In her recent annual address to the Western History Association, President Sherry Smith cited Soldier to Advocate by George Venn twice: beginning paragraph and ending. Should you be curious about that speech, “Reconiliation and Restitution in the American West,” the address of the published text from The Western Historical Quarterly, as reprinted on The History Cooperative website can be found at:

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whq/41.1/smith.html

Soldier to Advocate has also been cited in The Nez Perces in the Indian Territory: Nimipuu Survival by J. Diane Pearson, and The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story by Elliott West.

Wordcraft of Oregon is proud to announce that Leslie What’s story collection, Crazy Love, was named a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in fiction (the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction).

Other finalists were:

Miriam Gershow, The Local News (Spiegel & Grau)

Gina Ochsner, The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight (Portobello Books)

Barbara Pope, Cezanne’s Quarry (Pegasus Books)

Jon Raymond, Livability: Stories (Bloomsbury)

The fiction this year was judged by Robert Olmstead. The winner will be announced at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony, which takes place Monday, October 26, 2009 at the Gerding Theater at the Armory. Tom Bissell will hose and tickets aare available at www.brownpapertickets.com

Congratulations to all the finalists. More information on finalists for other categories can be found at the Literary Arts, Inc. website www.literary-arts.org and www.paperfort.blogsppot.com

The July reading in Stayton’s Second Sundays Series of Poetry Readings, to be held Sunday, July 12, will feature a poet from western Oregon, Margaret Chula of Portland, and one from eastern, David Memmott of La Grande, both reading from unusual new books and, as part of the series’ continuing celebration of Oregon’s sesquicentennial, from past or elder Oregon poets who have influenced them. The reading will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. in the studio of artist Paul Toews at 349 N. Third Ave., where it shares space with the Stayton Friends of the Library Used Bookstore. Admission will be free; donations are appreciated. Books by both featured poets will be for sale at the reading, and they will sign copies. Audience members are invited to bring one or two short poems to share during an open part of the reading.

Margaret Chula will read poems in the voices of Japanese Americans in World War II internment camps—poems written in a cross-arts collaboration with quilt artist Cathy Erickson. These poems are collected, and the corresponding quilts by Erickson are beautifully reproduced, in their book What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps, just released by Katsura Press. The book also contains historical photos and texts, as well as accounts by Chula and Erickson of the inspiration and process from which their works emerged. Chula is steeped in Japanese culture, having lived for 12 years in Kyoto, where she studied the Japanese traditional arts of woodblock printing and flower arranging, as well as teaching creative writing. Her work in the Japanese poetic forms of haiku and tanka has garnered many awards and is collected in several earlier books—Grinding My Ink (1993), This Moment (1995), Always Filling, Always Full (2001), The Smell of Rust (2003). She also co-authored, with Rich Youmans, a collection of linked haibun, Shadow Lines (2000). With the support of grants from Literary Arts and the Regional Arts and Culture Council, she has worked collaboratively with visual artists, musicians, and dancers.

David Memmott will be reading from Giving It Away, a comprehensive collection of poems written over many years, published this spring by Wordcraft of Oregon. The book’s cover art is a swirling and colorful digital work by the poet, and black and white digital pieces by him serve as frontispieces for each of the book’s eight parts. Included within those parts are poems of family, and poems of place, political poems and environmental poems, lyric poems and long narrative poems, all reflecting an expansive vision. Memmott writes and publishes both poetry and fiction, including speculative as well as realistic works. Recent work includes a chapbook of poems, Watermarked (Traprock Books, 2004); a short story collection, Shadow Bones, and a postcyberpunk novel, Primetime. Poems and stories appear in both mainstream and genre magazines and anthologies, and his speculative work has been recognized with a Rhysling Award. Memmott is editor and publisher of Wordcraft of Oregon, which has been awarded three fellowships from Literary Arts.

Now in its eighth year, Stayton’s Second Sunday Series of Poetry Readings is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Marion Cultural Development Corporation, which also provides funding for donation of featured poets’ books to the Stayton Public Library. The July 12th reading will be the last of this season. There will be no reading in August, when the series takes its annual summer vacation. Monthly readings will resume in September. For more information, contact series coordinator Eleanor Berry at 503-859-3045 or eberry@wvi.com.

