Soapstone Calendar of Literary Events and Readings-- Updated Every Two weeks
Soapstone compiles a rich and detailed literary announcement list, and Ruth Gundle, co-founder of Soapstone and publisher of Eighth Mountain Press, has agreed to allow the Soapstone listings to be posted on this blog. I will post the Soapstone announcements as they come in-- at present that is every two weeks. Many thanks to Ruth and her helpers at Soapstone for so generously sharing their work. B.L.
FROM SOAPSTONE:
These announcements of events and opportunities of interest to the writing community have been sent to you by Soapstone. Feel free to send them on to your friends and colleagues or to invite them to join the list by emailing us at retreats@soapstone.org. (We need first and last name, city, and email address.)
For more information about receiving the announcements or sending your own announcement to this list, go to www.soapstone.org/about_us_pages/community_announcements.html
We never lend or sell our mailing list. If you no longer wish to be on this list, send us an email with “remove” in the subject line.
ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE NOW ON AN EVERY OTHER WEEK SCHEDULE.
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Monday July 23, 7-9:45PM:
LaMorticella, Pacosz & Reid Featured at 3 Friends Monday,
followed by Open Mic
Christina Pacosz, Kay Reid and Barbara LaMorticella share the mike for tonight’s 3 Friends Mondays, a production of Show and Tell Gallery. Featured reading from 7-8 PM; open mic from 8- 9:45. Three Friends Coffeehouse, 201 SE 12th Ave in Portland, Oregon, between SE Ash and Pine Streets.
Through the 70s and 80, Portland’s feminist community was a magnet that drew people from all over the country and the world. Tonight’s reading reunites three women who were early pioneers in Portland’s women’s writing community: Christina Pacosz, Kay Reid and Barbara LaMorticella. They read together at the old Mountain Moving Cafe; they shared a literary and social activism that led Christina to a fiery teaching career and to driving a bus full of poetry books through five upper midwest states, that led Kay to a life of single parenting and earning a free-lance living by her wits, and that led Barbara to radio and health care activism and to decades of organizing and producing literary events.
Christina Pacosz was born and raised in Detroit by working-class Polish-American parents. Her poetry/writing has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and online journals for half a century. A poet-in-the-schools and a North Carolina Visiting Artist, her published books of poetry include her first book, Shimmy Up To This Fine Mud; Greatest Hits, 1975-2001, published by Pudding House Press, a by-invitation-only series, in 2002. Her chapbook, Notes from the Red Zone, originally published by Seal Press in 1983, was selected as the inaugural winner of the ReBound Series by Seven Kitchens Press in 2009. Her chapbook How to Measure the Darkness will be the inaugural limited edition chapbook in the Summer Kitchen Series 2012 by Seven Kitchens Press. Christina will liberate copies of two books at the reading, gifting those interested with copies of This is Not A Place to Sing, poems of Holocaust written after a journey to Poland, and Some Winded Wild Beast, poems from the Pacific Northwest. She lives with her husband and their former street cat, Mr. Kitty, in Kansas City Missouri.
Kay Reid has been returning to poetry after a many years of recording and writing up people’s life stories and spinning narratives of her own. She has been the oral historian for several projects in the Pacific Northwest, including the Great Tribal Leaders of Modern Times video/curriculum series. Recently she’s been attending to the stories of the South, where she grew up, and those of her present community and neighborhood, the mult-racial New Columbia in North Portland, where she also teaches English. Thrilled to be alive and returning to poetry at 72, she is working with an editor on a book of poems. Horrified at the condition of the world, she asks herself what she can do in this time. Holding little granddaughter Natalia, Kay is pondering that world with new eyes.
Barbara LaMorticella is familiar to listeners of KBOO’s Talking Earth, a poetry radio show that she hosts on the third Monday of every month. In retirement from a career as a medical transcriber, she is engaged with her grandchildren and the plight of the grandchildren of the world. She has published poems in many magazines and half a dozen ahthologies. She is a Bumbershoot Big Book Award winner, won the very first poetry awarded at the Poet's Concord on the Oregon Coast, and was a featured Poetry in Motion poet. Her second chapbook, “Rain on Waterless Mountain,” was a finalist in 2000 for the Oregon Book Award; she was awarded the Stewart H. Holbrook Award for Outstanding Contribution to Oregon Literary Life, and is the grateful recipient of the first Oregon Literary Arts fellowship specifically for women writers. She plans to go into a room and close the door any minute now to work on compiling 40 years of poems into a full-length collection. Meanwhile she does radio and puts her shoulder to the wheel and her fingers on the keyboard in an effort to achieve single payer health care. She lives in the woods with her husband of 50 years.
