Oregon Humanities Holiday Party

Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 4:30-7:00 p.m.

The Cleaners, 403 SW 10^th Ave., Portland

Open to the public, suggested $5 donation

Meet some of Oregon’s best-known writers, celebrate the humanities, and get last-minute holiday shopping done—all at the Oregon Humanities Holiday Party.

Join us on Tuesday, December 18, 2012, from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the Cleaners, 403 SW 10^th Ave., Portland. A suggested donation of $5 supports Oregon Humanities and gives you a chance to do the following 

Meet Oregon poets, essayists, novelists, memoirists, editors, and short story writers, and purchase signed copies of their newest books, just in time for holiday giving:

Brian Doyle (The Wet Engine and Mink River) • Kim Stafford (100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do) • Anna Keesey (Little Century) • Sarah Mirk (Oregon History Comics) • Jewel Lansing and Fred Leeson (Multnomah) • Lois Leveen (The Secrets of Mary Bowser) • Brian David Johnson (Vintage Tomorrows) • Dan DeWeese (You Don’t Love This Man and Disorder) • Kristy Athens (Get Your Pitchfork On) • Kelly Rodgers (Cartopia: Portland’s Food Cart Revolution) • Wendy Willis (Blood Sisters of the Republic)

Watch our Oregon Humanities writers and scholars featured in our Bring Your Own videos—a few of them will be at the party and eager to talk to guests.

Share your own thoughts, opinions, and obsessions on the Bring Your Own ideas wall.

Enjoy a warm drink and snack. Coffee provided by Ristretto Roasters.

Plus: take home a free copy of the “Next” issue, and enter a drawing to win books, O. Hm. t-shirts, 

and journals.

Oregon Humanities connects Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities. More information about our programs and publications—which include the Conversation Project, Think & Drink, Humanity in Perspective, Idea Lab Summer Institute, Public Program Grants, and Oregon Humanities magazine—can be found at oregonhumanities.org. Oregon Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a partner of the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Oregon Humanities

813 SW Alder Street, Suite 702 • Portland, OR 97205 • (503) 241-0543 • oregonhumanities.org

Call for Submissions!

The editors of VoiceCatcher: a journal of women's voices & visions invite you to submit your poetry, prose and artwork for their Winter 2013 edition.

See www.voicecatcherjournal.org for submission guidelines. The deadline is December 15, 2012.

The Fall 2012 issue has already attracted over 2000 new readers. Become a reader and a contributor today!

LEARN TO CRAFT THE PERFECT QUERY LETTER IN THREE HOURS

Join Kelly Wallace for a three-hour class for writers to focus on honing and crafting a query letter for literary agents January 12, 2013. 

Participants will learn how to:

• Craft a query letter to a literary agent
• Use social media to promote your writing
• Market your work in new and old-school way

When they’re done, they’ll have a query letter to send, ideas for where to send it, a network of people to support them and next steps for how to continue the good work.

When: Saturday, January 12, 2013 from 9 am to noon at the Attic Institute, 4232 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland. 

Cost: $59

Follow-up cocktail party at the Press Club, 2621 SE Clinton St., in February to share their finished query letter and/or success stories.  Price of admission to the cocktail party: finished query letter. Date TBD

This class is led by Kelly Wallace, who owns and operates the Writers Boot Camp West.  She was a Hawthorne Fellow ‘12 at The Attic Institute and a member of the Pinewood Table writer’s group led by Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose. 

To register visit: http://www.bootcamp4writers.com/register/

For more information please contact:

Kelly Wallace (p): 503.575.5104 or (e): bootcamp4writers@gmail.com

LEARN HOW TO CREATE A BLOG IN 3 HOURS

-->

BLOGGING BASICS FOR WRITERS

These days it’s all about platform, platform, platform for new and upcoming writers.  Balancing writing, blogging and social media at the same time can be overwhelming.  How do you juggle it all? 

Join Kelly Wallace for a three-hour class for writers that will teach you the first step in the platform process: how to create a blog.    

