Summer Reading Series

Douglas Allen recently transplanted himself from Brooklyn, NY to Portland.  He holds a B.A. in Theatre and teaches and performs as actor, modern/butoh dancer, and poet.  He has just begun writing non-fiction for The Sacred Tremor blog, and has a chapbook out that is entitled Weathervanes. (Reader: Part 2 & Part 3)

Thor Benson is a freelancing article writer, and aspiring novelist. Thor has traveled his whole life, all within the Americas.  From Maine to California, Puerto Rico to Oregon, living in such places has inspired him to share his journeys and help open people’s eyes along the way. (Reader: Part 3)

Lane Browning has taught writing workshops for Oregon Writers Workshop and Mountain Writers Center; is published in a number of magazines and newspapers; has done readings at Broadway Books, Powell's on Burnside, Barnes & Noble, Annie Bloom's; and was a longtime columnist for Willamette Week in the 1990s. (Reader: Part 2)

Nate Chang is a writer/artist/graphic novelist, currently living in Portland, Oregon with his wife and Royal typewriter. His works include "On the Campaign Trail," "The Neurojack Chronicles: Streets of Asperian," and "D'arcy Fenchurch and the God Equation." (Reader: Part 1)

Jasmine Cronin-Georgiadi is the managing editor of Travel Tales (travel-tales.com), an e-zine that will be launched in April of 2013 and features travel stories written by adventurers from all over the globe.  She has served as a film script consultant and manuscript reader for clients in London, New York and Los Angeles.  Her writing has appeared in publications such as Brides Noir, World Bride Magazine and The Honolulu Advertiser, among others.  She earned a B.A. in English and Theater from Bowdoin College, and she is currently an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program at Goddard College.  She has a base in Honolulu, but spends the majority of her life living out of suitcases.  She also writes a blog entitled The Irreverent Adventuress (irreverent-adventuress.com).  (Visiting Writer: Part 3)

James R. Gapinski is a fiction editor at The Pitkin Review, and his writing has appeared in publications such as Burdock Magazine, Oak Bend Review, Line Zero, and Eunoia Review.  James is a recipient of the Angela Peckenpaugh Writing Award and the Burrows Award.  He holds a BSE in English from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and he is earning an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College.  He lives in Portland, Oregon with his partner and two cats.  (Reader: Part 1 & Part 3 / Host: Part 2, Part 3, & Part 4)

Claudia Errington is a fiction writer, whose work has appeared in Rain Magazine and The Daily Astorian.  Currently she is a grad student working on an MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College at the Port Townsend campus and is writing a novel set in the Pacific Northwest.  Having lived in Oregon for almost 20 years she finds the historical lives of fishermen and lumbermen a rich field full of writing material.  She thinks it must be the rain, always keeping the soil fertile.  Currently she resides in McMinnville, in the heart of wine country. (Reader: Part 2)

Joe Galván was born in San Francisco, California, but spent most of his life growing up just an hour away from the Mexican border in Harlingen, Texas. His writing often deals with people who refuse to accept or struggle with identities. His work deals with the continuous play of culture, language, and society, taking its major points from authors like Nathanael West, Joan Didion and sound-poets like Read Miller and Donald Arbusto. He studied with the composer Peter Garland, who imparted a greater appreciation of world literature, especially the work of Roque Dalton. In addition to writing fiction, he also has written pieces of anthropological and ethnomusicological interest, primarily dealing with the music of the lower border and Hispanic diasporas, especially the regional conjunto musics of northern Mexico and Southern Texas, as well as the casa de santo, bossa nova, and classical samba musics of Brazil. He lives in Goose Hollow, Portland.  (Reader: Part 4)

Till Gwinn is a 21 year-old from Oregon City, Oregon. His hobbies include jazz, rowing crew, strolls through the forest, and poetry. He has been writing poetry for the past six years. He has won a couple of poetry slams in Salem.   (Reader: Part 4)

