Packing for AWP in Portland next week and inundated by invitations to panels and parties? So are we! But we’re excited, too: AWP is always a big Ecotone–Lookout Books family reunion, and we can’t wait to see you. We’ve gathered below a selection of events featuring recent Ecotone contributors, each of whom is sure to give a brilliant reading or panel.
Join us Saturday from 6–7:30 pm in the print studio at Pacific Northwest College of the Arts, for the launch of Ecotone‘s Jason Bradford–Shirley Niedermann Broadside Series, featuring readings by Cortney Lamar Charleston and Molly Tenenbaum, and the chance to try out letterpress printing! Come out and wind down (or wind up for the last night of the conference!) for poems, light refreshments, and door prizes galore, including broadsides and copies of our issues. Details here: facebook.com/events/310891649624280/
We hope you’ll also make time to visit us at Tables T4055 and T4057, where we’ll be giving out pencils embossed on site with lines from Ecotone and Trespass contributors!
Remember: leave lots of room in your bags for litmag acquisitions, bring your loveliest literary-chic scarves, and hydrate! See you in Portland.
Thursday, March 28
We’re Here and We’re Queer: LGBTQ Women Tell Their Stories
(Imogen Binnie, Chelsey Johnson, Nicole Dennis-Benn, SJ Sindu, Patricia Smith)
Queer people—and queer women especially—have long been marginalized in literature. What are the stories being told about queer women? And who is doing the telling? Four authors with very different backgrounds discuss their books and characters, the stereotypes they fight against, and the truths and lives they reveal. What are the various identities queer women navigate in real life and on the page? What untold stories remain hidden?
D139-140, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Thursday, March 28, 2019
9:00 am to 10:15 am
Poets Claim American History
(Dolores Hayden, Marilyn Nelson, Frank X Walker, Martha Collins, Martín Espada)
In recent years, many poets have turned to history as the inspiration for book-length projects. How does the poet’s craft encompass the historian’s? Panelists explore strategies for choosing a resonant subject and interpreting another era using documents, maps, landscapes, and photographs. Do historical characters and events broaden the audience for poetry? Are there different readers for poetry, historical fiction, documentary films, and narrative history or do they overlap?
Portland Ballroom 252, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
Thursday, March 28, 2019
10:30 am to 11:45 am
The Minor is Major: Talking about the Creative Writing Minor
(John Hoppenthaler, Sharan Strange, Amber Flora Thomas, Wayne Thomas, Erin Murphy)
Creative writing remains a tested avenue to attract and benefit students in a well-designed English department. The minor can preserve CW as an area of study, attract new majors, and, most importantly, act as a springboard for student success in a variety of ways. This panel, with teachers and administrators from an HBC, a state university, and a private university, offers ideas and answers questions about the creation, value, population, assessment, and fine-tuning of a quality CW minor.
D136, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Thursday, March 28, 2019
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
Dear Lit Mag Editors: Now What?
(Carolyn Kuebler, Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Lindsay Garbutt, Phillip B. Williams, Luther Hughes)
When writers send their work to magazines, they know it will be just one in thousands. What makes one submission stand out from all the others? At this panel, five lit mag editors talk about what they want from a submission—and what they don’t want. They cover the practical as well as the more elusive questions, giving writers a chance to get beyond the guidelines and ask questions of their own. Journals represented include Ecotone, Epiphany, Iowa Review, New England Review, and Poetry.
Portland Ballroom 255, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
Thursday, March 28, 2019
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
Come Celebrate With Me: Women of Color Writers and Literary Lineage
(Catina Bacote, Jane Wong, Ysabel Y. Gonzalez , Anastacia -Renee)
Poet Lucille Clifton writes: “come celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed.” Five women of color trace their literary lineages and celebrate narratives of survival and resilience. Reading their writing and the work of women of color who have shaped their lives, this event draws constellations of inspiration and connection— across time, genre, and resonant histories. This reading seeks to use language as a space for intervention, activism, and visibility.
B113, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Thursday, March 28, 2019
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
Un-Workshop: Towards an Expansive Critical Response For Writers
(Carson Beker, Nancy Au, Arisa White, Miah Jeffra, Ploi Pirapokin)
In “MFA vs POC,” Junot Díaz writes: “When I think on it now what’s most clear to me is how easily ours could have been a dope workshop.” Given that the workshop almost always magnifies negative power structures, how do we get to this dope workshop? What do we do instead? Is there a way to recreate the transcendent moments of workshop without the tears? Five writer/educators share their Un-Workshop methods, what has worked, what hasn’t, what possibilities they’ve glimpsed along the way.
E143-144, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Thursday, March 28, 2019
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Editing Patriarchy: Women Editors Respond to Historic & Restorative Publishing
(Rachel Morgan, Sumita Chakraborty, Lauren Slaughter, Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Melissa R. Sipin)
In the 106 years since Poetrymagazine’s founding, women editors have followed Harriet Monroe’s trailblazing example, yet women editors at literary magazines and presses remain the exception rather than the norm. Editors consider how inheriting a historical space of masculine privilege both constrains and creates opportunities for women. Through the lens of intersectional feminism, this panel looks at challenges against tradition and culture that women editors and writers face in publishing.
B115, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Thursday, March 28, 2019
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Friday, March 29
Ahsahta Press 45th Anniversary Reading
(Stephanie Strickland, Cody-Rose Clevidence, Heidi-Lynn Staples, C. Violet Eaton, Susan Tichy)
Current Ahsahta Press authors celebrate the 45th year of the press with readings from their new books. Ahsahta started out as a (re-)publisher of historically significant poetry of the West, expanded to contemporary Western poetry, and in 2000 became a publisher of surprising and artful experimental work. A small press with a significant voice, Ahsahta remains committed to making relevant, boundary-pushing work accessible to the average poetry reader.
D135, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Friday, March 29, 2019
10:30 am to 11:45 am
Tell Me a Story: Getting a Debut Collection Published
(Matthew Lansburgh, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Ivelisse Rodriguez, R.L. Maizes, Clare Beams)
It’s well known that short story collections can be difficult to publish, yet several avenues exist, as do strategies for making collections stand out. Authors of debut collections discuss the pros and cons of publication through contests, independent publishers, and big five publishers, as well as how to approach each one. The panelists examine ways to make a collection as strong as it can be through, among other things, story selection, sequencing, and themes.
C124, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Friday, March 29, 2019
10:30 am to 11:35 am
On the Road Again: What Touring Writers Need to Know
(Maggie Smith, Marcus Wicker, Anya Backlund, Ron Mitchell, Keetje Kuipers)
Three poets known for dynamic performance, a Blue Flower Arts agent, and a university reading series coordinator will share best practices for successful reading tours. Topics include the decision to sign with a speaking agency or remain independent, booking reading tours, publicity and promotion, maximizing social media platforms, community engagement, contracts, taxes, and particular realities such as traveling on a budget, with disability, or away from kids.
B117-119, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Friday, March 29, 2019
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
On the 20th Anniversary of Tupelo Press, a Celebration of Native poets
(CMarie Fuhrman, Deborah Miranda, Michael Wasson , LeAnne Howe, Bojan Louis)
This panel features craft talks by poets whose work appears in Tupelo Press’s Native Voices anthology. This book, the first of its kind, embodies the dynamic conversations that take place in Indigenous poetry through writerly craft across generational, geographic, and stylistic divides. By foregrounding craft, we hope to initiate a conversation about Indigenous writing that moves beyond theme and narrative, considering instead the ways that form and technique can be politically charged.
D133-134, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Friday, March 29, 2019
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
Counter-Desecration Release Party Reading & Remedying
Contributors to Counter-Desecration: A Glossary for Writing Within the Anthropocene will read entries and other poetic works. Please join us for an afternoon of collective remedying with: Dan Beachy-Quick, Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Susan Briante, Allison Cobb, Alicia Cohen, Allison Hedge Coke, Matthew Cooperman, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Adam Dickinson, Linda Russo (co-editor), John Pluecker, Tyrone Williams, and a reading in memoriam to co-editor Marthe Reed.