When they’re done participants will have  completed a blog post,  found a community of bloggers for mutual support,  know the next steps to continue your good work.

When: Saturday, December 15, 2012 from 9 am to noon at the Attic Institute, 4232 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland. 

Cost: $59

Follow-up cocktail party at the Press Club, 2621 SE Clinton St., in January to share their blogging success stories.  Date TBD

This class is led by Kelly Wallace, who owns and operates the Writers Boot Camp West.  She was a Hawthorne Fellow ‘12 at The Attic Institute and is a member of the Pinewood Table writer’s group led by Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose.

To register visit: http://www.bootcamp4writers.com/register/

For more information please contact:

Kelly Wallace (West Coast/Portland)

(p): 503.575.5104 or (e): bootcamp4writers@gmail.com

Brave On the Page Reading!

Liz Scott, Scott Sparling, Kate Gray, Jackie Shannon Hollis and Stevan Allred will be reading from their work at 2 p.m. this Saturday, Nov. 17, at Backspace, 115 NW 5th. Admission is free. The event celebrates Brave on the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life, released by Forest Avenue Press in October. The collection, edited by Laura Stanfill, features interviews and essays forty-two local authors, including many who have spent time at the Pinewood Table. 

For more information about the reading, see the Forest Avenue Press blog. The next Seven Questions Series writing craft book is slated for publication in the fall of 2013; for more details on the project, or if you're interested in contributing, email Laura at laurastanfill@hotmail.com. 

Brian Doyle & Robin Cody Reading

Tuesday, November 20th at 7 pm. Writers Brian Doyle and Robin Cody will be at Broadway Books to read from recently published work.

Brian Doyle, the author of the bestselling novel Mink River, a novel published in 2010 by Oregon State University Press, has most recently had another novel published by Corby Books in Notre Dame, Indiana. It tells the story of a man who lost his foot in a war and decides many years later to find it. “It was a good foot, and we parted so hurriedly I never had a chance to really think about it as a foot, so off I went…” So begins this lean little novel – it is at once a quest, a wandering, and a contemplation of the immense foolishness of war.

Robin Cody has written several books. This November Oregon State University is reissuing his memoir, Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River. This is the story of his 82-day solo canoe trip in 1990 down the Columbia River from its source in Canada to its mouth in Astoria. From the prologue: “The story is the Columbia River, not the canoe and me, but I’ve learned that friends can’t hear me tell about the river until they know why I was out there. This is not an adventure story, though some adventure was unavoidable, and I didn’t set out to find myself if I could help it. Nor did I launch the trip with a large point to prove. It was a voyage of discovery, and its telling is the uncovering of surprise on a river I thought I knew…”. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.

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.

The Studio Series: Poetry Reading and Open Mic

The Studio Series: Poetry Reading and Open Mic will feature Steve Dieffenbacher and Scot Siegel at Stonehenge Studios, 3508 SW Corbett Avenue, Portland 97239 on Sunday, November 11 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. 

Free and open to the public, the Studio Series is held monthly on second Sundays. The Ross Island Café/Grocery is open for light fare before readings. For additional information please contact host and organizer Leah Stenson at leahstenson@comcast.net.
 
Steve Dieffenbacher’s poem "Emptiness" won the 2010 poetry prize sponsored by Cloudbank magazine of Corvallis, Oregon. Other poems have appeared in regional journals such as the Jefferson Monthly, in anthologies such as What the River Brings: Oregon River Poems, edited by Kathryn Ridall and Deer Drink the Moon, published by Ooligan Press at Portland State University, as well as in several chapbooks. His full-length poetry collection, The Sky Is a Bird of Sorrow was published by Wordcraft of Oregon 2012. Dieffenbacher is an editor at the Mail Tribune in Medford and has won various awards for writing, photography and page design in his more than 35 years as a journalist.
 
Scot Siegel’s latest book is Thousands Flee California Wildflowers (Salmon Poetry, 2012). His poems appear in the current issues of Nimrod, RAIN, Tule Review, Terrain.org. He recently was chosen by US Poet Laureate Philip Levine to receive an Honorable Mention in Nimrod International’s Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize Competition. He works as a town-planning consultant and lives with his wife and two daughters in Lake Oswego.