Liz Hart is a poet living in Portland, Oregon.  She has been heavily involved in the open mic scene around town for a few years.  Her first chapbook Sacred Names was released in 2006, and her second is due out late fall 2012.  Her rabidly emotional poetry is both humorous and poignant, but don't let that distract you from the truth. (Reader: Part 2)

Ron Heacock lives with his wife, Karen Walasek, and his loyal service dog, Finn.  They split their time between the farm, HillHouse Writer’s Retreat, in the hills of southern Tennessee and a loft in the city of Portland, Oregon.  Ron spent many years as a performing songwriter.  He is currently pursuing his 
MFA in creative writing attending Goddard College at the Port Townsend Campus.  (Reader: Part 1)

Nathaniel Hunt lives in Portland, Oregon, working as a freelance writer and editor.  His poems have been featured in Iconoclast, The Houston Literary Review, Poetry Quarterly, and Pennsylvania Literary Journal, among others.  He is the co-founder and co-editor of the upstart literary journal Cartographer.  His poem "St. Johns, Oregon, Soon After My Grandfather's Death" won an Honorable Mention award from the 2011 Vella Poetry Prize.  In August he will be moving across the country to begin the MFA program at UMass-Boston. (Reader: Part 2)

Dave Jarecki owns Breakerboy Communications, a writing firm that assists people, businesses and non-profit organizations in writing and communicating their stories.  Jarecki is an adjunct fellow at Portland's Attic Institute, and facilitates writing workshops with youth and adult writers year-round.  He has been recognized as a 2010 Fishtrap Fellow, and his creative work has appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Rattle (forthcoming, summer 2012), Cloudbank Literary Magazine, Oregon Poetic Voices and others.  Jarecki has been a featured at a number of local literary events, including Wordstock, Show and Tell Gallery's Working Artist Assembly, and KBOO radio's Talking Earth program. (Reader: Part 2)

Christy Lochrie is a writer, creativity instructor, an award-winning features reporter and an occasional poet and artist.  She’s currently working on Smoke Signals, a memoir about her father’s death and her transformation through the loss.  Christy teaches online classes for UC Riverside Extension in Riverside, Calif. and freelances for regional publications.  Her publication credits include Pasta magazine, Inland Empire magazine, Vibrant Life magazine, The Press Enterprise newspaper, The Sun newspaper, The Record Searchlight newspaper, The Columbian newspaper, The Vancouver Business Journal, The Capital Press, The Chico News and Review and others.  Christy is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative nonfiction writing from Goddard College and expects to graduate in July, 2012. (Reader: Part 2)

Cody Luff’s work has appeared in Pitkin Review, Ink Speak, on the websites SplashLife.com and Clockhousewest.com. He has edited a collection of short stories titled Soul’s Road. He has an MFA degree in creative writing from Goddard College and currently teaches fiction, memoir, developmental reading and college writing. He grew up in Montana and remembers his time as a shoeshine boy in his grandfather's barbershop. The stories he heard there have fed his imagination for decades.  (Reader: Part 1)

Susan Lynch came to Oregon in 1970 with a grotty copy of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in her backpack, to co-found a commune.  Since then she’s been to Oaxaca, Malibu, Oxford, Edinburgh, Port Townsend and even Seattle, learning new words.  An advanced shamanic practitioner, she’s also a Reedie, an Oxbridgian, a Goddardite, and sometimes has elk in her backyard.  (Host: Part 1, Part 3, & Part 4 / Reader: Part 2 & Part 3)

Nancy MacLaren spent most of her life on a stage, acting, singing and directing. She received her M.F.A. in Directing from The University of Oregon in 1991.  Armed with this incredibly useless degree she went on to teach theater and English (including Creative Writing) at the High School and College level.  Two years ago she began research with the intent of writing a trilogy based on Welsh mythology. The Welsh Witch Trilogy debuted in December 2011 with Arwyn and the Dragon.  The sequel, Arwyn and the Demons will be released in December 2012 followed by the last book of the trilogy, Arwyn and the Undead in 2013.  Information about the sequels and the history behind the trilogy can be found at her web site: www.arwynandthedragon.com.  (Reader: Part 3)

Hale Mendik was born in New York and grew up in Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley.   After high school he spent two years at UCLA, then moved to Santa Cruz, CA and received a BA in theater arts and film from UC Santa Cruz.  He spent the next few years working as an organic farmer in Santa Cruz, also working on local film and theater pieces.  Some of this time he spent living in the redwoods like a ranger.  He got the idea for The Twelve Tribes on one moonless night in the deep forest and began the seven year project from outline to publication, writing some parts of the book all over the world on a six month world trek throughout the Middle East and Europe.  After this time, he began teaching in public schools and working as a divemaster and snowboard instructor, as well as an astrologer.  The Twelve Tribes was released in 2006, becoming a well-known cult classic in some West Coast circles.  In 2007, Hale moved to Portland, Oregon where he learned to love the rain, produced and directed a feature film called Messiah Complex, and finished writing the sequel to The Twelve Tribes.  He is currently on the West Coast working on a documentary as well as a few other writing projects.  (Reader: Part 4)

Peter McMinn, MFA, teaches English as a second language, literature, and courses in composition at Marylhurst and Clark colleges.  He plays guitar and explores with his family on the evenings and weekends and writes when the house is quiet.  An author of several short stories and poems, Peter continues to expand his range in writing whenever he dares make the reach.  (Reader: Part 1)

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Jeremy Nelson and now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he enjoys cultivating new interests and collecting trivia.  (Reader: Part 4)

Sarah Polansky Mura is currently a student at Clackamas Community College, where she has been studying poetry with Kate Gray.  In the fall, she will be studying English and Creative Writing at Portland State University.  (Reader: Part 4)

August Preston was born and raised in California and lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years.  He’s worked in psychology as everything from a psychiatric social worker to an RN, but considers himself retired.  He left all that behind to write the Great American Novel before he dies.  He fell down a few times doing stand-up comedy.  In addition to his novel, The Hardening, he is working on several short stories.  He has been performing fiction, storytelling, even stand-up comedy, at a variety of open mics around Portland.  He is active in The Portland Story Theater and lives in Portland with his books. (Reader: Part 2)

Uma Sankaram holds an MA in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College in New York, and an MS in Clinical Psychology from Pacific University.  She is currently a doctoral candidate at Pacific University.  Uma is an avid reader with an expansive personal library.  Uma appreciates the written word, even though her own communication abilities are mostly limited to squeaks, growls, and other random noises. (Host: Part 2)

Christi R. Suzanne changes her hairstyle and hair color a lot, she is a writer who grew up in the dry heat of the Arizona desert.  She moved to the Pacific Northwest over ten years ago for a mistier climate and now resides in Oregon.  By day she works at a university as a web and communications professional.  On her off hours she spends her time writing, playing soccer, and reading.  She holds a bachelor's degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and a Master's in Technical Writing from Portland State University.  She is currently working on a novella and other short pieces. (Reader: Part 1)

Karen Walasek is a radical homeschooling grandmother midwife sustainable farmer with a BA & MFA in creative writing from Goddard College.  She lives with this guy who picked her up hitch-hiking in 1975 who has become the most amazing lifelong partner a girl from New Jersey could ever want. Some works include: "Craving the Fruit of the Great Southern Sea," "Embracing the Divine Feminine: The Importance of Stephanie Myer’s Breaking Dawn," "Is Pregnant Fat?," "Full Circles: A Beginner’s Musings on the Art of Aikido," and "Confessions of a Neutered Woman." (Featured Reader: Part 2)

Maya West splits her time between Korea, where she was made, and various ports of call across the United States.  For the last five years it's been Portland, Oregon; her next stop of some duration will be an MFA program at the University of Michigan.  She writes prose, mostly, and is getting better at it all the time.  (Reader: Part 3)