The Clark College Columbia Writers Series is offering a week of writers, readings, and events on the college’s main campus during its fourth annual Subtext Literary Festival. On May 14-17, the college will host well-known authors, as well as readings and events by Clark students and faculty. (See full schedule below.)

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

Monday, May 14

Poetry-To-Go Event
11 a.m. – 12 p.m. in the Cannell Library

In the tradition of poet Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems, Clark College writing professors will set up vintage typewriters and type personalized poems for passersby on their lunch hour in Cannell Library. Stop by for a hot-off-the-press poem, or if you’re feeling inspired, type a poem yourself.

Columbia Writers Series presents Roger Reeves
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., PUB 258 A-B:

Roger Reeves’s poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Best American Poetry, and Tin House. He was awarded a 2015 Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, and a 2013 NEA Fellowship. His first book, King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), won the Larry Levis Reading Prize from Virginia Commonwealth University, the Zacharis Prize from Ploughshares, and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award. He is an Associate Professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin.

Tuesday, May 15

Conversation with novelist Marie Bostwick
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., LIB 101

[NOTE: Space is limited for this event. Please register in advance by emailing anelson@clark.edu.] Marie Bostwick is a USA Today and New York Times listed bestselling author of uplifting historical and women’s fiction, including the popular Cobbled Court Quilt and Too Much, Texas series of books. She has been a featured speaker at the Paducah Quilt Festival and the Houston International Quilt Festival and has given keynote addresses at both the Florida Writers Association and La Jolla Writers conferences.

Phoenix unveiling
3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., PUB 150

Clark College’s national award-winning art and literary journal, Phoenix, will unveil its 2017-2018 edition with readings from student authors and free copies available for guests. Additionally, Lacy Davis, writer of the graphic memoir Ink in Water, will share her work. An interview of Davis by a Phoenix staffer appears in this year’s journal.

Wednesday, May 16                                                                            

Lecture by Leni Zumas and writing awards ceremony
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., PUB 161

Leni Zumas’ novel Red Clocks, published in January 2018, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Publishers Weekly “Top 10 Literary Fiction” pick. She is also the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator and the novel The Listeners, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Originally from Washington, D.C., Zumas now lives in Oregon and teaches in the BFA and MFA programs at Portland State University.

Thursday, May 17

Clark Crossings (student and faculty reading)
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., PUB 258A:

Clark College students, faculty, and staff will read original essays, fiction, and poetry at this annual event. This year’s theme is “time.”

Columbia Writers Series presents Kate Berube
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., PUB 258 A-B

Kate Berube (Bear uh bee) is a children’s book author and illustrator. Her book The Summer Nick Taught his Cats to Read was named the Best Picture Book of 2016 by both the Chicago Public Library and the School Library Journal, while her book Hannah and Sugar earned the Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature from Literary Arts Oregon and was shortlisted for the Klaus Flugge Prize.

All events are free and open to the public, though pre-registration is required for the Marie Bostwick event. Directions and maps are available online at www.clark.edu/maps. 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.

Cheston Knapp. Photo: Alexis Knapp

The Clark College Columbia Writers Series continues its 2017-2018 season with Cheston Knapp, managing editor of the award-winning literary magazine Tin House. He will discuss his work and read from his new collection of essays, Up Up, Down Down.

This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Thursday, February 15, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. in Penguin Union Building (PUB) room 258A-B on Clark College’s main campus.

Cheston Knapp is managing editor of Tin House, a literary magazine based in Portland, Oregon. He graduated with a degree in English from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He is the recipient of a 2015 Oregon Literary Fellowship from Literary Arts and the executive director of the Tin House Summer Writers’ Workshop. His work has appeared in Tin House and One Story. Up Up, Down Down is his first book. It has received critical praise from the literary world, including this evaluation by Joshua Ferris, author of And Then We Came to the End: “Offering up a steady supply of perfectly chosen words in precision-guided sentences, Cheston Knapp will either break your heart or jolt your spine, and quite possibly bring some of us back to life.”

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 continues with:

• 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.

Author Aimee Bender. Photo: Mike Glier/USC Dornlife

Clark College welcomes award-winning novelist Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and The Color Master, as part of the college’s Columbia Writers Series.

Bender will read from and discuss her writing from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Monday, October 30, in the Penguin Union Building (PUB) room 258 on Clark’s main campus.

Aimee Bender is the author of five books:The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998), which was a NY Times Notable Book; An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000), which was a Los Angeles Times pick of the year; Willful Creatures(2005) which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year; The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (2010), which won the SCIBA award for best fiction and an Alex Award; and The Color Master, a New York Times Notable book for 2013. Her books have been translated into 16 languages.

Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and more. It also has been heard on PRI’s “This American Life”and “Selected Shorts.”

She lives in Los Angeles with her family and teaches creative writing at USC.

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 is available at www.clark.edu/cc/cws.

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.

Student Jorin Copeland turns to his artwork featured in the 2017 Phoenix.

