Ronald Turco

Ronald Turco, M.D., is a widely recognized psychiatrist, author and wilderness enthusiast who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of five books whose subjects range from explorations of psychiatric issues to artistic profiles and mystery novels. His book, Walk East on Burnside, is a mystery novel set in the Pacific Northwest. A well-known contributor who has been instrumental in clearing some high profile cases, Ron draws on a lifetime of experiences to weave a haunting tale of crime and criminals

Ron’s second book, The Architecture of Creativity–-Profiles Behind The Mask, uses the same methods of psychoanalysis to define the personalities of eight famous artists based on their artwork.

Closely Watched Shadows is a true crime murder mystery and a personal account of what it took to develop the psychological profile that helped convict Westley Dodd of the murders of three young boys from Washington state. This book penetrates the mind of a pedophile and reveals the harrowing revulsion that drives the hunter, a sensitive man, to examine the dark corners of his soul. It describes Ron’s personal struggle to re-establish his sense of goodness and innocence.

Ron Turco received a BA in Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University and his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College where he received an award for his thesis on dream interpretation. He did his psychiatric training at the University of North Carolina. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, President of the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, and Associate Clinical Professor at the Oregon Health Sciences University. He received the Outstanding Physician Award from the American Medical Association in 1970 and the Milton Erickson Award of Scientific Excellence by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis in 1971.

Ron Turco is a consultant psychiatrist practicing in Portland, Oregon, with an emphasis on psychotherapy and the minimal use of medications. He is also Certified in Wilderness Life Support, and is an avid horseback rider. Find out more information about Ron and his books at http://www.ronaldturco.com/index.htm.

The Memory Place

THE MEMORY PLACE — "Hilarious, Touching, Revealing" — was written by and stars a six-member cast: SUSAN BANYAS, LEANNE GRABEL, STEVE SANDER, WENDY WESTERWELLE, GREG BIELEMEIER, AND ELIZABETH TSCHALAER.

What does it mean to remember? The ancient cartographers found that to represent the world in perspective, they had to draw it in the shape of a heart. I began to notice in working with people on the poetry of their stories that landscape shaped memory in particular ways, and in this sense, shaped the character of the person remembering. Like the land itself, autobiography is a living, breathing, moving, changing dance.

-- writes Susan Banyas, co-founder of Dreams Wells Studio and the eclectic theatre, SO&SO&SO&SO, Inc., in Portland.

The Nye Beach Writers’ Series welcomes the six performers in "THE MEMORY PLACE," a choreographed literary performance. The show is a combination of f storytelling, dance, comedy, song and drama performed in Portland this past winter to sold-out audiences.

THE MEMORY PLACE layers film, dance and monologue into 10 scenes of memories. Normally, the Nye Beach Writers’ Series hosts just two writers each month, but in this Special Performance, we are privileged to experience a collaborative foray into words and linked pieces expressing perception and memory where love and food and landscape play prominent roles. The result is a tight and meaningful wander through deep conceptual waters presented in a mix of storytelling, dance, comedy, song and drama.

Susan Banyas, a writer and the director of Dreams Well Studio, spent the past several years developing a method for helping performers turn their own personal histories into performing material. Her title piece, which begins the show, incorporates dance into two love stories evoking 1940s San Francisco.

Elizabeth Tschalaer, a movement artist, performs her bilingual passage from Switzerland to Portland in "Between Places," a haunting and sparse memory drama.

Gregg Bielemeier, dancer and choreographer, recalls a Catholic holy day of his childhood in the dance monologue "Pilgrimage to Crooked Finger," which is as much about the physical images of a story as it is about the story itself. He also provides smooth dance cameos with his signature quirkiness and intuitive awareness of how movement reads on the stage.

Wendy Westerwelle, master storyteller, shines like a diva, casually fanning herself as she recounts the flamboyant characters of Storefront Theatre’s glory days and of her childhood summers at a Jewish resort community.

Steve Sander reflects on discovering the world of sensuality through literature in "The Burrough of Queens," as he recounts his first experiences of erotic literature in a tale woven around family life.

Leanne Grabel shows a polished craft in the beat-poetry saga "The Family That Fate Ate" and paints her landscape — 1950s Stockton, California -- in hilarious detail as she searches for a Bohemia paradise.

Jeff Taylor

JEFF TAYLOR lives in a haunted valley somewhere in the Coast Range and writes columns for This Old House magazine, Harrowsmith Country Life, and other journals. He has been a contributing editor of New Age Journal and Mother Earth News. His first book, Tools of the Trade, was published in 1996. He often speaks on his favorite subject: the need for more humor in a pernicious, unfriendly, perilous, and ugly time in human history, called NOW.

Jeff will read from the title story of his forthcoming book, The Flight of the Vampire Quade, which is based on his experience as a hospice volunteer.