Derrick Jensen

Do you believe this culture is going to undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living? If you don't, and you care -- what do you do? asks Derrick Jensen.

Writers On The Edge presents an illuminating evening with writer, lecturer, social scientist, and grassroots environmentalist Derrick Jensen at the next Nye Beach Writers' Series event, Saturday July 19. The event begins at 7 p.m. at the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center, Visitor's Center Auditorium, located at 2020 SE Marine Science Drive in the South Beach area of Newport. Admission is $10 at the door; no advance sales. Students admitted free.

Jensen's writings explore the nature of balanced ecological sustainability -- beyond which type of light bulb people buy or whether they recycle their plastic water bottles. True sustainability, he says, resides in creating a social and economic system that exists in balance with the surrounding ecosystem. "The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system."

Jensen's two-volume non-fiction work Endgame, earned him the title of 2006 Person of the Year, an honor presented by Press Action, an online publication of news analysis and commentary. Press Action declared the work "the best nonfiction in 2006."

Jensen's diverse writings also include:

• A Language Older than Words
• The Culture of Make Believe
• Listening to the Land: Conversations about Nature, Culture, and Eros, Railroads and Clearcuts
• Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests
  

Other collaborative works include:

• Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control
• Walking on Water: Reading, Writing and Revolution (which highlights the natural desire to learn juxtaposed against social structures that eradicate the individual creative process)
• Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos
  

Jensen holds a bachelor of science degree in mineral engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines, and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Eastern Washington University. He lives on the coast of northern California.

A great deal more information about Derrick Jensen is posted online at www.derrickjensen.org.

Jan Baross

This heartfelt debut is a cinematic vision, a wonderfully entertaining, accessible story that is sure to win over critics and readers of contemporary fiction.

—First place for fiction in the national Kay Snow Literary Awards.

JOSE BUILDS A WOMAN is written in the sensual tradition of magical realism. With lush prose and dry humor, Baross captures the fluid boundaries between life and death. The multi-layered saga revolves around the impenetrable passions of Tortugina, the doyenne of bad love, Gabito, the beautiful and jealous octopus diver and their son, Jose, a boy obsessed with marrying a nun.

The book's vibrant front cover is from a painting by Baross.

"Mexico has a magical draw that I can't explain any more than how the mother and son saga in Jose'' Builds A Woman began flowing out of me one rainy day," said Baross. "Being in Mexico inspired the kind of writing I didn't know I could do. It is very Latin."

What a romp. Let Baross take you for a wild ride on her magical-realism camel from the village of Octopus to the village of The Women through an extravagantly carnal Mexico of the imagination.

—Ursula K. Le Guin

Jose Builds a Woman is one of the most magical and beautiful and honest novels about men and women, lovers, mothers and sons, about life and death, that you'll ever be privileged to read. Baross has a gift for tender beauty on the page. I can't remember when I last enjoyed a book this much

—Molly Gloss, author of Jump Off Creek

Baross writes with a big beautiful new voice, exuberant and full of gritty earth and bright skies. Tortugina is a heroine for the ages-her story is about a commitment to love and honor and self-respect against all odds and along the way it's a wild trip to the Mexico of our dark northern dreams. At the end, you not only want to cheer for Tortugina, you want to stay.

—Joanna Rose, author of Little Miss Strange

Sexy, enchanting, funny and well-told, Jan Baross spins a marvelous tale filled with fantasy and passion. I loved it.

—Iris Rainer Dart, author of Beaches

...this book is about love, many kinds of love, and just by reading it, cracks in your heart will heal.

—Carla Perry

To learn more about Jan Baross, visit her website at http://www.barossmedia.com/

Jeff DeMark

The majority of the 240 writers presented by the Nye Beach Writers' Series have stood behind a lectern and read a little and talked a little, with the emphasis on the writing itself. We've been blessed with good readers and excellent readers and so-so readers; but only with a smattering of actual PERFORMERS, most notably the Dolly Ranchers, Three Guys From Albany, Jeff Meyers, Vaudevillinous Poets, Bill Joe Shaver and Zoa Smith. We are pleased then, to have with us tonight a writer and performer who has been a surprise and delight to audiences all over the country.

A man of many experiences and occupations, from factory-worker to cab-driver, substitute English teacher to ad-salesman for the San Francisco Giants and now working in the development department of public radio affiliate KHSU at Humboldt State University, Jeff DeMark transforms personal history into solo performance. He draws from various stages of his life in his four acclaimed pieces: "Writing My Way Out of Adolescence," "Went To Lunch, Never Returned," "Making Every Mistake Twice," and most recently, "Hard As A Diamond, Soft As The Dirt.

