Kenny Fries. Photo: Michael R. Dekker

The Clark College Columbia Writers Series kicks off its 2017-2018 season with renowned poet, memoirist, and critic Kenny Fries. This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Tuesday, October 10, from 11:00 a.m. to noon in Penguin Union Building (PUB) room 258A on Clark College’s main campus.

Fries is perhaps best known for his memoir Body, Remember: A Memoir, which recounts his experiences as a disabled child growing up in an abusive Orthodox Jewish home and slowly coming to terms with his identity as a gay, disabled man. He has written two other memoirs, In the Province of the Gods and The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory, this last the winner of the Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights.  He is the editor of Staring Back:  The Disability Experience from the Inside Out and the author of the libretto for The Memory Stone, an opera commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera.  His books of poems include Anesthesia, Desert Walking, and In the Gardens of Japan. He teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Goddard College.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. This year’s lineup of authors includes, besides Fries:

Fall

• October 30: Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Winter

• February 15, 2018: Cheston Knapp, editor of Tin House magazine and author of Up Up, Down Down, which will appear in February 2018

Spring

• May 14, 2018: Roger Reeves, Pushcart Prize-winning poet
• May 17, 2018: Kate Berube, children’s book author and illustrator

Information about the Columbia Writers Series is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

This event is held on Clark College’s main campus at 1933 Ft. Vancouver Way. Directions and maps are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP). The DSS office is located in room 013 in Clark’s Penguin Union Building.

The Clark College Columbia Writers Series is offering a full week of writers, readings, and events on the college’s main campus during its third annual Subtext Literary Festival. From May 15-18, the college will host well-known authors, as well as readings by Clark students and faculty.

All events are free and open to the public. Directions and maps are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP). The DSS office is located in room 013 in Clark’s Penguin Union Building.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. Information about the Columbia Writers Series is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

Schedule

May 15, 12:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m., PUB 258B: “Possible Utopias” Writing Workshop

Arwen Spicer, an instructor in the English department, will lead this workshop, which will provide a fun opportunity to engage in guided writing and discussion about imagining bright futures for our world. Each participant will leave the workshop with a final piece of writing that outlines their vision for a better society. The workshop is free and open to the public. Although participants are encouraged to come for the full two hours, drop-ins are also welcome.

May 16, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m., PUB 161: Phoenix Unveiling

Clark College’s national award-winning art and literary journal, Phoenix, will unveil its 2016-2017 edition with readings from student authors and free copies available for guests. The 2015-2016 edition of Phoenix just earned the prize for Best Design from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs—the first time the award has gone to a two-year college in a decade.

May 17, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., PUB 258A: Clark Crossings Student and Faculty Reading

Students and faculty will read from their own work or from the work of their favorite writers. Each reading will relate to the college theme of “Transformation,” and fiction, poetry, and memoir will all be included.                                                               

May 18, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., PUB 161: Fiction writer Peter Rock

Peter Rock is a professor of creative writing at Reed College. His most recent book is SPELLS, a novel-within-photographs that is a collaboration with five photographers and concerns shadows and bodies, the living and the dead, talking animals and all manner of shape-shifting. He is also the author of the novels Klickitat, The Shelter Cycle, My Abandonment, The Bewildered, The Ambidextrist, Carnival Wolvesand This Is the Place, and a story collection, The Unsettling.

Ruth Wariner. Photo: Joni Shimabukuro

During the 2017 spring quarter installment of its renowned Columbia Writers Series, Clark College will welcome Ruth Wariner, author of the memoir The Sound of Gravel, which has gained national praise for its frank, spare description of her childhood growing up in a polygamist Mormon colony in Mexico.

