Mountain Writers Series

Wordstock: 2010 Archive

Saturday, October 9 & Sunday, October 10, 2010

Oregon Convention Center

Mountain Writers Series featured 56 writers on its two stages for the 2010 Wordstock Festival at the Oregon Convention Center.  The schedule included an extended session with Oregon Poet Laureate who offered remarks about the history of Mountain Writers Series in the literary scene in the region.

Mountain Writers also presented an extended session with a reading by the acclaimed poet Vern Rutsala, followed by “Vern Rutsala: The Man and His Work” – in which regional poets and scholars presented remarks about specific Rutsala poems. The panelists include Michele Glazer, Anita Helle, Christopher Howell and Lex Runciman, with moderator Peter Sears.

The following writers presented readings for Mountain Writers Series at Wordstock 2010.

• Howard Aaron received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He teaches creative writing at Washington State University, Vancouver. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 3pm
• Duane Ackerson has published several hundred poems, as well as fiction, prose, poetry and criticism, in various magazines and anthologies. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 4pm
• Carl Adamshick won the 2010 Walt Whitman Award. His book Curses and Wishes will be published by LSU Press. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 2pm
• Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, Small Knots and Georgraphy. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 3pm
• Judith Arcana’s most recent book is 4th Period English, a poetry chapbook in the voices of various characters. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 4pm
• Tim Barnes, Portland Community College teacher, wrote Definitions for a Lost Language and edits the Friends of William Stafford Newsletter. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 2pm
• Tom Bremer’s most recent book of poetry is Just Once (2001). (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 12pm
• Suzanne Burns will read from The Widow, prose poems about an army wife whose husband goes missing in Iraq. (Fiction) MW2: Sat, 2pm
• Greg Chaimov lives in Milwaukie, Oregon. His first full-length collection of poetry, Everything is Water, is forthcoming from Press 22. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 2pm
• Robin Cody's newest collection is Another Way the River Has, a collection of short true stories published by Oregon State University Press (2010). (Fiction) MW1: Sun, 1pm
• Kim Dower’s first poetry book, Air Kissing on Mars, is described by novelist Lisa See as “charming, compelling, accessible, profound.” (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 3pm; M: Sun, 12pm
• David Filer lives in Portland with his wife, Marlene Anderson, creator of the AIDS prevention program, The Imani Project. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 5pm
• Martha Gies wrote a portrait of graveyard-shift workers called Up All Night, along with many published stories and essays. (Nonfiction) MW2: Sun, 4pm
• Michele Glazer’s new book is On Tact, & the Made Up World. She teaches in and directs PSU’s MFA Creative Writing program. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 2pm; (Poetry: Rutsala panel) MW1: Sat, 5pm

• Charles Goodrich’s books include Going to Seed: Dispatches from the Garden, Insects of South Corvallis, and The Practice of Home. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 4pm
  
• Leanne Grabel is a writer, a performance artist, cofounder of Cafe Lena and a language arts teacher in a treatment center. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 12pm
  
• James Grabill writes poetry and nonfiction. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and teaches writing, literature and sustainability. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 12pm
• Karen Holmberg’s poems from her finished manuscript, “Axis Mundi,” have appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Quarterly West, West Branch and Subtropics. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 2pm
• Anita Helle is Professor of English at Oregon State University. Her most recent book is The Unraveling Archive (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2008). (Poetry: Rutsala panel) MW1: Sat, 5pm
• Christopher Howell’s most recent book, Dreamless and Possible: Poems New and Selected, was published in 2010. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 3pm; (Poetry: Rutsala panel) MW1: Sat, 5pm
• Tim Hunt, in Fault Lines, writes poems where the rocks and thistle are not yet digital. Hunt is a fourth-generation Californian. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 12pm
• Dave Jarecki is a 2010 Fishtrap Fellow, facilitates writing workshops and features interviews with poets and writers on DaveJarecki.com. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 3pm
• Ger Killeen’s books of poetry include A Stone That Will Leap Over the Waves and Signs Following. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 12pm
• Barbara LaMorticella co-hosts KBOO’s Talking Earth. She participates in Portland poetry from a perch in a fir outside the city. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 11am
• Carter McKenzie teaches, edits and publishes poetry. Her book Out of Refusal is forthcoming from Airlie Press in October 2010. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 11am
• Paul Merchant is the William Stafford Archivist. He was a finalist for the 2007 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 12pm
• Gary Miranda, a Northwest native, has published four collections of poetry and a translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 3pm
• Judith H. Montgomery is the author of Passion (Oregon Book Award for Poetry, 2000), Red Jess, and Pulse & Constellation. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 1pm
• John Morrison’s Heaven of the Moment won the 2006 Gorsline Poetry prize and was finalist for the 2008 Oregon Book Award. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 3pm
• Lars Nordström works as a translator and author, and farms wine grapes in Beavercreek, Oregon. (Prose) MW1: Sat, 1pm
• Paulann Petersen’s latest collection of poems is The Voluptuary from Lost Horse Press. She is Oregon’s sixth Poet Laureate. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 11am
• Jarold Ramsey’s four poetry books and most of his prose are grounded in the Oregon range country east of the Cascades. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 5pm
• Susan Rich’s three collections of poems include The Alchemist’s Kitchen. Her work appears in Poetry International and The Southern Review. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 3pm
• Jennifer Richter’s first poetry collection, Threshold, won the 2009 Crab Orchard Series Open Competition and was published in April 2010. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 4pm
  