Viewers who watched the opening episodes of Carnivale on HBO would likely remember the gritty close-up of one of the main characters who happens to be a dwarf with a large, extraordinarily shaped head, who looked directly into the camera and delivered a pro forma, mock-profound monologue in Biblical tones assuring and reminding us that yes, Virginia, there is a great struggle between good and evil that rocks our world on a regular basis. And here I thought everything could be taken care of if we all just did our patriotic bit and went shopping. It's really somewhat of a disappointment. My own personal experience on the planet has taught me that most folks have very little time to struggle with the forces of good and evil. 99.99 percent of the time we're concerned with working, paying the bills and figuring out how to satisfy our emotional needs.

We don't have a big-headed dwarf to set us straight with the good and evil thing, but we do have Jeff DeMark to present the highlights of his struggle with work and love.

To learn more about Jeff visit his website at http://jeffdemark.com

Introduction by Marianne Klekacz
Photo by Carla Perry

Elinor Langer

On November 12, 1988, a group of Portland, Oregon, skinheads known as East Side White Pride encountered three Ethiopians in a street fight, resulting in the brutal death of Mulugeta Seraw. A year later, Ken Mieske ended up pleading guilty to first degree murder. The other two, Kyle Brewster and Steve Strasser, pled guilty to manslaughter and assault.

Langer originally agreed to cover the skinheads’ trial for “The Nation,” but the accused bargained their way to prison; no trial was ever held. Research for her book began after she persuaded “The Nation” to run a special issue in 1990 on the murder and the neo-Nazi movement. Langer saw a link between the three men who beat Seraw to death, The Branch Davidian conflagration in 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh in 1995.

Elinor Langer’s book about the incident, “A Hundred Little Hitlers,” vividly reconstructs the world of the skinheads: their origins in the punk scene, their basement shrines to Nazi power, their moments of glory on Oprah and Geraldo. She examines the long-standing radical groups that encouraged the movement, tracking the progress of such powerful figures as White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger through key bastions of the Far Right. In gripping detail, she follows civil-rights lawyer Morris Dees's efforts to prove Metzger responsible for the Portland killing.

“One of the skinheads lived near me,” explained Langer. “I had a babysitter whose boyfriend played in a band with one of them, and the other had been homecoming king at Grant High School.” Langer hoped her book would serve as a catalyst for debate and further research.

Langer has been a contributor to national publications since the 1960s, including The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, Mother Jones, and The Nation. Her biography of the American radical novelist and journalist Josephine Herbst was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award. She has received several fellowships, including the Guggenheim, Bunting, and the Open Society Institute. Besides teaching at Reed, she has taught writing at Portland State University and at the Mountain Writers-Pacific MFA Program.

Photo by Carla Perry

Jack Hart

Jack Hart, began work at “The Oregonian” as a reporter, arts and leisure editor, and Sunday Magazine editor, before becoming a training editor and managing editor. He holds a University of Wisconsin doctorate in Mass Communications and has taught at five universities. Hart is a frequent lecturer at Harvard’s prestigious Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism.

Jack Hart is also the author of A Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work, released as a Pantheon hardback in 2006 and as a Vintage Books paperback in 2007. “A Writer’s Coach” is Hart’s effort to make writing less painful for the rest of us. The book can help any writer learn the tricks and habits of good writers.

“Just about everybody agrees that good writing is tight, that it’s forceful,” Hart explains. “Good writing incorporates lively verbs and clean syntax. It’s colorful. It includes descriptive elements that can put you in the scene. It’s rhythmic. ” Developing a process to get you there is not some closely guarded mystery, Hart explains, but the step-by-step conquest of craft.

Introduction by Marianne Klekacz ;
"On my desk most days is my favorite teacup of the moment. It carries the following inscription: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” I like it because it reminds me that writing is darned hard work.

Tonight’s featured writer is definitely a professional. After decades in journalism, he’s compiled the knowledge he gathered as a writer and editor into A Writer’s Coach: The Complete Guide to Writing Strategies That Work.

Jack maintains that good writing can dance. His book is not your standard “how-to” manual but rather a comprehensive discussion of what it takes to get better and better, to become part of the continuous conversation that is literature. It’s earned a favored place on my bookshelf, right next to the “little White book,” Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.

