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Literary Arts Pairs with PNCAfor Inaugural Graphic Lit Prize

The pencil has at least two functions: making words and making images. Both

functions involve movement—sometimes a rapid and sometimes a more slow,

drawn-out movement. Those

two kinds of making, word and

image, become visible through

“to draw.” Look up draw in the

Oxford English Dictionary and

you’ll discover some surprises. For

one thing, beginning in the ninth

full of movement, and means, quite

simply and generally, to pull some

stylus across the surface of a piece of paper or parchment. Chaucer uses draw,

some two hundred years later, in the late sixteenth century, does the word draw

refer to images.

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Words from the Director › 2

The Meaning of an Oregon Literary Fellowship › 3

Verselandia! › 4

Oregon Book Awards Author Tour › 6

A Poem by Emily Kendal Frey › 9

To draw is thus a process; it implies a rendering and an unfolding—a drawing

out—and thus inherently speaks of both narrating and sketching, but oddly

sixteenth century, for the idea of drawing to become an object, a sketch, in need

of a frame. By the twentieth century words and images meet in a most lively and

radical, startlingly new way, one that encourages us to pause in our looking as we

You Are a Writer

news of the award was a congratulatory

winners, Michael McGregor, who had

been my advisor in the writing program at

to know when my book would be on the

shelves in the children’s room at Powell’s.

Conversations with my son often veer

along unpredictable lines. This morning,

he asked, “Mom, have you been working

on this book ever since you were a little

up from the back seat, clearly impressed.

be missionaries at a small, under-funded

“PNCA is proud to forge this partnership with Literary Arts in offering the inaugural Graphic Literature Award.”

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By supporting Literary Arts you helped:

Words from the DirectorGreat books are not inevitable. Great books are the product of years (sometimes a lifetime) of work by a

brilliant writer, the support of family and friends, and the keen eye of an editor to pluck it from a pile of

manuscripts and have the courage to publish it so that it may have readers. Great books are the product

of a supportive community.

Throughout history, people and organizations have formally taken on the role of trying to ensure the

original vision.

sizes throughout the state.

downtown center that includes our own event space, making it easier for us to host and promote local

of the community: individuals, foundations, agencies, and businesses who share the value that books and writers matter. Together, we can

ensure a rich and creative future for Oregon.

andrew@literary-arts.org Literary Arts is funded in part by:

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these fragile, maddening, ridiculous,

messy, affectionate, beloved creatures.

My six-year-old asked me recently,

“Mom, is it true that it sometimes takes

are a LOT longer than kid pages, but yes,

sometimes it takes me an entire day to

great deal of pity and said, “That’s why

writer, carry awkwardly. There are rare,

sentence and be able to say, “Damn that’s

good,” but there are uncounted hours and

at a homeless shelter, teaching kids to

read, ripping the ivy out of Forest Park?

a very humbling and giddy experience

to be lifted out of self-imposed solitude,

even for an evening, and be told that

yes, your work matters, yes, the self-

absorption is worth it, don’t give up,

keep writing, even if what there is to

say has already been said, once or twice,

or several times, by those whom one

cannot hope to emulate (as the wise and

morose T. S. Eliot so sagely put it).

we have all read a book that made us

understand that we were not alone in

conscious adolescent stuck on that same

isn’t it, how quickly a paradise can turn

into a prison when you’re fourteen

“I suspect we have all read a book that made us understand that we were not alone in the world.”

and miserable?), books quite literally

other people in the world like me, even

hospital in a forgotten green valley, not

far from where Columbus sank the Santa

Maria. My father, a farmer, preached

the gospel of trees (the deforestation in

my mother, a Pied Piper of inexhaustible

enthusiasm, taught at the missionary

skinned knees and dirty elbows, the

television or internet. Once a week, the

missionary plane delivered six-week-

the tree-climbing competition at the

circulation twelve. My teacher, Suzette,

who wore lion tamer boots and a bow tie

book to her.

The reality, of course, is that wanting to be

an audience for those same masterpieces

graduate from college with a degree in

English lit, there are no recruiters lined

harrowing, lonely work to wrestle with

hours each day—if we’re lucky—alone.

deprivation of the senses and if we do not

get our weekly quota of silence, we can

be hell to live with (just ask my absurdly

supportive husband).

Motherhood and writing often feel

like competing vocations—books, like

children, demand one’s full attention—

children for hours at a time to write.

learned, through my children, how

from “You Are a Writer”

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The Power of Poetry: Verselandia 2012

Magical, hilarious, crushing,

raucous, thought-provoking, joyful,

sorrowful, powerful, unforgettable…

these are just a few descriptions of

Made possible through a strong

partnership between PPS high school

Slam Champion and Pushcart Prize

Slams are spoken-word competitions

where poets perform brief original

works with no props, music,

or costumes. Judges score the

performances, and the highest

cumulative score after two rounds

wins. Qualifying slams were held

at every high school in the Portland

Public Schools District, with the top

three students from each moving on

Diversity was evident as competing

poets bared their souls for more than

moved by the honesty and bravery

of the performers, whose themes

included: pride, loss, pain, family,

identity, relationships won, and

relationships lost. Students interacted

and supported each other without

the slightest hint of rivalry—on stage

it was just the performance that

mattered.

Though everyone who took the stage

Dianne Bocci, US Bank and Julie

Mancini.

Laughter, tears, cheers, and standing

ovations abounded, but in the end,

the lasting impact of this amazing

and memorable evening may not

only have been on the performers or

it may have been on the hundreds

of students who participated along

the way—students touched by

new understandings of their peers,

excited by the power of poetry, and

inspired to compete next year in

Nancy Sullivan, Verselandia Visionary, is the teacher-librarian at Madison High School in Portland, Oregon. She can be reached at nsulliva@pps.net.

Verselandia 2012 Winners:1st placeLauren Steele, Jefferson

2nd place

3rd placeMicah Fletcher, Madison

4th place

5th placeDesiree DuBois, Jefferson

For photos and video of the event visit:

http://verselandia.wordpress.com.

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move forward in our reading. Critics

have chosen to call this particular

stop-and-go genre, The Graphic

most resembles a stroll, an amble

through a dense and interesting

neighborhood where we take but

one or two steps when, suddenly,

something catches our attention. The

graphic novel thus creates a marvelous

tension as it pushes readers forward

while at the same time making them

pause, just for a moment—arresting

the attention—on a frame, or a bit

PNCA Graphic Literature Award

of action, or even a line. There goes

language again: line can mean the

curve in a character’s face, or it might

refer to a sentence uttered by that

same character, image and word

collapsing, one more time, right before

provokes a line or two of prose, but

most often a line that we hear only

most pointedly in this hybrid form,

for even the word graphic refers, of

course, to the drawing itself and, at

the same time, to the precise details of

the written descriptions: “Your writing

is so graphic!”

Oh, how thoroughly the graphic novel

thoroughly, to mix genres and forms

until we begin to puzzle just how to

navigate that little book in our hands.

Should we read all the way through,

from beginning to end, or should we

pause and look—no, inspect—every

picture as it presents itself to us in

form—Spiegelman, Moebius, Otomo,

Mignola, Sacco, and on and on—arrest

us and take us on a halting journey of

unknowing, but an unknowing that

we learn to savor and love—and even

imagination as we re-evaluate our own.

as we ponder our own self-imposed

boundaries. Looking, and then seeing

with different eyes—what we call

reading—promotes a peculiar kind of

critical thinking in this crazy, mixed-

more accurately, the graphite novel,

the pencil reigns supreme: the prince

form we can watch the reader/thinker

falling seemingly into seamless cahoots

with the artist/writer.

is a nineteenth-century corruption of

cohort, a companionship of diverse

folks, or a partnership between those

novel offers the model of a community

of one, a display of multiple talents—

drawing and writing, composing and

inking—founded in a single person.

we draw, we write silently to ourselves.

Those activities overlap, crisscross,

dance and interplay one with another.

college that prides itself on “making

marks” out at the edges and in between

forge this partnership with Literary

New York Times’ lead food writer and author of How to Cook Everything and Food Matters

Mark Bittman September 20, 2012

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall Tickets available through Ticketmaster

In association with

Feast Portland, Literary Arts

proudly presents

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Oregon Book Awards Author Tour Visits Southern Oregon

Tour traveled to Klamath Falls and

County Library, and the Tour also

included author visits to two schools

in Chiloquin, two schools in Klamath

Falls, and free writing workshops at

the Klamath County Library.

grade class at Ferguson Elementary

School and led the students in a

workshop on voice in writing.

Students also asked Jen questions

about her book Putting Makeup On Dead People, her inspirations and her

path to publication. Jen also visited

three classes at Chiloquin Elementary

miles outside of Klamath Falls.

Library and visited Ponderosa Junior

both offered free writing workshops

workshop attendee at George’s

workshop commented afterwards,

“One of the outstanding features of

the workshop was George’s helpful

comments for each individual who

workshop feeling inspired.” Jen and

George also appeared in a reading at

and Coos Bay for more workshops,

readings, and school visits.

This program was made possible in part by a grant from Oregon Humanities (OH),

Endowment for the Humanities, which funds OH’s grant program.

The deadline for the next Oregon Book Awards isAugust 31, 2012.

For application and information visit: literary-­arts.org/oba-­home/apply/awards

possible by my Fellowship from

book contract with Free Press for a

Suzette if she remembered telling me

when the writing life has felt—as it

often does—impossibly daunting

thought that if she could see in me,

at eight years old, a little girl who

loved sentences, then perhaps she was

Schools or one of the other Literary

a frustrated teenage boy will have

the opportunity to hear, “You are a

and it will be their book that we’ll be

celebrating in another few decades.

Apricot Irving’s memoir about growing up as a missionary’s daughter in Haiti is forthcoming from Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.

from “You Are a Writer”

INDIVIDUALS

We are grateful to our community of supporters.The following people made a contribution to Literary Arts between April 1, 2011 and March 31, 2012.

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Birds Are So Soft

Birds are so soft.

You can’t imagine.

gentle, not hard, they love it.

They get pin feathers.

They coo, close their eyes,

and coo. You’ll see.

They’ll melt in your hand. You will see.

You’ll have a whole new set of sounds

you can make with your mouth.

From The Grief Performance

(Cleveland State University

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Writers in the Schools

Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships

Portland Arts & Lectures

Delve: Readers’ Seminars

2012/2013 Season Thursday, October 11 Jeffrey Toobin

Friday, November 16Barbara Kingsolver Thursday, January 10Jonathan Franzen Tuesday, March 5Stephen Greenblatt Tuesday, April 23Nikky Finney tickets at literary-­arts.org/box-­office

The programs of

Literary Arts