Indigo Editing November Classes

Two classes, one craft of fiction and one business of fiction--one great day. Register today!

Both classes are held at Indigo Editing & Publications, 917 SW Oak St. #302 Portland, OR 97205

Winning at Fiction: How to Build a Better First Page (Back by Popular Demand!) Susan DeFreitas, Indigo Editing & Publications 10 a.m.–11:30 a.m., $45 November 10, 2012 Why should agents or editors pick your book out of that mile-high slush pile on their desk? Why should bookstore browsers lay down the cold, hard cash to buy your book? Answer: because your first sentence, first paragraph, and first page are so arresting, they can’t put it down. In this workshop, writers of prose will learn effective techniques for winning “the war of art” on the very first page, along with some common pitfalls to avoid before sending a work out for consideration. (Writers should come with the first page of a book, story, or essay, and be prepared to offer constructive feedback.)

Every Day I'm Shuffling: Staying True to Your Art While Also Selling It on Social Media Sarah Gilbert, Freelance Writer 11:45 a.m.–1:15 p.m., $45 November 10, 2012 You use social media. But how do you use it for good—that is, the good of your art? This course will delve deeply into a variety of social media tools used by course participants and discuss best practices for using each one to manage your brand and market your work, without selling yourself out (or selling yourself short). This is not an intro-to-social media course; the content will assume you already use at least a few social media platforms and wish to learn how to juggle your social media life, your IRL, and your art. *The Little Bear Rule of Facebook. How much is "just right"? *Toot toot! Why you should toot your own horn, and how to do it gracefully. *Getting raw, but not bloody. How to find the line between seeming real and oversharing. *To blog or not to blog? Whether or not you should keep your own space on the -ogosophere, and how often you should tend it. *Multimedia bling time! Cool ideas that have worked for me (and brainstorming about what could work for you). Be ready to discuss your writing projects and your successes—and failures—in using social media in the past. We'll try to apply our learnings directly to the workshop participant's own work. And maybe we'll do some real-time horn tooting. Preregistration and payment required: http://indigoediting.com/classes. Pair the classes—register for the double feature—and pay only $70 total.

Mini-Sledgehammer Writing Contest

• • Tuesday, November 13, 2012
  • 7:00pm until 9:00pm
     
    Blackbird Wineshop & Atomic Cheese

    4323 NE Fremont Street, Portlan
     

• Exactly one week after elections? All-day happy hour (food and drink)? Yeah, you need this Mini Sledgehammer 36-Minute Writing Contest. Free to enter, fun to play, prizes to be had. See you there!

Loggernaut Reading Series: Circle

• • Wednesday, November 14, 2012
  • 7:30pm in EST

• Ristretto Roasters, 3808 N. Williams Ave, Portland, OR

Prose and poetry from Evan Schneider, Natalie Serber, and W. Vandoren Wheeler

~ ~ ~

EVAN SCHNEIDER is the author of the novel A Simple Machine, Like the Lever, published in 2011, and the founding editor of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac. His writing has appeared in The Normal School, Matter, Omnibus, as well as online at McSweeney's. Born in New Mexico and raised in Colorado, he currently lives in Portland, where he works at Literary Arts.

NATALIE SERBER is the author of the story collection Shout Her Lovely Name (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2012). Her work has appeared in Hunger Mountain, The Rumpus, The Oregonian, The Bellingham Review, Fourth Genre, Gulf Coast, and The New York Times; she's won the Tobias Wolff Award, H.E. Francis Award, John Steinbeck Award, all for fiction. She lives in Portland and is currently working on a novel.

W. VANDOREN WHEELER was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. His poems have appeared in Swink, H_ngM_n, and Forklift, among other journals. He holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and teaches writing and literature at Portland Community College. His collection, The Accidentalist, won the 2012 Dorothy Brunsman award from Bear Star Press.

http://www.loggernaut.org