On May 16, Clark College’s award-winning art and literary journal, Phoenix, unveiled its 2017 edition at a reception in PUB 161. Taking inspiration from the Clark community, the Phoenix staff adopted the collegewide theme of Transformation for the new journal. Through more than 70 works of poetry, fiction, interviews, photography, paintings, and more, contributors’ pieces explore moments of change and growth.

At the reception, Clark student and Phoenix managing editor Megan Robb spoke of the personal challenges she has faced and how it inspired her to write a poem for the journal titled “Inner Reflection.”

“We have the choice to transform ourselves repeatedly, shedding the dark, hurtful pieces of our soul and regaining some beauty. This is what I was doing when I wrote this piece,” Robb said. “I had decided it was time to stop wallowing in the unfamiliarity I felt with myself and begin readying myself for change, for regeneration, a personal transformation that brought me to the doors of this college.”

Beyond the personal, transformation is a natural part of creating Phoenix, says fiction editor Ashlee Nelson. She spoke at the reception about the unique perspectives that each year’s students brings to the publication and the possibilities that arise when different creative minds collaborate.

“Whatever next year’s edition of Phoenix brings, it will be its own,” said Nelson. “It will represent Clark’s creative student body and their interests. It will be Clark at a moment in time before it transforms again, as students become alumni, and community members become students. There is something special about Phoenix in this way.”

The staff of the 2017 Phoenix. Faculty co-advisor Liz Donley (black jacket) stands in the center.

The Clark community is not the only one that recognizes how special Phoenix is—the journal recently won the National Program Directors’ Prize for design for undergraduate literary magazines by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP).

Each year, AWP honors two national undergraduate journals with a content and a design award, and past winners have included journals from Columbia University, The New School, Kansas City Art Institute, University of Washington, and other prestigious institutions. This is the first time in a decade that the award has gone to a two-year college.

The judge for this year’s award, Lisa Noble, Creative Services Manager of Edelman Financial Services, wrote, “From cover to cover Phoenix stands out as an exemplary publication in design, quality, and concept . . . The publishers of Phoenix should feel very proud of what they’ve created. It is an important collaboration that succeeds in showcasing the diversity of talented individuals who chose Clark College to develop their craft.”

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley. To see more photos from the event, visit our Flickr album.

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.

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.

My name is Lily Hart, and I am a student at Clark College. I’m also the Managing Editor of Phoenix and was Assistant Literary Editor last year. Phoenix is Clark College’s award-winning literary and art journal. Run by student editors and faculty advisers, it publishes work from Clark College students, faculty and alumni—mostly students. We publish in print and online, and accept a wide array of work including fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, ceramics, design work, music, and dramatic recitals. You can go online at clarkphoenix.com to get a full list. This year, Phoenix is proud to introduce a new category: graphic novels.

I am hoping that this post will give you insight into the behind-the-scenes process of Phoenix—and will maybe prompt you to submit something to the journal yourself!

Right now, the 2016 Phoenix is just finishing up its pre-production phase. Here are a couple little tidbits about the early stages that many people aren’t aware of. Clark offers a three-credit class in the fall – Intro to Literary Publication. In this class, students work on marketing and promotions; interview plans and strategies; and editing 101. If you are curious about some of the work done in the class, take a look at the promotional posters going up around campus, as well as a slide in the Gaiser Student Center: We created all of those in our class, and it’s fun to be able to see our “homework” on display all over campus. We have a class of 16 students, and everyone is enthusiastic about the work we’ve started.

One of my classmates in Intro to Literary Publication, Rowan Walters, is Phoenix’s Poetry Editor. “Starting in the class and progressing to the staff has made me feel valuable, both to the campus of a school I love as well as to society in general,” she says.

I would definitely agree with this. For me, one of the other highlights of being involved is getting to know a lot of amazing people with similar interests. It’s a nice community feel.

You also get real-world experience in being an editor, gaining organization skills and managing projects, which are all perfect skills for today’s job market. As Jennie Avens, our Fine Arts editor from 2015 and again staff for 2016, says, “Working with this team was a great practical experience that gave me a sneak peek of what to expect if I get into publishing after graduation.” Whether a student’s career goals lie in editing and the arts, or in something completely different, the skills gained from being on Phoenix gives are always applicable.

Another thing which I’m really excited about is the awards Phoenix has won. In 2014, the journal won first place in the American Scholastic Press literary and art journal competition, and individual student work won as well. Last year, (when I was involved, so this is super exciting!) it won the 2015 Washington Community College Humanities Association’s Large Budget Literary/Arts Magazine of the Year, and the Community College Humanities Association award for first place Literary Journal. This is a huge deal for us because we have never won that award before.

Remember, submissions are open to the entire college community–students, faculty, staff and alumni–and the submission deadlines are January 9 for literature, January 19 for art, and February 29 for video. Visit clarkphoenix.com to find out more about how to submit your work. We hope to see your submissions!

This article was contributed by Clark student Lily Hart.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley