Lawson Fusao Inada

Lawson Inada is a professor of writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland. His most recent books of poetry are Legends From Camp and Drawing The Line. He is also the editor of a new collection of writing Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience.

Lawson is a Sansei (a U.S.-born grandchild of Japanese immigrants to America). He was born in Fresno, California in 1938. His paternal grandparents were sharecroppers but Inada’s father became a dentist. Inada’s maternal grandfather started the Fresno Fish Store. In May 1942, his family joined over a hundred thousand other Japanese-Americans in camps where they were confined for the duration of World War II. He was first incarcerated at the Fresno County Fairgrounds, then moved to a Concentration Camp in Arkansas and finally interred at a camp in Colorado. After the war, Lawson joined the Black and Chicano set, played bass and followed the jazz of Miles Davis, Coltrane, and Billy Holiday. When he returned to Fresno State he began his studies with Phil Levine who introduced him to writing.

Lawson was the first Asian-American to publish a collection of poems with a major New York publishing house -- Before the War published by William Morrow. He has read his works at the White House and been hailed as "a poet-musician in the tradition of Walt Whitman." He won the Oregon Governor’s Arts Award in 1997 and received two National Endowment of the Arts Poetry Fellowships and is considered by many to be the father of Asian-American literature.

His work has been the subject of a documentary, What It Means to Be Free: A Video about Poetry and Japanese-American Internment, and an award-winning animated film, Legends from Camp made in collaboration with his son, artist Miles Inada.

Lawson Fusao Inada was named Oregon's Poet Laureate in 2006.

For more information http://www.oregonpoetlaureate.org/

Paulann Peterson

Paulann Petersen’s work has appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, Willow Springs, Calyx, and the Internet’s Poetry Daily.

A collection of her poems, The Wild Awake, was published by Confluence Press in 2002; Quiet Lion Press published Blood-Silk, a volume of her poems about Turkey, in 2004; and a third collection, A Bride of Narrow Escape, has been released from Cloudbank Books. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford.

Paulann Peterson was awarded Literary Arts' Stewart H. Holbrook Award, recognizing her "significant contributions that have enriched Oregon's literary community" ­ namely organizing the William Stafford Birthday Readings all over Oregon and the U.S. Her recent book of poetry A Bride of Narrow Escape was nominated for an Oregon Book Award.

David Lee

In the beginning, there were no writers, because there was no written language. But there were poets and poetry, which began with a simple, purposeful objective: to record local history and pass it on orally in such a memorable, entertaining way that future generations could hear and learn from past tragic and foolish events so that they might have some advance warning about committing similar miserable mistakes during their own lives. From that ancient, oral, poetic tradition evolved the thoughts and judgments that have resulted in all religion, philosophy, education and government.

This great narrative tradition lives on in the work of our first guest, author of twelve books and winner of the 1995 Western States Book Award, the Plains States Booksellers Award of 1996, and a Critics Choice Award. He has worn many hats on his journey to being named one of Utah's top twelve writers by the Utah Endowment for the Humanities and the Utah Governor's Award for lifetime achievement in the arts, including those of decorated soldier, boxer, semi-pro ball-player, hog farmer, professor of literature and seminarian.

But he didn't become the head of the language and literature department at Southern Utah University or the celebrated poet that he is by churning out the elitist, obfuscated and unmemorable drivel that often passes for poetry these days, which has largely served to drive modern readers away from honest poetry.

In an interview, he comments upon his narrative impulse: I'm really out of love, disenfranchised with the modern lyric poem or the 'language poem' that has no spine or character to it. Such poems are simply lumps of words that may or may not even connect. I want to get back to the original traditions of what poetry and art are—storytelling. I love stories, but I'm not a good storyteller. I have to think about it, brood, steal, lie, to create a story. As for sitting around the campfire, I'm the quietest person there. That's why I chose writing as my outlet."

The only line from that quote I'd have to dismiss outright is the one about our guest not being a good storyteller. But judge for yourself.

For more information http://www.entradainstitute.org/about_david_lee.htm
and http://www.herondance.org/David-Lee-Poetry-W191C49.aspx

photo by Carla Perry

Gina Ochsner

Have you ever been somewhere, a room in your house perhaps, some normally non-spooky locale where you suddenly feel an invisible presence, as if someone or something was treating you to a supernatural visit? Perhaps you thought it was from watching too many episodes of Crossing Over, or overload from that afternoon with the flu you spent watching old reruns of Dark Shadows. But hey, maybe it's simply a friend or enemy or family member or former resident recently passed on who's back for a little visit. Perhaps they return to resolve a few old issues, or from reluctance to take up permanent quarters in the great hereafter, or curiosity, or regret, or a simple unwillingness to leave the realm of the living.