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Wendy Chin-Tanner, Susan Denning and Ryan Scariano Featured 7-8 PM
Open Mic 6:30-7 PM
Susan Denning, Wendy Chin-Tanner and Ryan Scariano read for Verse in Person at the Multnomah County Library NW branch, 23 & NW Thurman. Open reading from 6:30 to 7. Free. Barbara LaMorticella hosts.
Wendy Chin-Tanner is a founding editor at Kin Poetry Journal, a Poetry Editor at The Nervous Breakdown, and Staff Interviewer at Lantern Review. Wendy teaches undergraduate sociology online for Cambridge University. In 2005, Wendy co-founded A Wave Blue World, an independent comics and graphic novel publishing company with her husband, graphic novelist Tyler Chin-Tanner. Their titles include Adrenaline and American Terrorist. The Chin-Tanners live in Portland, Oregon and NYC with their daughter Madeleine.
Susan Denning has had poems published in Filter, New York Quarterly, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. Her chapbook, She Preferred to Read The Knives, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press this fall. She is one of the editors for Alive at the Center, an anthology of Pacific Northwest poetry that is forthcoming from Ooligan Press next spring. She lives in Portland.
Ryan Scariano graduated from PSU in 2003. Until recently he worked driving a truck for a medical supply company, delivering and picking up oxygen bottles. While the wheels spun he spun poems. While he walks he spins poems. Sitting in a chair he spins poems. One of Portland’s freshest and most original poets, his work has appeared or in forthcoming in Fault Lines, the Oregonian, J Journal, PremiereGeneration.com, and ThunderSandwich.net.
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What: CONVERSATIONS WITH WRITERS
When: July 30 7:00-9:00 PM
Where: 135 SE 3rd Ave., downtown Hillsboro
Sorrow is a complicated word, Steve Dieffenbacher tells us, "...different from grief, larger and more encompassing than any individual human loss. It is also about dread and loneliness that comes with our consciousness." Like the best Western poets, Dieffenbacher finds the expansiveness of deserts, mountains, land and sky expressive of internal states.
Steve Dieffenbacher has lived in Oregon's Rogue Valley since 1989. Besides his many awards for poetry, he has been a journalist for 35 years, and is currently a newspaper editor and columnist. His latest book, recently published, is The Sky Is A Bird Of Sorrow.
Conversations With Writers provides a forum for interaction between distinguished writers and the audience. It’s an informal atmosphere with audience participation to help us understand the craft of writing and related skills. There is no charge for the event.
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Wednesday, July 18, 7:30 PM at the Press Club
Andrea Hollander Budy & Penelope Scambly Schott
Andrea Hollander Budy is the editor of When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women (Autumn House Press, 2009) and the author of three full-length poetry collections:Woman in the Painting ((Autumn House Press, 2006), The Other Life (Story Line Press, 2001), andHouse Without a Dreamer (Story Line Press, 1993), which won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Among other honors are the D. H. Lawrence Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize for memoir, the Runes Poetry Award, the Ellipsis Poetry Prize, two poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and two from the Arkansas Arts Council. Her poems and essays have appeared in many anthologies, college textbooks and literary journals, and she has been featured at writers' conferences and festivals throughout the United States, as well as in England and France. A relatively new resident of Portland, she has worked for the past twenty-one years as the Writer-in-Residence at Lyon College, where she was awarded the Lamar Williamson Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
Penelope Scambly Schott is the author of five chapbooks and eight full-length books of poetry. Her verse biographyA is for Anne: Mistress Hutchinson Disturbs the Commonwealth received the 2008 Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Her most recent book, Crow Mercies (2010) was awarded the Sarah Lantz Memorial Award from Calyx Press. Penelope lives in Portland and teaches an annual poetry workshop in Dufur, Oregon
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LOIS LEVEEN TO READ
AT BROADWAY BOOKS
Broadway Books is pleased to announce a special event to be held at the store on Tuesday, July 17 at 7 pm.
Lois Leveen will be here to read from her recently published novel, The Secrets of Mary Bowser (William Morrow).
This imaginative historical novel is based on a remarkable true story from the Civil War era. It tells of Mary Bowser, a quick-witted girl and a slave to one of the wealthiest families in Richmond, Virginia. When the daughter of that family decides to send Mary to Philadelphia to be educated, Mary leaves slavery and her loving parents behind and moves north. Carefully hiding her past, she joins the abolition movement volunteers to go back to Virginia, where she poses as a slave in the Confederate White House to spy on Confederate President Jefferson Davis. From this position in the house of the enemy, she smuggles valuable information to the Union commanders.
Written with immense heart, this is an illuminating and inspiring tale of injustice and courage, friendship and war, and of one daring woman willing to sacrifice her own freedom to change the course of history.
Lois Leveen is a woman of many talents. She is a contributor to the New York Times Disunion blog, which tracks the causes of the Civil War. She has written articles on the enslaved and free black community in Richmond. She earned degrees in history and literature from Harvard, the University of Southern California and UCLA, and taught at UCLA and at Reed College. Her articles, poems and essays have been widely published in numerous books, literary journals, and on NPR. She is an avid bicyclist and an accomplished accordionist. She lives in a bright green house in Portland.
Broadway Books is located at 1714 NE Broadway, Portland. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Roberta Dyer or Sally McPherson at (503) 284-1726 or bookbroads@qwestoffice.net. You may also visit our website: www.broadwaybooks.net.
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JULY ‘COMMA’ EVENING
AT BROADWAY BOOKS
Broadway Books is pleased to announce a special event to be held at the store on Thursday, July 19 at 7 pm.
Our monthly series that pairs two authors to read and discuss their work with each other and the audience, “Comma”, will be the occasion for a presentation by Oregon authors George Estreich and Matt Yurdana.
George Esstreich received a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.F.A. in poetry from Cornell. He was written two books: Textbook Illustrations of the Human Body, a collection of poems (Cloudbank Books), and The Shape of the Eye, a memoir about raising a daughter with Down syndrome (SMU Press). This latter book recently won the 2012 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.
Matt Yurdana’s poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including The North American Review, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, and The Massachusetts Review. Among his awards are an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Richard Hugo Memorial Scholarship and the Academy of American Poets Award from the University of Montana. His book of poems, Public Gestures, was published in 2005 by the University of Tampa Press.
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PAULS TOUTONGHI TO READ
AT BROADWAY BOOKS
Broadway Books is pleased to announce a special event to be held at the store on Wednesday, July 25 at 7 pm.
Pauls Toutonghi will be here to read from his new novel, Evel Knievel Days (Crown Publishers). This is the story of Khosi Saqr, who has always felt out of place in Butte, Montana. Half-Egyptian, full of nervous habits, raised by a single mother, and owner of a name that no one can pronounce, he has never quite fit in. But when a mysterious stranger arrives in town (and Khosi’s longtime girlfriend announces her engagement to someone else), he takes his first daredevil risk and travels to Egypt to find his father. What he discovers in Cairo is much more startling than he’d imagined it could be. It’s a timely story of a young man searching for his roots and along the way finding his identity.
Pauls Toutonghi was born in 1976 to an Egyptian father and a Latvian mother. His writing has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Book Magazine, and numerous other periodicals. He received a Pushcart Prize for his short story, Regeneration, which appeared in The Boston Review in 2000. His first novel, Red Weather, came out from Random House in 2006.
After receiving his PhD in English Literature from Cornell University, Toutonghi moved from Brooklyn, New York to Portland, where he now teaches at Lewis & Clark College.
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The 1st annual Eastern Oregon Word Round-Up will be held at Wildhorse Resort in Pendleton, Oregon on October 26-27, 2012. The event welcomes Northwest writers, poets, publishers, book art artists, vendors and others engaged in the literary field – and celebrates eastern Oregon as a place that encourages reading, writing and a love of books. Presenters include Paulann Petersen, George Venn, David Axelrod, Jodi Veron, Shaindel Beers, John Laursen, Rich Wandschneider, David Memmott, Duff Brenna, MaryKay Dahlgren, and others offering programs and workshops on creative writing in several genres, marketing for writers, the many aspects of publishing, and more. An exhibit by book art artists (including national award-winning Roberta Lavadour), a trade show, a large book fair and a showing from the Eastern Oregon Film Festival are also part of the event. Planners for the Word Round-Up include dedicated writers, publishers, educators and library directors from across the region. Additional presenters, artists, vendors, and donations of quality used books are welcome. Proceeds will be used to bring community programs to public libraries in eastern Oregon in 2013 and toward next year's event. For further information, see www.easternoregonwordroundup.org or contact eowordroundup@gmail.com.
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Figures of Speech Reading Series: July 17th at 7 p.m. located at In Other Words Feminist Community Center on the corner of N. Killingsworth and Williams
For July we celebrate Pindrop press with Dale Favier from Oregon City and Joyce Ellen Davis from Salt Lake City. Come see these two fine poets, get some cookies, some word salad, promts and steal a line. And as always, Open Mic. It’s like a picnic only better.
