That's about it!

Chuck Palahniuk at Williamette Writers Conference

2010-07-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

Chuck Palahniuk will be the keynote speaker at the Willamette Writer's Awards Banquet on Saturday, August 7 in the Mt. Hood Ballroom at Portland Airport Sheraton Hotel. The Awards Banquet is part of the Willamette Writers Conference, but you may purchase tickets just for the banquet by calling 503-452-1592 to register.

Willamette Writers will honor writers with these awards:
Roland Smith, Lifetime Achievement
Karen Karbo, Distinguished NW Writer
Linda Christianson,Humanitarian Award

Charles D'Ambrosio Reading at Marylhurst

2010-07-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

Charles D'Ambrosio will be reading Thursday afternoon, July 22nd, at 3:00 p.m. at Marylhurst University.The reading is free and open to the public. He is pictured here at an Oregon Book Awards Author Tour reading in Burns in 2008.

In other news, on Sunday, July 31st, poets will be reading at the Hollywood Farmers Market. John Morrison & Dave Jarecki will read at 10:30am; BT Shaw will read at 11:30am.

Grove Review Reading Tonight

2010-07-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

From our friends at Grove Review:

Please join us to celebrate the release of our 5th issue on Thursday, July 15th! The event will be held at 7:30 pm in the Writer’s Dojo, located at 7518 N. Chicago Ave.

Readings will begin at 8 pm with wine and dessert following. Guest readers for the evening will include featured authors:

Molly Gloss
Hannah Louise Poston
and Paulann Petersen, Oregon’s Poet Laureate

Tin House Writers Workshop This Week

2010-07-12T14:20:00.001-07:00

The Tin House Writers Workshop takes place this week at Reed College. The evening readings take place at the Cerf Amphitheater on Reed College Campus. Door charge is $5.00 and they are open to the public.

Monday, July 12th
8 p.m. Reading and signing with Anthony Doerr, Brenda Shaughnessy, Charles D'Ambrosio

Tuesday, July 13th
8 p.m. Reading and signing with J.C. Hallman, Ann Hood, Larry Doyle

Wednesday, July 14th
8 p.m. Reading and signing with Karen Russell, Dorianne Laux, David Leavitt

Thursday, July 15th
8:00 p.m. Reading and signing with Tom Grimes, Whitney Otto, David Shields

Friday, July 16th
8 p.m. Reading and signing with Jon Raymond, Matthew Dickman, Antonya Nelson

Saturday, July 17th
8 p.m. Reading and signing with Steve Almond, D.A. Powell, Joy Williams

Afternoon seminars are also open to the public;admission is $15. A full list of seminars is at the Tin House website.

Sid Miller on Outlook Portland

2010-07-12T11:28:00.001-07:00

Walt Curtis Week starts Thursday!

2010-06-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Mayor Sam Adams has officially proclaimed the week of July 1-7 as Walt Curtis Week in Portland, and many writers, artists and performers are joining that week to stage benefit performances. Portland poet Walt Curtis lost his home and most of his possessions, paintings and papers in a fire May 2 which destroyed the Great Northwest Bookstore and the old wooden church which housed it.

Walt Curtis Week Events include:

Thursday, July 1 at 8:00 p.m.
Literary & Music Extravaganza
Berbati’s Pan 231 SW Ankeny St. Portland.
All Ages Admission $10

This event includes readings from Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen and Monica Drake, Tom Spanbauer, Matt Love, Walt Curtis, Dan Raphael, Barbara LaMorticella, James Honzik, Kevin Sampsell, Leanne Grabel, Larry Yes, Richard Moore, Nancy King & Glen Moore, Singing Knives and more!
(Literary Readings scheduled from 8-10 PM)

Friday July 2 at 8:00 p.m. Walt Curtis Birthday Bash
Dante’s, 1 SW Third Avenue, Portland.
21 and Over Admission $10

Viva Las Vegas, Body Vox (Dancers), Uprising (OBT Dancers), Leapin’ Louie Lichtenstein, Brush Prairie, Courtney Taylor, DJ Freak Outy, Films & Surprises

July 6 at 9:00 p.m.
Film Screening Mala Noche
Cinema 21- 616 NW 21st Ave
All Ages Admission $10

Remastered 35 mm screening of Gus Van Sant’s film of Walt Curtis’ classic Mala Noche

Proceeds of all events will go to the Walt Curtis Fund at the Wells Fargo Bank. Or you can walk into any Wells Fargo Bank and tell them you'd like to donate to the fund.

Today is the Deadline!

2010-06-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the Deadline!