Gina Ochsner writes about the dead. In beautifully wrought prose she suggests that if the dead themselves may be reluctant to leave this incarnation of unfinished business, it may be in part because the living are also unwilling to let them go. She also implies that perhaps these clumsy shades are reflections of us all as we move through the more mundane moments of our lives, unconscious and oblivious to the exciting possibilities of existence.

Eleven metaphorical tales of troubled spirits haunt the pages of The Necessary Grace to Fall, a collection that won the 2002 Oregon Book Award for Fiction and the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction and publication in 2002 by the University of Georgia Press.

Gina is a graduate of George Fox University where she teaches part-time. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review and Nimrod, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Raymond Carver Award from Humboldt State, and the Katherine Ann Porter Award.

For more information http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/ochsner/

Photo by Carla Perry

Andres Berger-Kiss

Featured on September 19, 1997, September 18, 1999 and January 21, 2006

Andrés Berger-Kiss was born in Hungary to a man and woman who were both actors. He spent his early childhood in Holland but was raised and educated in Colombia, South America where his family fled to escape the methodical extermination of Jews. He moved to New York for undergraduate studies, earned his Masters in psychology from Indiana, then was awarded a doctorate in psychology at the University of Missouri. From there, he worked as a clinical psychologist, including two years at the Menninger Clinic, and taught psychology at the university level. Andres became chief psychologist and director of Mental Health Education for the state of Oregon but a fifteen years ago he decided to devote himself full-time to his writing.

Andrés Berger-Kiss has written over thirty publications and is the author of Children of the Dawn, published by ECOE Ediciones in Bogata, Columbia. His stories, "The Beggars, Treasure Hunters" and "Letters to my Lover" appeared in the United States. His novel, Don Alejandro, written in Spanish, was published in 1996. His most recent book is the bilingual collection of poems called Voices from the Earth.

He is co-author of the 1994 film script for "The Sharpener" based on his prize-winning short story. Other stories have been published in Best Latino Short Stories of the Decade published by the University of Houston, and Best International Short Stories, published by Europa Press in Budapest. Planeta Editors in Colombia will soon publish the Spanish version of Tomorrow’s Promise.

Photo by Carla Perry

Gibson & Healy

DOBBY GIBSON and STEVE HEALY

Two award-winning Minnesota poets on tour.

Dobby Gibson's poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Fence, Iowa Review, New England Review, and Conduit, among other publications. He is the author of Polar, published by Alice James Books in 2005, which won the 2004 Beatrice Hawley Award. He is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the McKnight Foundation. He has also won an Associated Writing Programs Intro Journals Award, and his creative writing has been featured on Minnesota Public Radio's weekly arts broadcast, Word of Mouth. He lives in Minneapolis on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

Steve Healey is the author of the poetry collection, Earthling, published by Coffee House Press in 2004. Earthling, examines the pitfall, pratfalls and particular beauty of being an Earthling, that is, human in a culture of alienation and contradiction. It both celebrates and critiques our brave new hypermodern world. Healey teaches writing to prisoners in several Minnesota Correctional Facilities and is Associate Editor of Conduit Magazine. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including American Poetry Review, Fence, jubilat, Open City, and Verse. Born in Washington, D.C., he now lives in Minneapolis, also on the west bank of the Mississippi River.


http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/polar.html
http://www.coffeehousepress.com/earthling.asp


photo of Dobby Gibson by George Byron Griffiths
photo of Steve Healey by Mark Wojahn

John Amen

John Amen's debut poetry collection, Christening the Dancer, was released by Uccelli Press in 2003 and nominated for various awards, including the Kate Tufts Award, the Lenore Marshall Award, and the Brockman-Campbell Prize. His second collection, More of Me Disappears, was released in September 2005 by Cross-Cultural Communications. His poetry and fiction have been published in numerous magazines and journals, and he was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His first solo recording, All I'll Never Need, was released by Cool Midget Records in 2005. His second CD, Ridiculous Empire, was released in Spring 2007.

Amen was featured in the 2007 Poet’s Market. He is also an artist, working primarily with acrylics on canvas. Amen travels widely giving readings, doing musical performances, and conducting workshops. He founded and continues to edit the award-winning literary bimonthly, The Pedestal Magazine.

To learn morea bout John, visit his website at www.johnamen.com

Lucius Shepard

Lucius Shepard was born in August of 1947 in Lynchburg, Virginia, and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. He escaped home at the age of fifteen and began a lifetime of wandering. His first adventure was to Ireland aboard a freighter followed by several years in Europe, North Africa, and Asia, working in a cigarette factory in Germany, in the black market of a Cairo bazaar, as a night club bouncer in Spain, and in numerous other countries at numerous other occupations. On returning to the United States, Shepard entered the University of North Carolina. He dropped out several times and traveled to Spain, Southeast Asia (at a time when tourism there was generally discouraged), and South and Central America. He says he ended his academic career as a tenth-semester sophomore with a heightened political sensibility, a fairly extensive knowledge of Latin American culture and some pleasant memories.

Lucius says that while on the road to California, his car broke down in Detroit so he joined a band there and passed the better part of the 1970s playing rock and roll in the Midwest. Then (I know I'm making this seem simpler than it was), in 1980 Lucius attended the Clarion Writers' Workshop at Michigan State University and began his writing career. He sold his first story, "Black Coral," in 1981 to New Dimensions.

So far Lucius has written eighteen novels (I may have missed some here or there), seven short story collections, and one non-fiction book,"Sports and Music." In the past year alone, he has published A Handbook of American Prayer, Liar's House, Viator, Trujillo, Two Trains Running, Colonel Rutherford's Colt, Floater, and Louisiana Breakdown. Some of those books are available for at the back table courtesy of Black Swan Bookstore.

Lucius received the John W. Campbell Best New Author award in 1985, the Nebula Best Novella, World Fantasy Best Collection, and Hugo Best Novella awards. His fiction, journalism and commentary appear frequently in Playboy, Spin, Omni, Asimov's Fantasy and Science Fiction, and online.

Far from being a writer of mere genre-based, escapist adventure, Lucius uses the fantastic in his stories to ramp up cultural perspectives and psychological relationships.

Lucius lives in Vancouver, WA. His website is: www.lucius-shepard.com .

Please welcome.... Lucius Shepard!

Dick Bakken

Dick Bakken began performing his poetry without a manuscript in 1972 and within a year was collaborating with dancers at innovative performance and spoken word poetry events. From 1975 to 1980 he crisscrossed the country giving readings and performances until, during a tour of the Southwest, he settled in Bisbee, Arizona where he still lives. Dick Bakken was the director of Heart of Carlos Spoken Arts, Jump the Border! and the Bisbee Poetry Festival. He was also poetry editor at The Bisbee News.

Dick Bakken's poetry has been published in over 200 periodicals and anthologies, eight books, on two audio cassettes, and two video cassettes. He has won numerous awards and grants, and continues to tour, working with musicians, mimes, painters, sculptors, photographers, and filmmakers.

Dick Bakken is one of the few poets in America whose reputation, a substantial one, rests almost solely on his public readings which are lyrical, dramatic, liturgical and celebratory all at once.

-- wrote Christopher Howell, owner of Lynx House Press.

Dick is on a two-month tour of the Pacific Northwest. His stop in Newport is his only appearance on Oregon's coast

Leonard Cirino

Leonard Cirino is a prolific, opinionated, outspoken poet and essayist with twenty-four poetry books and chapbooks produced by a dozen publishers since 1987. He has devoted over three decades of his life to reading, writing, editing and publishing poetry. His book, The Terrible Wilderness of Self, published by Cedar Hill Publications, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1998. He was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize in 2003.

He is the past editor of Pygmy Forest Press and Semi-Dwarf Review. His poems and essays about literature are widely published on Internet sites and in literary journals and anthologies.

His two most recent books are Poems of the Royal Concubine Li Xi, which won Lummox of the Year Award in 2002, and Everything Is Small From a Distance, published by Pygmy Forest Press in 2004. His books, chapbooks and broadsides are available for sale at the back table.

My poems are the way I express myself spiritually, I go deep into the dark side and the unconscious. I believe in the power of rituals, chanting, contemplation and prayer. I consider myself a mystical anarchist.

-- Leonard Cirino

Please welcome to Newport, Leonard Cirino