Behind every great writer is a great editor. But until you can afford to hire a great editor, you need to develop those editorial skills yourself. A Writer’s Coach is a great place to start. Its discussions of brevity, clarity, rhythm, and connecting to other humans will help you look at your work with a clearer eye.

Jack doesn’t neglect the “no-noes” either. A Writer’s Coach also provides some choice advice about creeping nouns and passive verb constructions, dangling modifiers, the dreaded adverb, and hackneyed language and clichés.

This is a book that will enrich your writing and your pleasure in reading.
So let the dance begin. Please join me in welcoming Jack Hart."

Photo by Carla Perry

Ursula K. Le Guin

Introduction by Marianne Klekacz

Tonight’s guest, Ursula K. Le Guin, is an icon of American literature. This isn’t just my opinion: In 2000, Ursula was awarded “Living Legend” status by the Library of Congress.

Since you’re here tonight, I’m assuming you read the pre-event publicity. If I were to use this time enumerating Ursula’s publications and awards, there would be no time left for her to read, and that would be a great loss to all of us. So instead, I’d like to try to put a little perspective around her body of work.

Had Ursula been writing in a different time, her audience might have been completely different. In the 1950s, fiction of the genres we now call fantasy or science fiction were generally relegated to magazines with names like Amazing Stories or Astounding. Science fiction in particular was generally read by boys and young men that we would now call geeks or nerds. But some things happened that changed all of that, at least in the United States.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Sputnik might have been just a “beeping soccer ball” (as it has been described), but it raised a little thrill of fear that the U.S. was falling behind in the technology race. When JFK was elected President in 1960, one of his first major program announcements was his determination to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Suddenly space exploration and other worlds were in the forefront of the public’s imagination, opening the door of mainstream literary status to writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and, of course, Ursula K. Le Guin.

Ursula began publishing in the early 1960s. There are two major awards in the science-fiction/fantasy genres. Each year, the Hugo is awarded to the book that readers select as the best; the Nebula is awarded to the book selected as best by writers in the genres. Seldom are both awards won by the same book.

It happened for the first time in 1965 when Frank Herbert’s Dune won both. The next two times it happened, the books selected were by Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969 (coincidentally the year that the U.S. actually did land men on the moon), and The Dispossessed in 1974.

It seems to me that Ursula’s books represent what is most thought-provoking and worthwhile in imaginative fiction. They force us to explore what it really means to be human. She has earned her own lecture in The Teaching Company course “Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature’s Most Fantastic Works.” Here is how Professor Eric Rabkin summarizes her work:

“Le Guin induces us to adopt changes of viewpoint, shaping an aesthetic experience that can change our attitudes toward language, gender, human relations, and personal morality.”

It seems to me that this might be the most important function of literature across the ages.
Please join me in welcoming Ursula K. Le Guin.

Ursula K. Le Guin's website www.ursulakleguin.com.

China Miéville interviews UKL about her life and work for BBC Radio 4, 17 March 2009.

Paul Chasman

When I sat down with The Book of Bob, I had no idea what to expect. What I found was a skillful interweaving (I believe the term du jour is “mashup”) of themes I had previously encountered in books such as Another Roadside Attraction, Dr. Strangelove, and The Days of the Late, Great State of California. The Book of Bob has them all.

Satire and irony are two slightly different things, but Paul Chasman has clearly mastered both. He calls upon his experience as a prolific writer of letters over a four-year period to President Bush and others prominent in the political and business scenes of our modern world to pour out a little morality tale that’s certain to make you laugh, even if what you really feel like doing is crying.

I don’t think I’ll be spoiling anything for anyone by noting that the greatest weapon of mass destruction in The Book of Bob is the cockiness of the Chosen Leader of the Free Nation. For those of you who have read the book, the pun is deliberate. For those of you who haven’t, don’t miss an opportunity to pick one up tonight.

But tonight’s show, “Helluva Deal,” is more than just a reading, just as Paul Chasman is more than “just a writer.” Musician, composer, teacher, Paul brings a wealth of skills to entertain you tonight.

And I suspect when he’s finished, you’ll join me in saluting him: [clap] [snap] “Helluva deal!”
So get comfortable and ready to be entertained.

For more information about Paul Chasman: http://www.paulchasmanguitar.com
And http://www.thecarlletters.com

Introduction by Marianne Klekacz
Photo by Carla Perry

Hot Flashes

"Flashbacks! The Musical" is the long-awaited sequel to Hot Flashes, the Musical, which performed to sold out audiences in Newport in both 2003 and 2004. Flashbacks! is another multimedia musical comedy by writers/producers Kate Finn and Rick Weiss.

Flashbacks! takes off where Hot Flashes ended, and has continued to wow sold-out audiences in Portland since its premier in 2006. The musical uses humor, reminiscence and a broad spectrum of musical styles to present lively women embracing the challenges of aging and celebrating the second half of their lives. Flashbacks! is definitely geared toward women in the afternoon of their youth and is a great excuse for a girls-night-out.

The cast and band features several members from the Hot Flashes cast, including Kate Finn on vocals and numerous instruments; bass-slingin, singin' grandma Marvella McPartland; and Loose Wimmin drummer Pam Krieg. In addition, the cast stars Loose Wimmin's R&B belter Kate Sullivan; pianist Rick Weiss; and newcomer Sharon Maroney, co-founder and artistic director of the Broadway Rose Theatre. The show is directed by Allen Nause of Artists Repertory Theatre, and choreographed by Dan Murphy of the Broadway Rose Theatre.

Rick Weiss wrote and performed with Summer Angels, Some Are Not! from 1988 to 1996, singing "bad lounge songs" backwards as Dick Lexia. Since then he has played keyboards for Jungle Jim and the Swingset and taught songwriting in the schools through Community of Writers. Rick currently teaches private piano and drum lessons.

Kate Finn also wrote and performed with the Fallen Angel Choir, and Summer Angels, Some Are Not! from 1986 to 1996. Since then she has performed with the all-ages dance band Jungle Jim and the Swing Set, conducted songwriting/cd-production workshops in local schools through Community of Writers, and worked as a licensed massage therapist. Rick Weiss and Kate Finn have both taught music in all styles to all ages for over 20 years.

Performed on July 19 2003 & July 17, 2004

Hot Flashes stars Kate Finn, Sharon Knorr, Marvella McPartland, Lynn Thomas, Pam Krieg, and Rick Weiss as the announcer.

"Still Hot, Still Flashing!"

The show follows the career of a five-woman band (The Hot Flashes) from their 40s to their 70s, as they sing about their lives in songs such as "I Want A Trophy Husband"; "In The Nude;" "It's a Dick Thing," "Love's The Bottom Line," and "Senior Moments."

Through outrageous humor, personal reflection, and a wide variety of musical styles (original and parody), Hot Flashes presents women embracing the challenges of aging and celebrating the second half of their lives with rollicking good humor. Even men will laugh out loud!

Carla Perry

CARLA PERRY founder of the Nye Beach Writers’ Series and Writers On The Edge, Inc.

With few exceptions, all writers seek recognition. Some hope that the quality of their work will bring this about, others crow mightily about themselves and take less pains with the work itself, still others are just damn lucky to be in the right place at the right time to write about some popular social phenomenon or person.

But how many quietly write well, win recognition, and also spend enormous time and energy promoting other writers?

Consider Carla Perry. After earning a BA in Poetry from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1970 and publishing her first collection of poetry, No Questions Asked, No Answers Given in 1971, she immersed herself in the life-experiences of marriage, typesetting, child-rearing, divorce, writing computer-software user manuals for Intel, research work for Bonneville Power Administration, and a long stint as co-editor/publisher of Wild Dog, An Erratic Publication of Unconventional Excellence, to alight at long-last in that veritable cosmic-vortex of artistic and philosophical miasma generally known as Yachats, Oregon.

After pondering her past and publishing her second book of poetry, Laughing Like Dogs, Carla was offered an opportunity to begin a writing event there. Thus, the Yachat's Writers’ Series was born. The Series was invited by the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts to relocate in Newport in 1999, and the name was changed to the Nye Beach Writer's Series to reflect the new locale.

With 150 regional, national and international writers successfully presented, Carla was named the winner of the 2002 Oregon Book Awards’ Stewart Holbrook Special Award for outstanding service to the literary community of Oregon.

She still had energy enough to write her first short story, which was anthologized in Scent of Cedars (released Fall 2002), publish poems and short nonfiction in the Pronghorn Press anthology Dense Growth 2002, and to have her interview of Ken Kesey published in Tin House #11, then translated into Romanian for the publication TIMPUL. She also received honorable mention for a poem submitted to the 2002 Kay Snow Awards for Poetry.

In 2003 Carla received the Governor's Art Award for "extraordinary achievement and commitment to Oregon's art," and a 2003 Oregon Literary Fellowship from Literary Arts, Inc. for her fiction.

If she sounds like a busy literary icon, that's because she is, efficiently assembling press releases, making contacts and sending invitations for the 2004 Nye Beach Writers’ Series season, while reading submissions and planning future workshops, special events and projects for the non-profit organization, Writers On The Edge, Inc. Although some snidely assert that she is a workaholic, Carla maintains that she is having fun, and would rather do this than go shopping, even though our President maintains shopping would be a higher expression of patriotism.

For additional information www.dancingmoonpress.com

Introduction by Scott Rosin
Photo by Ed Cameron

Matt Love

MATT LOVE lives on the Oregon Coast where he serves as caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge and publisher of Nestucca Spit Press. He is the author of parts 1 and 2 of the Beaver State Trilogy-"Grasping Wastrels vs. Beaches Forever Inc.: Covering the Fights for the Soul of the Oregon Coast"; and "The Far Out Story of Vortex I," a book that documents the "Biodegradable Festival of Life" held the summer of 1970 and attended by 100,000 people, the only state-sponsored rock festival in American history. He also wrote "Let it Pour: An Unconventional Drinking Guide to the North Oregon Coast." www.letitpour.net

Most recently, Matt compiled and edited the anthology Red Hot and Rollin’: A Restrospection of the Portland Trail Blazers’ 1976-1977 NBA Championship Season. Thirty years ago this month, the Portland Trailblazers won their first and only NBA championship. The following day, a quarter of a million fans spilled into downtown Portland in celebration, the largest public gathering in Oregon history.

The frenzy that surrounded the final weeks of the tournament became known as Blazermania. The term Rip City came to describe the incredible outpouring of energy that surrounded Portland’s only major professional ball team.

Sadly, the energy and community spirit that characterized the spring and summer of 1977 in Portland have largely faded into memory. But for Matt Love, who was 13 years old and living in Oregon City at the time, what a memory it is. He wants to share it with you.

In August 2003, Matt Love presented an Oregon Chautauqua on the 1970 Oregon State-sponsored rock festival called Vortex I with support from the Oregon Council for the Humanities. Now, with his newly published book in hand, Matt Love is on a 21-city book tour to promote The Far Out Story of Vortex I. We are honored to have him at the Dogwood tonight.

Back in 1970, rumor had it that President Nixon was to speak at the American Legion Convention in Portland, and the FBI told Governor Tom McCall he should expect 25,000 Legionnaires and 50,000 anti-war freaks which would produce a clash in the Rose City that would make Chicago 1968 look like a tea party. To avoid riots, burnings and murder, McCall, who was up for re-election, took the heroic step to work with the People's Army Jamboree and the Oregon National Guard to produce "Operation Tranquility."

Nixon did not show up, but Vortex I drew somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 attendees (the event was free so entrance gates were not monitored). The gathering site was Milo McIver State Park, twenty miles east of Portland along the Clackamas River, just outside the small town of Estacada, Oregon. Vortex I turned out to be quite the legendary weeklong trip.

Now, thirty-four years later, Oregon author Matt Love has written "The Far Out Story of Vortex I," the second part of his projected Beaver State Trilogy, and the legend has become even more legendary.

Matt is the author of two other books: Grasping Wastrels vs. Beaches Forever Inc.: Covering the Fights for the Soul of the Oregon Coast (which is Part One of the Beaver State Trilogy), and Let it Pour: An Unconventional Drinking Guide to the North Oregon Coast." He also writes the "Stone Oregon" column that appears in several Oregon alternative monthlies and is a regular op-ed contributor and book reviewer for the Oregonian.

Matt Love has been a devoted volunteer at Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge since 1998. As a refuge caretaker, he has organized and implemented several restoration projects and orchestrated the removal of acres of Himalayan blackberry. He has helped restore native forestland by planting thousands of trees within the refuge. In addition to his volunteer work, Matt serves as a technical assistant for the Nestucca-Neskowin Watershed Council. And, as of last week, began his career teaching English and Journalism at Taft High School.

Matt Love grew up in Oregon City and first heard about Vortex I in 1982 while playing hooky from high school at McIver Park. He believes his lifelong personal connection to the Vortex I story is "supernatural" and says, "The research and writing of this book has remade my entire personality. It transformed me from a pessimist, to trust faith, intuition and the power of love."

Photo by Carla Perry