Join many of our favorite writers for a full day of workshops and discussion.

 

EVENTS SNAPSHOT

Saturday, March 28th

Morning Poetry:
9:00–10:00—poetry performances with Casey Bush and Charles Sorgie
10:00–noon—workshop with Paulann Petersen and Sage Cohen

Midday Publishing Forum: 
2:00–3:30—with Whitney Otto, Karen Karbo, Rhonda Hughes, David Biespiel, Ken Arnold, and Paul Pearce

Afternoon Prose:
4:00-6:00—workshop with Joanna Rose

 

QUICK FACTS

Cost: FREE, with a suggested donation of $15 per workshop to help raise money for children’s writing classes.

Location: Writers’ Dojo, 7518 N. Chicago Avenue, Portland, OR 97203. Directions and a map are online at WritersDojo.org/location.

RSVP: Yes, please help us plan ahead. Drop a line to let us know how many in your party and which workshops you’ll join.

 

FULL SCHEDULE

9:00–10:00 AM
Coffee, chat, performance
Warm up with poetry performances led by Casey Bush with Charles Sorgie on the dij. Coffee service courtesy of St. Johns Coffee Roasters.
 

10:00–noon
Poetry Workshop
Turned Loose: Liberating Language into Poems
Join Paulann Petersen and Sage Cohen in a free, two-hour workshop devoted to generating new work. All levels of experience welcome!

Paulann Petersen

Paulann Petersen’s books of poetry are The Wild Awake (Confluence Press), Blood-Silk (Quiet Lion Press), and A Bride of Narrow Escape (Cloudbank Books), which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. A fourth collection, Kindle, is just out from Mountains and Rivers Press. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and the recipient of the 2006 Holbrook Award from Oregon Literary Arts, she serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford, organizing the annual January Stafford Birthday Events.

 

 

Sage Cohen

Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writers Digest Books, 2009) and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. She writes four monthly columns about the craft and business of writing and serves as Poetry Editor for VoiceCatcher 4. Co-curator of a monthly reading series at Barnes & Noble, Sage teaches the online class “Poetry for the People”  and publishes “Writing the Life Poetic”  blog and zine. Drop by and join in the conversation at www.writingthelifepoetic.typepad.com! 

 

12:00–1:30 PM
Lunch break
St. Johns has plenty of great places in walking distance. We’ll have maps handy. Brown bag lunches are also fine.

 

1:30–2:00 PM
Enjoy tea and literary surprises
Join Michael Selin for delicious conversation and tea, courtesy of Budo Tea.

 

2:00–3:30 PM
Forum Discussion
Our Writing Future: Publishing, Community, and Social Media
Join the conversation with writers, publishers, and online gurus. Our panel includes Whitney Otto, Karen Karbo, Rhonda Hughes, David Biespiel, Ken Arnold, and Paul Pearce.
 

Whitney Otto

Whitney Otto is the writer of four novels, including How To make An American Quilt which was a New York Times bestseller. It was also made into a movie produced by Steven Spielberg. She is a native Californian who has lived in Portland for fifteen years, along with her husband, son, cat, and two dogs who really belong in a circus.

 

 

Karen Karbo

Karen Karbo is the author of three novels, all of which were named New York Times Notable Books. The Stuff of Life, a memoir about caring for her father during the last year of his life, was a People Magazine Critic's Choice, a selection of the Satellite Sisters Radio Book Club, and winner of the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. Karen is also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her (embarrassingly stupendous number of) essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in Elle, Esquire, MORE, the New Republic, the New York Times, the Oregonian, Outside, Redbook, Self, Sports Illustrated for Women, and Vogue. More at: www.karenkarbo.com.

 

Rhonda Hughes

Rhonda Hughes is co-owner of one company with two names: Hawthorne Books and Print Vision. Hawthorne Books is committed to independent publishing. American literary fiction and narrative non-fiction dictate their catalog. One of their goals is to increase our international titles as well as books in translation. All of their books are published as affordable original trade paperbacks, but feature details not typically found even in casebound titles from bigger houses: acid-free papers; sewn bindings which will not crack; heavy, laminated covers with French flaps and built-in bookmarks. Founded in 1992, Print Vision is a full-service print management company, which includes all phases of production.

 

David Biespiel

David Biespiel is editor of Poetry Northwest and Founding Director of Attic Writers’ Workshop. His books of poetry include Shattering Air, Pilgrims & Beggars, and Wild Civility. A new book of poems, The Book of Men and Women, is due out in 2009. Among his honors are a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in poetry, a Lannan Fellowship in poetry, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in literature. David currently divides his teaching among three universities. He’s a contributor to American Poetry Review, Parnassus, Poetry, Slate, The New York Times Book Review, and The New Republic. Since 2002 he has been the columnist on poetry for The Oregonian.

 

Ken Arnold

Ken Arnold is founder and publisher of KenArnoldBooks, using print on demand and digital publishing techniques. Recently he launched Buzzaroonie, a social networking site for book lovers. He is Vice President of the Publishers Association of the West. He spent twenty-five years as an editor and publisher in university publishing, including eleven years as Director of Rutgers University Press. In addition, Ken is the co-founder of Trinity Press International (publisher of academic theology), founder of the PubComm Group (a consulting firm in internet information systems), and a publisher for Church Publishing, Inc. (publisher for the Episcopal Church USA). Ken is also an award-winning playwright (Eugene O'Neill Fellow, National Playwrights Conference), a poet, and the author of three books about spirituality.

 

Paul Pearce

Paul Pearce is the owner Portland Urban Pages and of ZOTTA, a social media marketing (SMM) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) agency which provides affordable programs to small and medium-sized businesses. Prior to ZOTTA, Paul worked at Washington Mutual Bank (WaMu) with a team of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts who advanced WaMu to the top spot on Google. Paul received a Masters in Business Administration from the University of California, Irvine.

 

 

 

4:00–6:00 PM
Prose Workshop
Character to Plot
Join some of our favorite writers for a workshop session led by Joanna Rose.

Joanna Rose

Joanna Rose is the author of the award-winning novel Little Miss Strange and has a new novel floating around Agentland. Her essay “Paisley Afternoon” is in the Oregon birthday anthology Citadel of the Spirit. Other work has appeared in Artisan Journal, Northern Lights,  Story Magazine, and ZYZZYVA. Her poetry has been published in the on-line journals, 2Grlz Review and Four and Twenty. She’s also an occasional book reviewer for The Oregonian. She and her teaching partner, Stevan Allred, host the regular Pinewood Table prose critique group. Joanna also teaches in schools around Portland and at the beach. Especially at the beach. Any time she can, at the beach. Her goals in life are to get her new novel published (soon) and live at the beach (someday).