2010-06-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

Applications for Oregon Literary Fellowships for writers and publishers are due tomorrow, June 25th. Contact Susan Denning by phone or email at susan@literary-arts.org if you have questions! The application is online at http://www.literary-arts.org/ladybug/files/OLFAPPLICATION2010.pdf

Summer Loving at the Attic

2010-06-14T11:08:00.001-07:00

Henry Hughes, 2004 Oregon Book Award winner in poetry, is teaching a course at The Attic this summer called Summer Love. The course description describes it as:

An intense, four week writing workshop for beginning and advanced poets and prose writers interested in writing about intimate human relationships, including romance, sex, friendship, and family. Although the instructor’s specialty is poetry, students may also work in fiction and memoir.

The class starts June 17. More information about this and other Attic courses can be found on their web site.

Used Book Fair Today and Tomorrow

2010-06-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

The Portland Area Used Booksellers Association is sponsoring the Rose City Used Book Fair today and tomorrow at The Friendship Masonic Center, located at 5626 NE Alameda. They will be accepting donations for the Great Northwest Bookstore Fire Fund at the fair as well.

Paulann Petersen Offers Workshop in July

2010-06-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

Paulann Petersen is offering a workshop on Saturday, July 10th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Here are the details from from the Voicecatcher web site:

Express your generosity and indulge your creativity by joining Paulann Petersen, one of VoiceCatcher's most loyal and celebrated supporters, for a writing workshop.

Using noted poems as springboards, you'll write poetry or prose about some of the significant people and places that resonate in your life. Come with ideas you want to capture on paper, or tap into subject matter you wouldn't have anticipated by using models from the workshop.

Paulann will provide feedback, including suggestions for shaping your material and brief comments about imagery, tone, dramatic strategy, and voice.

You'll leave this exciting day with a wealth of new writing and inspiration to shape your new work into poetry or prose. All levels of experience welcome.

Paulann will generously contribute all workshop fees to VoiceCatcher.

The workshop is limited to twelve participants.

Registration fee: $85. Email Please email info@voicecatcher.org to register.

The Studio Series

2010-06-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

The Studio Series: Poetry Reading and Open Mic will feature Paulann Petersen and Carl Adamshick at its first event on Sunday, June 13, 2010 at Stonehenge Studios/Ross Island Café, 3508 SW Corbett Avenue in Portland, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Free and open to the public, The Studio Series will be held monthly on second Sundays.

In other news, Literary Arts congratulates Seth Walker, a 2005 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient, who recently signed a book contract with Milkweed Editions. His book, A Great Divide, is scheduled for release in November, 2011.

Fellowships Deadline Approaches

2010-05-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

The deadline to apply for the 2010 Oregon Literary Fellowships for writers and publishers is June 25, 2010. Applications are considered from any writer or publisher who is a resident of Oregon. Applications are available on the Literary Arts web site. There is no charge to apply. For more information on the Oregon Literary Fellowships, please contact Susan Denning at 503-227-2583 or susan@literary-arts.org.

Ooligan Press Write to Publish Conference

2010-05-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

From our friends at Ooligan Press:

Ooligan Press will host its annual conference and fundraiser, Write to Publish, on May 22 and 23, 2010. Award-winning authors Chuck Palahniuk and Ursula K. Le Guin will be sharing their publishing experiences at the open house event on May 23 at Portland State University. Several other noteworthy Portland-area writers will also be appearing, including Shannon Wheeler, Deborah Hopkinson, Virginia Euwer Wolff, and Lilith Saintcrow.

Write to Publish is a two-day conference that demystifies the publishing process for writers of all levels of experience. Day one of the event, May 22, will include workshops for aspiring authors and publishing professionals. Workshops will address subjects such as the state of publishing, the writer/agent relationship, young adult trends and audience, and sustainable publishing. May 23 is Open House Day, featuring vendor booths and professional resources such as agents, editors, regional publishers, literary magazines, and designers, along with the author appearances and signings. Tickets for the Open House are $10 ($8 for students). Tickets are only available at the door.

Ooligan Press is a nonprofit, student-run, general trade press that publishes books honoring the cultural and natural diversity of the Pacific Northwest. It is affiliated with Portland State University’s master’s program in writing and publishing.

Book Awards Tour to Eastern Oregon

2010-05-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

John Kroger, Donna Matrazzo, and Jon Raymond visited Eastern Oregon last week as part of the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour. Wednesday, May 12th, the authors read at Fishtrap's Coffin House in Enterprise. Thursday morning, Donna Matrazzo visited a journalism class at Eastern Oregon Univerity in La Grande and talked about her career as a freelance writer and her book Wild Things. On Thursday evening, there was a special screening of the movie Wendy and Lucy on the Eastern Oregon University campus, followed by a Q&A with Jon Raymond. The final tour event was Friday night at the Crossroads Art Center where the authors spoke as part of the Writer's Guild of Eastern Oregon's Second Friday Literary Night. Thanks to all our tour partners and the wonderful audiences of Eastern Oregon!