Uncle Sam, Enron thieves, and dreams of dignity

Hello Fishtrap Friends,

Wednesdays are a big deal at Fishtrap for the next few weeks.

UPCOMING READINGS & LECTURES

When Literary Arts contacted us last year about their Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, we had the clever idea of holding the event outdoors on a warm August afternoon at the gazebo by the courthouse. We’d do it in conjunction with the farmer’s market, right after the Thursday music concert. It was probably a childhood memory of an old LP cover of the Boston Pops at Tanglewood that inspired that notion.

The clouds lowered, the wind blew, the mercury shriveled, and everybody stayed home – everybody but the poor authors and a handful of diehards. So this year, we had the more clever idea of holding the 2010 Literary Arts Oregon Book Awards Author Tour inside, at Fishtrap’s Coffin House, on Wednesday, May 12. Maybe it’ll snow 6 or 12 inches, like last week, but who cares? Come on over to hear three fine authors read from their work, at 7 pm. It’s free.

John Kroger, Attorney General of Oregon, will read from his book, Convictions: A Prosecutor's Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves, which won the Sarah Winnemucca Award in Creative Nonfiction.

Joining John will be Donna Matrazzo of Portland, finalist in creative nonfiction for Wild Things: Adventures of a Grassroots Environmentalist. Matrazzo’s work has appeared in numerous publications, on PBS and the Discovery Channel, and in national park visitor centers and museums around the country.

We’ll also be hearing from Jon Raymond of Portland, winner of the Ken Kesey Award in Fiction for Livability. Raymond is an editor at Plazm magazine and his writing has appeared in Bookforum, Artforum, the Village Voice and other publications.

Despite the gray chill last August, we liked one of the readers, Steven Bender, so well we’ve invited him back to read at greater length from his fine book, One Night in America: Robert Kennedy, César Chávez, and the Dream of Dignity. Stephen will be reading on Wednesday, May 19, 7 pm, at the same old place, Fishtrap’s Coffin House. Suggested $5 donation.

And a week later, on Wednesday, May 26, Reiko Hillyer, an Oregon Humanities Conversation Project speaker, will be visiting to talk about “Marking Our Territory.” Here’s the intriguing blurb from the Oregon Humanities catalog:

“The big house and the quarters; the front door and the back door; lunch counters, water fountains, the back of the bus. One of the most persistent ways people exert power over others is to control their access to space. Drawing upon the fields of architecture, environmental studies, urban design, and public policy, this discussion will pose the following questions: How do we mark our territory? How do the built environments we create reflect our values and aspirations? Whom do we include and whom de we exclude in the process?

“Touching on gentrification, the decline of public space, historic preservation, residential segregation, and suburban sprawl, Reiko Hillyer will lead a conversation about how to reading the history of our communities through the landscapes we build and consider how we can be more aware of and more engaged in the creation of our surroundings.”

Join us on the 26th at 7 pm. Suggested $5 donation. Just don’t mark the territory.

OTHER FISHTRAP NEWS

Last week I mentioned that we have a couple of new writers’ groups going – one is for all genres, and is held on 1st and 3rd Tuesday evenings here at Fishtrap. The second is poetry only, and is held on 2nd and 4th Tuesdays. Free, open to all regardless of experience, and typically graced with a bottle of vino.

Sure enough, that mention brought another bug to my ear: I forgot to mention that there is a children’s literature writers’ group, which meets once a month, on the first Sunday, from 1-3 pm, here at Fishtrap. If you’re interested in participating, contact Joan Madsen at jcreative@eoni.com. Her email address is not accidental. Joan is the graphic design expert who has been putting together our Summer Fishtrap brochures for years. So if you liked the “Matter & Spirit” brochure for this year, you can give Joan a shout out and a big thank you.

Speaking of Summer Fishtrap, if you think kids (8-12 years old) and teenagers (13-17 years old) deserve to enjoy the beauty of Wallowa Lake and the bounty of Summer Fishtrap, we need you to get the word out. At roughly $200 for 15 hours of workshop time in the wonderful setting of Wallowa Lake and the Eagle Cap Wilderness, these sessions are a great opportunity for budding writers. And we do want them to bud, don’t we?

The kids’ workshop will taught by Kirsten Rian, who has used poetry in places like Sierra Leone as a tool for literacy, healing, and storytelling within refugee and immigrant communities. Her anthology of Sierra Leonan poetry, Kalashnikov in the Sun, was the recent focus of a very powerful group reading in Portland. Just ask Rich, he was there. And that was all he could talk about for a couple of days.

The teens’ workshop will be offered by the energetic writer and teacher Beth Russell, who received a Presidential Scholars Distinguished Teaching Award in 2009. Those of you who came to Winter Fishtrap can vouch for the suitability of that award. Just the kind of person we want to engage those young folks.

Send out the word! (I thought of sticking in a photo of the famous “Uncle Sam wants you” poster, only to find hundreds of versions, take-offs, and parodies on the Internet. This one in particular caught my eye, because it’s NOT TOO LATE to get your tickets – from http://fishstockoregon.net/ – to Fishstock, May 15 in The Dalles, featuring Rosalie Sorrels, Robin Cody, Dan Maher, Clem Starck, and last but not least, those Ukalaliens Steve Power and Kate Einhorn. Which one posed here as Uncle Sam?)

And that is enough words from me for now.

Until next time,

Rick Bombaci
Executive Director