Passages Bookshop, 1223 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Portland, OR 97232
Friday, March 29, 2019
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Creative Self-Care: Balancing Your Own Writing with Support for Your Students
(Allison Deegan, Keren Taylor, Toni Jensen, Ashaki Jackson, Christina Lynch)
Many creative writers also teach in a variety of settings as they pursue their own writing goals. Writer-teachers support a broad range of students, from new to vulnerable to highly accomplished. Working in MFA programs, four-year and community colleges, K-12 settings, or in youth or community programs, the panelists show how to retain focus on their own work as they guide the journeys of students who need instruction, mentoring, and sometimes just a safe, supportive creative space to write.
C124, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Friday, March 29, 2019
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Saturday, March 30
Poetry Celebrates
(David Kirby, Patricia Smith, Adrienne Su, Ira Sukrungruang, Kai Carlson-Wee)
To many, poetry is angst-ridden (which much of it is) or impenetrable (which it shouldn’t be). Yet there has always been a deep strain of celebration in poetry: indeed, more poetry celebrates than it denigrates, castigates, ruminates. The democratic spirit will hover over this panel as each of its members reads a poem (not his or hers) that celebrates. The panelists will talk about their choices, and then audience members will be asked to read their own favorite poems of celebration.
Oregon Ballroom 201-202, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
Saturday, March 30, 2019
10:30 am to 11:45 am
Women of Pacific Northwest Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Reading
(Danika Dinsmore, E. Lily Yu, Dominica Phetteplace, Brenda Cooper)
For decades, the Pacific Northwest has been a generative ground for speculative fiction, influenced by esteemed writers such as Ursula K. LeGuin and Octavia Butler. In their wake, younger generations helped drive a cultural revolution where women have begun to dominate the field of speculative fiction, as illustrated by the 2017 Hugo Awards. Listen as a panel of award-winning writers—Brenda Cooper, Danika Dinsmore, Dominica Phetteplace, Wendy Wagner, and E. Lily Yu—read from recent work.
A103-104, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Saturday, March 30, 2019
10:30 am to 11:45 am
From Which We Spring: A Tribute to Los Angeles Iconoclast Poet Wanda Coleman
(Amber Tamblyn, Kevin Young, Jeffrey McDaniel, Mahogany Browne, Patricia Smith)
“A yearning to avenge the raping of the womb / from which we spring.” Five poets discuss the art, life and legacy of poet Wanda Coleman, known as the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles. Wanda passed away unexpectedly at the age of sixty-seven, but her ferocious and firey voice charged generations of writers. Hear these five influential authors read some of her most provocative and captivating work while discussing the life of one of America’s most potent yet unknown black feminist writers.
Oregon Ballroom 203, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
Saturday, March 30, 2019
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
21st Century Innovations in Poetic Form
(Jaimee Hills, Amanda Johnston, Dora Malech, Kimberly Ann Southwick, Jaimie Gusman)
How do contemporary poets reassemble, reinvent and play with form? Following Oulipo, formalism and free-verse, how does the impulse to use structure as a launch point for creativity thrive in contemporary poetics? A panel of practitioners and scholars of innovative forms will focus on how contemporary poets and particularly historically-marginalized voices bend, blend, break and build off traditions of the past, forging hybridized and newly invented forms from the Golden Shovel to the Genesis.
E146, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Saturday, March 30, 2019
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Writing the Disaster: The Poetics of Extremity
(Matthew Cooperman, Nicole Cooley, Aby Kaupang, Matt Rasmussen, Brian Turner)
Being in the world means having things happen to you. Life “chafes its puckered index at us” (Hart Crane), opening the mind, corroding the body. Disability, suicide, murder, natural disaster, and personal experience can be traumatic. How writers write out of that extremity––thrive or perish––is moving instruction in survival. This panel of poets have all shown a profound responsivity to conditions of extremity. They share their stories, showing how they survived with, through, and against writing.
E143-144, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Saturday, March 30, 2019
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm