Oregon Writers Colony is thrilled to announce that it has received a $15,000 grant from the Oregon Community Foundation. Funds from this highly competitive grant are earmarked to help strengthen and stabilize our 30-year-old literary organization.
Oregon Book Club Winter Selection
Mary Szybist’s Incarnadine
We at the Oregon Writers Colony have been reading new and forthcoming books by Oregon authors through the holidays, and it gives us great pleasure, at last, to announce the Oregon Book Club Winter Selection: Mary Szybist’s Incarnadine, from the independent publishing pioneers at Graywolf Press.
who will pity us when the bees disappear into their shadows
who loves the dank earth, its wolves and tigresses
-Mary Szybist, from “How (Not) to Speak of God”
When we talk about poetry (those of us who read and write it), we often find ourselves addressing a reluctant audience: readers of fiction and memoir, politics and pop science. What does poetry do in a world of social media and smart phones, drones and climate change? If Incarnadine is our measure, the answer is: poetry speaks to what it is to be human, to be flesh, blood, bones, and spirit.
Incarnadine commences with a notable beginning, the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, and moves back and forth in time, from atrocities of the Crusades, to the national scandal on display in The Starr Report, to the Portland woman who threw her children from the Sellwood Bridge.
And yet, these poems are frequently intimate. While sharply examining womanhood through Mary, mother of Jesus, Szybist also examines “Mary,” the modern woman, teacher, and wife. Whether the subject is personal, historical, religious, or political, each poem reads like a meditation on a minor annunciation–the ephemeral beginning of a great, soul-testing event. Incarnadine, like the best poetry, invites us to contemplate the delicacy and potential of a single moment.
Mary Szybist has won many national awards and fellowships. Her first collection, Granted, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Portland and teaches at Lewis & Clark College.
No, we’re not that O Book Club. We’re your regional, independent-minded, beachcombing, wood-chopping alternative. Oregon Book Club exposes Oregon Writers Colony members to unheralded Oregon writers. We mail a newly published book four times a year, and host a public salon for selected authors, with lively interviews, readings, and conversation. For more information on the Oregon Book Club, contact Alexis Smith at obc@oregonwriterscolony.org.
Oregon Book Club Inaugural Selection
We’re excited to announce our inaugural Oregon Book Club selection Disorder, written by author Dan DeWeese, and published by Portland independent press Propeller Books.
Disorder is exactly the sort of book we had hoped to dig up for our Oregon Book Club members. It’s not something you would find on your own. You won’t see it on the front table of Barnes & Noble. It was written, published, and designed by an Oregon publisher and author without a publicity machine behind him. And yet if you are one of the lucky few who get your hands on it, you’ll find its stories unforgettable.
It’s almost a shame to tell you what to expect from Disorder because DeWeese does such a good job of never telling you himself. In “Continuity” a man returns over and over to a paint store, unable to get the paint color right for a room he’s painting for his son. But in his brief exchanges with the paint store’s manager and customers, the man changes his story in small ways. It’s not even something the reader notices until the end, when the man gets angry, storming out of the paint store because he hasn’t been listened to.
Not since Hemingway’s classic short story “Hills Like White Elephants” have I met an author so skilled at revealing the things our conversations hide. Between the lines of DeWeese’s stories are entire novels—busted relationships, custody battles, children lost—but DeWeese only gives us the aftermath, the banter of the victims at a paint store.
The Oregon Book Club exposes OWC members to unheralded Oregon writers. We mail a newly published book four times a year. If you’re not yet a member, there are a few days left until we ship Disorder. If you would like to join, please visit the Membership page. If you’re curious, read more about the Oregon Book Club.
Former OWC Board Member Art Johnson Passes
We were saddened this week to hear of the death of long-time member Arthur Johnson. Art was a former board member, a stalwart of our writing workshops, and an active participant in our scholarship and conference committees.
Board member Martha Miller recounts that Art moved to Portland from Anchorage in the late ‘90s after attending a writing workshop at Colonyhouse. Impressed by the property, the friendliness of the group, and the high caliber of the workshop, he decided to make his home in Portland to be closer to all that Portland has to offer writers. Frequent workshop presenter Larry Brooks has written a fine remembrance of Art at his website Storyfix.com.
Art’s family and friends are helping create a fund in Art’s name, which will benefit low income writers and youth groups visiting the Colonyhouse. In lieu of flowers, the family invites those wishing to make a donation in Art’s remembrance to do the same.
2012 Short Story and Poetry Contest Winners
Judges Gina Ochsner and Sue Parman have announced the winners of the 2012 Oregon Writers Colony annual writing contests. First-place winners through honorable mentions are invited to read an excerpt at the awards program.
Short Story Fiction
1st place
Patricia Barnhart, Lakeview, Oregon, Ellen Gregory
Gina Oschner’s note: “When I read ‘Ellen Gregory’ I knew I was in the confidant hands of a talented storyteller. The writing is clean, precise, imaginative, and it leaps off the page.”
2nd place
Shirley Dixon, Portland, Oregon, A Different Calling
Gina Oschner’s note: “Voice thrums behind A Different Calling, pulling the reader forward into a world we could not inhabit if not for the care and attention to description and detail afforded in the story”
3rd place
Diane Manley, Eugene, Oregon, The Favorite
First Honorable Mention
Harry Demarest, Corvallis, Oregon, Johnny Angel
Other Honorable Mentions (alphabetical by author)
Darlene Buechel, Chilton, Wisconsin, Six Rules for Surviving a Stepdad
Patricia MacAodha, Portland, Oregon, The Witch with the Backpack
John J. White, Merritt Island, Florida, Beneath the Wintry Sky
Judges Panel “Entries of Note” (alphabetical by author)
(These made it into the top ten lists of at least three judges, or high on the list of at least one judge.)
Patricia Barnhart, Lakeview, Oregon, Piece by Piece
Valerie Lake, Corvallis, Oregon, Jose’s Boots
Diane Miller, Sweethome, Oregon, The Struggle to Lose It
Chet Skibinski, Lake Oswego, Oregon, The Prince and his Tunnels
Patricia A. Smith, Corvallis, Oregon, Birthday Surprise
Short Story Nonfiction
1st place
Morgan Songi, Eugene, Oregon, Spirit Nights
Gina Oschner’s note: “In Spirit Nights the writer thoughtfully weaves an examination of past and present, memory and absence. The author skillfully architects exposition, summary, and scene to create a blended narration that reads in some places like poetry.”
2nd place
Donelle Knudsen, Richland, Washington, Ashes to Ashes and the Spirit of Forgiveness
3rd place
Cheryl Sears, Portland, Oregon, Prejudice Revisited
Gina Oschner’s note: “Both Ashes to Ashes and Prejudice Revisited struck me as being authentic and candid journeys through painful territory. Both authors explore through well-crafted scene and thoughtful narration their struggles in accepting some form of loss as well as the recognition that to be human is to be flawed in some manner”
First Honorable Mention
Leland Spencer, Monument, Oregon, Junkpile Go-Cart
Honorable Mentions (alphabetical by author)
Valerie Lake, Corvallis, Oregon, Invasive Species
Genny Lynch, Lebanon, Oregon, Kissing Lessons
Jean Peterson, Nehalem, Oregon, Border Banditos
Judges Panel “Entries of Note” (alphabetical by author)
(These made it into the top ten lists of at least three judges, or high on the list of at least one judge.)
Judith B. Allen, Manzanita, Oregon, Twenty Questions
Donelle Knudsen, Richland, Washington, Desert Rose or a Blooming Miracle
Rick Lamplugh, Corvallis, Oregon, Mystery at Trout Lake
Laura Loomis, Pittsburg, California, Ghost House
Elizabeth Bolton Poetry Contest
1st place
Barb McMakin, Crestwood, Kentucky, Familiar Skeletons
2nd place
Morgan Azinger, Portland, Oregon, Indescribable Things
3rd place
Karen Keltz, Tillamook, Oregon, Miasma
First Honorable Mention
Eileen Malone, Broadmoor Village, California, Whale Watching Guy
Other Honorable Mentions (alphabetical by author)
Morgan Azinger, Portland, Oregon, American Apocalypse
Ellanaine Lockie, California, Just Desserts
Morgan Songi, Eugene, Oregon, Weeds
Poetry judge Parman commented, “I’ve just finished my fifth perusal of these wonderful poems, long enough for some to drift to the top and others to the bottom. Many of the poems entered in the contest were full of pain and sharp experience; many were good stories (I’m a sucker for a good story), but when I had to choose between an explicit story told with only the barest gesture toward the poetic medium versus a tightly knit poem containing the hinted ghost of a story, I went for the ghost versus the explicitly told tale. Also, all things being roughly equal, a good title can make a difference.”