• Richard Robbins grew up in Southern California and Montana. His new book of poems is Other Americas, published by Blueroad Press. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 5pm
• Lex Runciman's most recent book of poems is Starting from Anywhere, Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2009. He teaches at Linfield College. (Poetry: Rutsala panel) MW1: Sat, 5pm
• Vern Rutsala’s twelve poetry collections include A Moment’s Equation, a National Book Award finalist, and How We Spent Our Time. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 5pm
• Penelope Scambly Schott’s Crow Mercies won the first Sarah Lantz prize from Calyx Press. Schott received a 2008 Oregon Book Award for Poetry. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 4pm
  
• Matt Schumacher’s second book, The Fire Diaries, and first book, Spilling the Moon, were published by Wordcraft of Oregon. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 11am
• Peter Sears' most recent book of poems is Green Diver (CW Books, 2009). He teaches writing workshops in Portland and for the MFA program at Pacific. (Poetry: Rutsala panel) MW1: Sat, 5pm
• Scot Siegel, urban planner and author of three poetry books, is known for his innovative lyricism and engaging reading style. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 5pm
• Floyd Skloot has won three Pushcart Prizes, two PNBA Book Awards, two Oregon Book Awards and a PEN USA Literary Award. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 2pm
• Mary E. Soden has lived in Oregon since the 1960s. She lives in Mosier, where she writes and watches the river. (Prose) MW2: Sun, 1pm
• Kim Stafford is founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute and author of a dozen books of poetry and prose. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 5pm
• Anita Sullivan has tuned pianos, arranged literary events, gardened and written poems and essays in the Willamette Valley since 1981. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 11am
• Ron Talney has published five poetry books, most recently A Secret Weeping of Stones from Plain View Press. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 2pm
• Karen Braucher (K.B.) Tobin is the author of Poetic License To Kill, a humorous murder mystery set in Portland, Oregon. (Fiction/YA) MW2: Sun, 12pm
  
• Zoe Trope published her high school memoir, Please Don’t Kill the Freshman, when she was 17 years old. (Prose) MW1: Sun, 5pm
• Jodi Varon is author of Drawing to an Inside Straight: The Legacy of an Absent Father, translator, teacher and editor. (Prose) MW1: Sat, 1pm
• Kary Wayson’s poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, Poetry Northwest, The Nation, The Best American Poetry and the Pushcart Prize anthology. (Poetry) MW2: Sun, 11am
  
• Roger Weaver taught poetry writing at Oregon State University for a number of years and found travel shaped his poetry. (Poetry) MW2: Sat, 1pm
• Crystal Williams is a poet and a native of Detroit, Michigan. Her most recent book of poems is Troubled Tongues. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 1pm
• Laura Winter’s love for improvised music informs her use of language and performance. Her work is widely published, translated and set to music. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 4pm
• Patty Wixon’s chapbook, Airing the Sheets, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She’s a researcher in the William Stafford Archives. (Poetry) MW1: Sat, 12pm
  
• Elizabeth Woody (Navajo/Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama) has published poetry, short fiction and essays; she is also a visual artist. (Poetry) MW1: Sun, 4pm