Joyce Ellen Davis is a mother of five, grandmother of eight. She is also a writer from Salt Lake City, Utah, where she resides with one husband, two dogs, and a lovebird. Her novel, Chrysalis, received a $5,000 publication grant and was nominated for the American Book Award. Her poetry book, In Willy’s House, won her a USPS Laureate Award. She co-authored a poetry textbook, On Extended Wings. She has had poems published in such magazines as Slipstream, Ouroboros Review, Canopic Jar, Utah Holiday, and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Pepek the Assassin (and Telling Who Passed By) is her third book of poetry. David Lee, Utah’s first Laureate Poet wrote: Joyce Ellen Davis is the best new poet I’ve read in a year, push me and I’ll say three. I love Pepek the Assassin. It is the finest book I’ve read, maybe since Eleanor Wilner’s The Girl With Bees in Her Hair.”
Joyce graduated from the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts, and toured the U.S. and Canada with the American Repertory Players. In 1964 she received a Fine Arts degree from the University of Utah, and later did graduate work at the University of Southern California. For years she taught writing classes for the Granite School District Adult Education Program in Salt Lake City, worked full-time for the Salt Lake Library System (now retired), and has given poetry readings and workshops across the state. She is currently working on a book of poetry to be called Grace.
Dale Favier is a Portlander who has taught poetry, chopped vegetables, and written software for a living. Currently he works half-time as a massage therapist, and half-time as the database guy for the Multnomah County Library Foundation. He is a Buddhist practicing in the Tibetan tradition. According to poet Dave Bonta, “Dale Favier is a new kind of American Buddhist poet, one less concerned with wisdom than compassion and desire, and as comfortable with the fables and paradoxes of the West as those of the East.” Opening the World, his first collection of poems, appeared last year from Pindrop Press.
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6:30-8:30pm
Monday, July 23
Director Park
SW Park & Yamhill
Portland, OR
David Abel presents
Poetry on the Piazza
Donna Prinzmetal, Judith Pulman, Dan Raphael, & Rob Freedman
Readings by instructors in the MAC Literary Arts Program
Host: Judith Pulman, Multnomah Arts Center
This outdoor poetry public reading series provides a glimpse into some
of the fertile and diverse literary communities that contribute to
Portland's reputation as a literary mecca. Coordinated by PP&R's
Multnomah Arts Center.
For more info:
http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/index.cfm?c=52454
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Wednesday, 25 July
7:30 pm
Mother Foucault's Bookstore
523 SE Morrison
WORDSMIRCH, a sampler platter of local and imported poets
CHRIS PIUMA hosts
RODNEY KOENEKE and
EILEEN JOY and
DAVID HADBAWNIK and
DAN REMEIN and
JEN COLEMAN and
MARK OWENS
all of whom will read and perform brief but chewy examples of their work,
to foster unexpected comminglings
Email Chris at chrispiuma@gmail.com with questions or for more details
Literary Arts congratulates the winners of the
2012 Oregon Book Awards!
ELOISE JARVIS MCGRAW AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Graham Salisbury of Lake Oswego
Calvin Coconut: Hero of Hawaii (Wendy Lamb Books)
LESLIE BRADSHAW AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
Emily Whitman of Portland
Wildwing (Greenwillow Books)
FRANCES FULLER VICTOR AWARD FOR GENERAL NONFICTION
Kenneth J. Ruoff of Portland
Imperial Japan At Its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire's 2600th Anniversary (Cornell University Press)
SARAH WINNEMUCCA AWARD FOR CREATIVE NONFICTION
George Estreich of Corvallis
The Shape of the Eye: Down Syndrome, Family, and the Stories We Inherit
(Southern Methodist University Press)
STAFFORD/HALL AWARD FOR POETRY
Carl Adamshick of Portland
Curses and Wishes (Louisiana State University Press)
KEN KESEY AWARD FOR FICTION
Patrick deWitt of Portland
The Sisters Brothers (Ecco)
PACIFIC NORTHWEST COLLEGE OF ART GRAPHIC LITERATURE AWARD
Joe Sacco of Portland
Footnotes in Gaza (Metropolitan Books)
READERS CHOICE AWARD
Lidia Yuknavitch of Portland
The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books)
WALT MOREY YOUNG READERS LITERARY LEGACY AWARD
Dr. Ulrich Hardt of Portland