5.05.2010

Oh, and: MFA READINGS!

As you may or may not know, every year GLO and the English department get together to celebrate the writing students who are graduating. This year is no exception, and we have extra reason to celebrate -- in the past, it has been Master of Arts in writing, and this year rolled out the Master of Fine Arts program. Very fancy.

Our non-fiction readers will be:

Lisa Ekman
Carla Feinstein
Haili Graff
Ron Horton
Merilee Karr
Jan Kurtz
Jenny Tatone

Our poets will be:

Wendy Bourgeois
Michael Achterman
Chris Cottrell
Wendy Noonan

Our fiction readers will be:

Bob Balmer
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

The dates for the readings are:

May 17 - Poetry
May 19 - Fiction
May 21 - Non-fiction

All readings will begin at 7:30 p.m., and there will be a little time beforehand to mingle and have some hors d'oeuvres. Catering will be provided by Elephants Deli, so it will be delicious.

All of the readings are at Blackfish Gallery, located at 420 NW 9th Ave., on 9th and Glisan. It's a really nice space.

This is a great opportunity to see what PSU's up-and-coming writers are doing! We are going to have a great night of food, reading, hopefully a little wine and beer, and a celebration of all the hard work that our MFA comrades have done.

See you there!

This just in from Ooligan!

Hey all! I just got this info from Chloe over at Ooligan:

Ooligan is having a flash fiction contest! Winners will receive various passes to the Write to Publish conference on May 22 and 23. The deadline is listed as May 7 on the site, but they will likely be extending that.

Here's the info from the site:

To further the dialogue in this striking genre, we are now accepting submissions for our 2010 Write to Publish Flash Fiction Contest. The deadline is May 7, so please get writing.

First Prize: 1) workshop of your choice on Day 1 of Write to Publish conference, 2) two passes to Open House Day, and 3) a copy of You Have Time for This, Ooligan’s book of flash fiction.

Second Prize: 1) two passes to Open House Day and 2) a copy of You Have Time for This.

Third Prize: 1) one pass to Open House Day and 2) a copy of You Have Time for This.

All three winning stories will be displayed on the Ooligan Press website.

Guidelines:

Please submit one flash fiction piece of fewer than five hundred words. There is no specific theme, but we are not seeking genre-specific work (i.e. romance, western, sci-fi). Work can be previously published if you let us know where. All submissions should be sent as an attachment to events@ooliganpress.pdx.edu, with a note about your interest in the Write to Publish conference and an optional brief bio in the email body. Please include “Flash Fiction Contest” in the subject line.


Here's the link to the contest page.

Get out there and write.

4.20.2010

Rigoberto Gonzalez Reading

I've been told that people actually read this blog, so I figured I should start updating again. And what better way to start posting again than this event? What follows is the forwarded e-mail that I got. If you have any questions, please follow the contact info down there. I don't know anything!



Please, please, please get your tickets for this wonderful event! This is a trial run in the Portland area. PEN is testing the Portland waters, deciding whether or not to put us on their map. Let's pack the house for this and insure that we'll be part of the itinerary for upcoming PEN offerings.

Thanks to an exciting collaboration between Literary Arts and the Miracle Theatre Group, Portland will participate for the first time in the PEN World Voices Festival this month. In 2004, PEN President Salman Rushdie decided that the organization needed to do more to create cultural understanding in post-9/11 America. The result was PEN World Voices, a festival of international literature that gathers hundreds of writers from around the globe to participate in panels, conversations, and readings in New York City.

Now, six years later, Portland begins what we hope will become an annual tradition when Literary Arts and the Miracle present Rigoberto González on Monday, April 26 at 7:30 pm at the Miracle Theatre. Rigoberto is an acclaimed poet, memoirist, novelist, and critic. He is also the author of young adult and children’s books. For this event, Rigoberto will be reading from his memoir Butterfly Boy, winner of the American Book Award, and from his poetry collection, So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks,selected by Ai as part of The National Poetry Series. In an in-depth on-stage conversation, he will also discuss his life, his creative process, and his work, including Fifteen Years of Latino and Latino Writing, the recently released (March, 2010) Camino del Sol anthology of poetry, nonfiction and fiction which he edited for The University of Arizona Press.

I hope you will join us for what will be a unique literary evening. And please spread the word. (Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at HulaHub or at 503.236.7253.

Paulann Petersen
Please note e-mail change to paulann@paulann.net
Visit my web site at www.paulann.net