A recent email from Portland poet, Dan Raphael, shared the following information. In an article in last Sunday’s Oregonian, nominations are being sought in a joint effort between the Oregon State Library and Poetry Northwest to compile a list of 150 Oregon poetry books as part of Oregon sesquicentennial. Send your nominations to  editor@poetrynw.org in the following format: Name of Poet, Title of Book, Publisher, Year of Publication.

George Venn’s collection of poetry, West of Paradise, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry, was selected by the Oregon State Library as one of Oregon’s top 150 books for the Sesquicentennial. This list can be obtained from the State Library website at: http://www.oregon.gov/OSL/OR150.shtml

“For 150 years, Oregon has been a state of readers and writers,” said State Librarian Jim Scheppke. “It’s no accident that we have some of the best libraries and bookstores anywhere in the country. It’s our hope that many Oregonians will use this reading list to spend time in 2009 reading and reflecting on the Oregon experience.”

Two poetry workshops and a reading offered with Kentucky poets, Lynnell Edwards and Nickole Brown at Fishtrap, The Coffin House/400 E. Main/Enterprise, Oregon

March 15, 2008,

9:00 a.m. — noon: Beyond the Lyric “I”: Wellsprings for Poems Outside the Self,  Lynnell Edwards

This generative craft workshop will engage students with wellsprings for poetry, including myth, history, literature, folklore, and current events, that find their energies beyond the immediate experience of personal memory.

1:30 — 4:30:  Indie Publishing 101:  a behind-the-scenes look at literary publishing, Nickole Brown

What should one expect from an independent publisher?  And how does the fact that a press is nonprofit effect their abilities? What is the best way to submit a manuscript?

Each three-hour workshop is $20; the two workshops for $35. Maximum of 15 in monring workshop; 20 in aftrnoon workshop.

7:00 p.m.  Poetry Reading with Nickole Brown and Lynnell Edwards

Free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Zanni Schauffler at Fishtrap: 426-3623 / zanni@fishtrap.org/

Thanks to Wordcraft of Oregon author, Pamela Steele, two Kentucky poets will be visiting Northeast Oregon in March. They will be reading in La Grande at Wee Mama’s Sandwich Shoppe at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 14^th and on Saturday afternoon at Coffin House in Enterprise.   

Nickole Brown is the author of Sister, published by Red Hen in September 2007. She graduated from the M.F.A. Program for Creative Writing at Vermont College. She has received grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Kentucky Arts Council. She studied English Literature at Oxford University as an English Speaking Union Scholar, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. Her work has been featured in The Writer’s Chronicle, Poets & Writers, 32 Poems, The Cortland Review, Chautauqua Literary Journal, Diagram Magazine, Another Chicago Magazine, Mammoth Books’ Sudden Stories anthology, and Starcherone Press anthology PP / FF.  She also co-edited the anthology, Air Fare: Stories, Poems, & Essays on Flight.  She has served as the National Publicity Consultant for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival and as the Program Coordinator for the Union Institute & University writing residency in Slovenia.  Nickole has worked at Louisville’s nonprofit, independent, literary press, Sarabande Books for eight years.

 Lynnell Major Edwards is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, and The Highwayman’s Wife  and The Farmer’s Daughter,  (Red Hen Press, 2007, 2003). Her work has appeared on Verse Daily and in numerous literary journals including: Poems & Plays, Southern Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, Poetry East, and Dos Passos Review. She is a regular reviewer for The Georgia Review, Pleiades, and Rain Taxi. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky where she teaches writing and literature courses at the University of Louisville. She received her doctorate in English at the University of Louisville, her undergraduate degree at Centre College in Kentucky, and is the recipient of a 2007 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council. She is also associate director of InKY, inc. a non-profit literary arts organization which sponsors the monthly InKY reading series in Louisville, Ky. For more information and contact: http://www.lynnelledwards.com

The half-hour documentary on C.E.S. Wood produced by Lawrence Cotton will be broadcast on Monday, February 11th at 9 p.m. A pre-broadcast premier is set for Thursday, February 7, probably 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Church in downtown Portland. David Milholland of Oregon Cultural Heritage and Cotton will be preparing a press release and detailed email announcement through Oregon Literary Arts Coalition. Nadine Jelsing, the executive producer from OPB will be at the premier. Several members of the Wood family will also be in attendance. Wordcraft of Oregon author, George Venn, was interviewed for the documentary. The premier will be followed by a light reception.