Ruth Wariner is an internationally renowned speaker and author of the 2016 New York Times bestselling memoir, The Sound of Gravel. At the age of 15, Ruth escaped Colonia LeBaron, the polygamist Mormon colony where she grew up, and moved to California. She raised her three youngest sisters in California and Oregon. After earning her GED, she put herself through college and graduate school, eventually becoming a high school Spanish teacher. She remains close to her siblings and is happily married. The Sound of Gravel is her first book. People magazine called it “[h]eartbreaking, haunting, yet ultimately uplifting.” Kirkus Reviews wrote of it: “Engrossingly readable from start to finish, the book not only offers a riveting portrayal of life in a polygamist community. It also celebrates the powerful bond between siblings determined to not only survive their circumstances, but also thrive in spite of them. An unsentimental yet wholly moving memoir.” More can be found at her website, www.ruthwariner.com.

Wariner will read from and discuss her writing from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3, in room PUB 258A on Clark’s main campus. The event is free and open to the public. Directions and maps are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP) or visit room PUB 013.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. Information about the Columbia Writers Series—including the Subtext Literary Festival taking place May 15-18—is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

Award-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson began his college career at Clark. Photo: Charlotte M. Wales

During the 2017 winter quarter installment of its renowned Columbia Writers Series, Clark College will welcome back former student Mitchell S. Jackson, an award-winning author. Mitchell will read from and discuss his writing from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 17, in room PUB 258 on Clark’s main campus.

“I’m excited about Mitchell’s reading because I think it will be a great opportunity for Clark students to hear from someone who grew up in the area and attended Clark,” says English instructor Alexis Nelson, who co-directs the Columbia Writers Series. “I also think The Residue Years suits the college theme of Transformation, in addition to being a unique and powerful read.”

Raised in Portland, Mitchell Jackson is the author of The Residue Years, a novel that Mitchell has said includes many autobiographical elements. The award-winning book centers on the relationship between Champ, a young African-American man struggling to balance his ambitions with his circumstances, and his mother Grace, recently released from rehab.

Jackson began his college career at Clark in 1993, where he played basketball under then-coach David Waldow. “My time at Clark was formative,” says Jackson. “It taught me that I would have to work hard to achieve my goals, that I’d have to take responsibility for my decisions. Coach Waldow was tough on me, but he was also a figure I needed at that point in my life.”

Jackson transferred to another college after one year at Clark, eventually earning an M.A. in writing from Portland State University and an M.F.A in Creative Writing from New York University. He currently resides in New York, and serves on the faculty of both New York University and Columbia University.

The Residue Years has earned significant accolades since its release in 2013. It was praised by publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The Times of London. Jackson is the winner of a Whiting Award. His novel also won The Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First novel prize, the PEN/ Hemingway award for first fiction, and the Hurston / Wright Legacy Award. Jackson’s honors include fellowships from TED, the Lannan Foundation, the BreadLoaf Conference, and the Center for Fiction. It was also the 2015 Everybody Reads selection of the Multnomah County Library. The New York Times said in its review of the book, “Jackson’s prose has a spoken-word cadence, the language flying off the page with percussive energy … there is a warmth and a hard-won wisdom about the intersection of race and poverty in America.”

The event is free and open to the public. Directions and maps are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP). The DSS office is located in room 013 in Clark’s Penguin Union Building.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. Information about the Columbia Writers Series is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

Dana Spiotta. Photo: Jessica Marx

The Clark College Columbia Writers Series is proud to present its fall quarter installment, featuring author Dana Spiotta. This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Anna Pechanec Hall (APH) room 201 on Clark College’s main campus.

Dana Spiotta is the author of the novels Lightning Field, Eat the Document, Stone Arabia, and Innocents and Others. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, and a Rome Prize winner, and her novels have been selected as finalists for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A recent profile of Spiotta in the New York Times Magazine stated that she has “created a new kind of great American novel.”

Spiotta will read from some of her work and discuss her writing process from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Thursday, November 3. Directions and maps are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP). The DSS office is located in room 013 in Clark’s Penguin Union Building.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. Information about the Columbia Writers Series is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

Lydia Yuknavich and Debra Gwartney, inset, are both reading at Clark College as part of the Columbia Writers Series.

Clark College’s Columbia Writers Series will host two outstanding writers during winter quarter, both of whom are known for their beautifully written but brutal memoirs—one a recollection of an adolescence wracked with alienation and abuse, the other a wrenching account of a mother losing her own daughters to drugs and the streets.

Lidia Yuknavitch and Debra Gwartney will be reading from and discussing their work at two separate events in February. These events, which are free and open to the public, will be held on Clark’s main campus.

Read more about these two authors and their appearances at Clark:

Debra Gwartney
February 17, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Penguin Union Building, Room 258C

Debra Gwartney is the author of Live Through This: A Mother’s Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love, a memoir published in 2009 and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book was also a finalist in 2009 for the National Books for a Better Life Award and the Oregon Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. Kirkus Reviews decribed it as “[a]n achingly beautiful chronicle of unfathomable sorrow, flickering hope and quiet redemption.”

Gwartney is also co-editor, along with her husband Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She has published essays in many magazines, newspapers, and literary journals, including American Scholar, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Salon, Tampa Review, Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, The New York Times (“Modern Love” column), and others.

Gwartney is a recipient of fellowships from The Writer’s Center, located in Bethesda, Maryland, the American Antiquarian Society, Portland’s Literary Arts, The Oregon Arts Commission, The Wurlitzer Foundation of Taos, New Mexico, and Hedgebrook Writers Colony. In 2000, she was a scholarship winner for the Breadloaf Writers Conference. She is currently a member of the nonfiction faculty for Pacific University’s MFA in Writing program.

Lidia Yuknavitch
February 23,  11:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. 
Penguin Union Building, Room 258A&B

Lidia Yuknavitch is the National Bestselling author of the novels The Small Backs of Children and Dora: A Headcase; the memoir The Chronology of Water; as well as three books of short fictions – Her Other Mouths, Liberty’s Excess, and Real to Reel; and a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories of Violence.

The Los Angeles Review of Books wrote of The Chronology of Water, “Yuknavitch’s fragmentary ‘anti-memoir’ relates a history filled in equal parts with violence and aesthetic discovery, sexual exploration and personal chaos. The Chronology of Water is striking for its emotional bareness, but also for its lapidary prose; each sentence is a beautiful gem, diamond-hard and precise.”

Yuknavitch’s writing has appeared in publications including Guernica Magazine, Ms., The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Another Chicago Magazine, The Sun, Exquisite Corpse, TANK, and in the anthologies Life As We Show It (City Lights), Wreckage of Reason (Spuytin Duyvil), Forms at War (FC2), Feminaissance (Les Figues Press), and Representing Bisexualities (SUNY), as well as online at The Rumpus.

She is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award – Reader’s Choice, a PNBA award, and was a finalist for the 2012 Pen Center creative nonfiction award. She writes, teaches and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Natalie Diaz. Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Angels don’t come to the reservation.

Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.

Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—

death. And death

eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel

fly through this valley ever.

This year’s Columbia Writers Series kicks off with Natalie Diaz, the award-winning author of When My Brother Was an Aztec, a book of poetry which New York Times reviewer Eric McHenry described as an “ambitious … beautiful book.” Diaz will be reading from her book at 1 p.m. on November 10 in PUB 161 on Clark’s main campus. This event is free and open to the public.

Diaz’s honors and awards include the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from Bread Loaf, the Narrative Poetry Prize, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

Natalie Diaz was born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Old Dominion University, where she received a full athletic scholarship. Diaz played professional basketball in Europe and Asia before returning to Old Dominion to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Diaz now lives in Mohave Valley, Arizona, where she works with the last speakers of Mojave and directs a language revitalization program. In a PBS interview, she spoke of the connection between writing and experience: “For me writing is kind of a way for me to explore why I want things and why I’m afraid of things and why I worry about things. And for me, all of those things represent a kind of hunger that comes with being raised in a place like this.”

Directions and maps to Clark are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at or (VP). The DSS office is located in room 013 in Clark’s Penguin Union Building.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. Information about the Columbia Writers Series is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

Students at the 2014 Phoenix unveiling, part of the 2014 Subtext literary festival, unwrap the new issue. This year, Subtext has expanded to a full week of events.

This year, the Clark College Columbia Writers Series is expanding its popular Subtext literary festival to offer a full week of writers, readings, and events on the college’s main campus. From May 18 – 22, the college will host internationally celebrated authors, as well as readings by Clark students, faculty, and staff. (See full schedule below.)

“It has always been our goal to create a true festival feeling, with multiple events throughout the week,” said Columbia Writers Series Co-Director and English faculty member Alexis Nelson. “This is the festival’s third year, and we’ve tried to expand it bit by bit each year. Last year we were able to bring Pulitzer Prize-nominated novelist Karen Russell for the main event. This year, we want to build on that excitement with more events, more voices, more diversity. I hope in time that Subtext will be something that our whole community, both within and without the college, looks forward to each year.”

All events are free and open to the public. Directions and maps are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP). The DSS office is located in room 013 in Clark’s Penguin Union Building.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. Information about the Columbia Writers Series is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

Schedule

May 18

10 a.m. – noon, PUB 161: Artists and Authors panel: “The Craft of Comics”

A panel of successful writers for comic books discuss the challenges and joys of their field.

May 19

11 a.m. – noon, PUB 258C: Reading: fiction writer Nam Le

Born in Vietnam and raised in Australia, Nam Le’s first book, The Boat, earned recognition that includes the Pushcart Prize, the Melbourne Prize for Literature, the best debut of 2008 by both New York Magazine and The Australian Book Review, and a New York Times notable book. It has been translated into 14 languages. Le is the fiction editor of the Harvard Review.

May 20

11 a.m. – noon, PUB 258B: Reading: poet Mary Szybist

Mary Szybist is most recently the author of Incarnadine, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

May 21

3 p.m. – 4 p.m., PUB 161: Phoenix release party

Clark College’s national award-winning art and literary journal, Phoenix, will unveil its 2014-2015 edition with readings from student authors and free copies available for guests.

5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m., PUB161: Talk by writer Karen Karbo and English Department awards ceremony

Karen Karbo is the author of four New York Times Notable Books, including her first novel, Trespassers Welcome Here, as well as her memoir about her father’s last year of life, The Stuff of Life. She is well known for her international best-selling Kick Ass Women series, which examines the lives of iconic 20th century women. In addition, she writes the Minerva Clark mystery series for children.

May 22

Noon – 1 p.m., PUB 258C: “Clark Crossings,” a student and faculty reading.

This year’s theme is “Transport.”

Award-winning author Jess Walter reads at the 2015 winter quarter installment of Clark College’s Columbia Writers Series.

During the 2015 winter quarter installment of its renowned Columbia Writers Series, Clark College will welcome best-selling writer Jess Walter, whose award-winning work was recently deemed “captivating” by the New York Times and “bad-ass” by Esquire magazine.

A former National Book Award finalist and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Jess Walter is the author of six novels, one book of short stories, and one nonfiction book. His 2012 novel, Beautiful Ruins, was both a No. 1 New York Times Bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of 2012, as well as Esquire‘s Book of the Year and NPR Fresh Air’s Novel of the Year. His 2009 novel, The Financial Lives of the Poets was Time magazine’s No. 2 Novel of the Year. His most recent book, the 2013 collection of short stories called We Live in Water, was described by the Seattle Times as “[s]tories that twist and plumb, delivering unexpected laughs while playing with what it is we think we know … Walter has emerged as one of the country’s most dazzling novelists … so freakishly, fiendishly good, it isn’t fair.”

Walter’s work has been translated into 30 languages, and his essays, short fiction, criticism and journalism have been widely published, in Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Harper’s, Esquire, McSweeney’s, Byliner, Playboy, ESPN the Magazine, Details and many others. He lives with his wife Anne and children, Brooklyn, Ava and Alec in his childhood home of Spokane, Washington.

Walter will read from some of his works and discuss his writing process from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 11, in Foster Auditorium on Clark’s main campus. The event is free and open to the public. Directions and maps are available online. Individuals who need accommodation due to a disability in order to fully participate in this event should contact Clark College’s Disability Support Services (DSS) Office at 360-992-2314 or 360-991-0901 (VP). The DSS office is located in room 013 in Clark’s Penguin Union Building.

The Columbia Writers Series was launched at Clark College in 1988, bringing local, national and international authors to the college and the region. Information about the Columbia Writers Series is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

Clark College will host award-winning authors Benjamin Percy and Wells Tower in two separate installments of the college’s renowned Columbia Writers Series. Percy will read from his work and discuss his writing process on October 21; Tower, on November 3.

This is the first time the series will feature two separate events with different authors during the same quarter. “We’ve been really fortunate in that the Associated Students of Clark College have supported our efforts to expand this series,” says CWS co-director Alexis Nelson, who teaches English at Clark. “Bringing two authors to campus on two different days (and at different times of day) will hopefully allow us to reach a wider audience. I know Clark students can have packed class schedules and often have work and family obligations on top of that, so this gives them more than just one chance to attend a reading this term.”

As writers, Percy and Tower have some things in common. Both explore themes of the natural world, violence, fathers and sons, and men struggling with failure and redemption. Both have successful careers in magazine writing as well as in fiction (Percy is a contributing editor at Esquire, while Tower is a contributor to GQ). Each has two Pushcart Prizes and one Plimpton to his name.

But each writer has a very different voice and style. Tower is known for his depictions of gritty American realism; Percy is perhaps best-known for his most recent novel, Red Moon, which author John Irving called a “literary novel about lycanthropes [werewolves]” and which earned praise on Twitter from none other than horror great Stephen King himself.

“Both Percy and Tower are writing fun, energetic stuff and working in multiple genres,” says Nelson. “Percy is a great crossover author, someone who writes literary fiction yet can also attract a wider audience of readers interested in horror, fantasy, or suspense. And I love Tower’s work for how funny and serious it can be at the same time, and for his exuberant and original use of language.”

Benjamin Percy will read at 12:30 p.m. on October 21 in PUB 258C. Wells Tower will read at 2 p.m. on November 3, also in PUB 258C. Both events are free and open to the public.

About Benjamin Percy

Benjamin Percy. Photo by Jennifer May.

Benjamin Percy is the author of two novels, Red Moon, an IndieNext pick and Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and The Wilding, winner of the Society of Midland Authors Award for Fiction; as well as two books of stories, Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk. Percy is currently adapting Red Moon as a series for FOX TV with Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind, I am Legend, Winter’s Tale) and The Wilding as a film with director Tanya Wexler (Hysteria). Percy’s next novel, The Dead Lands, a post-apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga, is forthcoming in April 2015 with Grand Central. He also has a craft book, Thrill Me, due out by Graywolf Press in 2016.

His fiction and nonfiction have been read on National Public Radio; performed at Symphony Space; and published by Esquire, GQ, Time, Men’s Journal, Outside, the Paris Review, Tin House, Chicago Tribune, Orion, The Wall Street Journal, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and many other magazines and journals. His honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Whiting Award, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics. He writes for DC Comics, and his story “Refresh, Refresh” was adapted into a screenplay by filmmaker James Ponsoldt and a graphic novel by Eisner-nominated artist Danica Novgorodoff.

About Wells Tower

Wells Tower. Photo courtesy of the author.

Wells Tower is the author of the short story collection Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. His short stories and journalism have appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, The Washington Post Magazine, and elsewhere. He received two Pushcart Prizes and the Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review. His magazine journalism has been shortlisted for the National Magazine Awards. He divides his time between Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Brooklyn, New York.