Robyn Hercey

The Lonesomes are a trio made up of songwriter, guitarist and lead singer PHIL FAVORITE , bassist MARK ZEHR , and drummer ROBYN HERCEY on backing vocals. For this special Newport performance, the trio will be joined by ADAM ELLIOTT of Smidgen on lead guitar.

The Lonesomes are three Illinois transplants, all graduates of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Phil Favorite works as a newspaper editor and designer for special sections at The Oregonian, and is editor of New Home Monthly. He lives in Portland with his wife Anne and their two young boys Bobby and Dylan.

Mark Zehr is a stay-at-home dad who lives in Forest Grove with his wife Laura and son River.

Robyn Hercey is a senior systems engineer with Corillian Corporation who lives in Portland with is wife Keri and daughter Amalia.

Most, if not all, these children are here tonight.

In 2002 THE LONESOMES released their promo/demo "Summer Friend," a five-song collection that runs that gamut from sunny pop to twangy country to heavy rumble rock. In 2003, The Lonesomes began work with producer Brian Berg on "Circling The Sun," a thirteen-song CD due to be released in two weeks.

The Lonesomes have a website where you can find more info: www.thelonesomes.us.

please welcome.... THE LONESOMES.

Marisa Anderson

(featured with The Dolly Ranchers on April 20, 2002 and solo on June 26, 2004)

MARISA ANDERSON plays an intricate flatpick guitar, mandolin and banjo and writes the lyrics to most of songs performed by The Dolly Ranchers, an alt-country, all-girl band based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Inspired by the oral traditions of travelers, tramps, and hobos, Anderson's lyrics create a raw, dynamic and gritty old-time country sound with edgy, original tunes about train hopping, hitchhiking, the travels and travails of whisky singin' women. She cites being influenced by such disparate sources as Tom Waits, the Velvet Underground, Lucinda Williams, Patti Smith, Freakwater, Utah Phillips, and Loretta Lynn.

As part of The Dolly Ranchers, Anderson has shared the stage with such notables as Alvin Youngblood Hart, Jenny Bird, Junior Brown, Odetta, Otis Taylor Band, Queen Ida and her Zydeco Band, Spider John Koerner, U. Utah Phillips, and the Yonder Mountain String Band.

She is also a circus performer with the One Railroad Circus of New Mexico.

Anderson, with The Dolly Ranchers, has produced two outstanding CDs: Ten O'Clock Bird and Escape Artist . She has also contributed to the soundtrack for the upcoming documentary "For The Love of Dolly," about fans of Dolly Parton. Anderson is at work on her first solo record.


http://www.thedollyranchers.com

Judith Barrington

Our first writer this evening is such a literary icon in the Northwest and Portland in particular, it should come as no surprise that she is also well recognized internationally. One of her recent triumphs was taking Third at the 2003 Bridport Prize in her native Britain for the poem "After D-Day," in competition with over 5000 entries in what has been called one of the toughest open writing competitions in the English language. Only the best of 26 poems and short stories from that contest are anthologized in the Bridport Prize 2003.

Recipient of numerous awards and honors, Judith Barrington has taught writing classes at various universities and workshops including the Port Townsend Writer's Conference, Haystack, Fishtrap, Ashland Writing Conference, Flight of the Mind, which she founded, and the Hassayampa Writers' Conference in Prescott, Arizona.

In addition to having work published in several anthologies she has published three collections of poetry, Trying to Be an Honest Woman (1985), History and Geography (1989), and Horses and the Human Soul (2004). Lifesaving, A Memoir (2000), won the Lambda Literary Award. Her textbook Writing the Memoir, from Truth to Art , is widely used in writing classes and workshops.

As the titles of her poetry books suggest, her work is both introspective and accessible, characterized by a bald simplicity and relentless intent.

Please welcome Judith Barrington...

Bette Lynch Husted

BETTE LYNCH HUSTED's memoir, Above The Clearwater: Living on Stolen Land, chronicles the history of Husted's family which settled near the Clearwater River in northern Idaho.

The benchland above the Clearwater River in north-central Idaho had been the home to the Nez Perce Indians until the Dawes Act opened their reservation to settlement in 1895. As a child on the family homestead, Husted says she grew up feeling the presence of the long-displaced Nez Perce.

Husted received a BA in English from the University of Idaho and an MA in English from the University of Colorado. She spent 19 years teaching high school English in White Swan, Washington, Polson, Montana, and in Hermiston and Joseph, Oregon. She then spent 13 years teaching American Literature, Native Literature, Northwest Literature, and Writing at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton.

Her essays, short stories and poems have appeared in a broad selection of anthologies, literary journals and magazines. Her essay, Salmon Run, was selected as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2000. She lives in Pendleton with her husband Dean, and for those who have already read the book in anticipation of tonight's event, she still watches birds and foxes and practices early morning T'ai Chi.

Copies of Bette Husted's memoir, Above The Clearwater published by Oregon State University Press, and her poetry chapbook, After Fire, are available at the back table.

Please welcome.

Roy Parvin

There is a paragraph in Northern California author Roy Parvin's novella Betty Hutton that may just sum up thematically the intent of his work thus far. The protagonist, Gibbs, is a troubled man with a history of finding trouble:

But it was what stood at his back, the ocean of land behind Gibbs, that pulled at him like a tide. He'd never been farther west than the eastern fringe of Pennsylvania, had never been anywhere. He'd heard about Montana, though, a place that sounded like everything hadn't yet been decided, where there still might be some time left. A cellmate had told him of the chinooks, the southerly winds capable of turning winter into spring in a matter of hours, sometimes a ninety-degree temperature swing, and it had seemed to Gibbs lying in their dank cement crib, it seemed as if such a thing as the chinooks was possible, anything was.

One has to wonder whether if, in the crucible of our current troubled times, the threadbare cliché of personal redemption in literature, let alone in real life, has become almost meaningless. Roy Parvin's well-drawn characters and elegant prose seem to hold out the promise that there are possibilities, at the very least.

Roy's name may not yet be a household name, but he seems to be moving in that direction. His work is receiving numerous prestigious awards and he was granted a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in December 2003. He splits his time between households in the Bay Area and the Trinity Alps, which provide many of the settings for his work. His book of short stories, the Loneliest Road in America, came out in 1997, and his three novellas "In The Snow Forest" was published in 2000. He is currently writing a novel.

Please welcome Roy Parvin...

Steve Sander

STEVE SANDER has appeared in various shows put on by Writers On The Edge. He was a featured author more than once and appeared in Vaudvillaineous Poets, and "The Memory Place."

STEVE SANDER'S interest in acting and performance was nurtured at the Portland Civic Theatre and as a founding member of the Columbia Theater Company in Portland. He served as the Poetry Editor for Spectrum Magazine of the Arts while making his living in a natural foods bakery, a men's clothing store, as a job counselor with the City of Portland, and as a small business owner. Sander is a poet, songwriter, guitar player and ex-New Yorker who settled in Oregon in 1971. On the closing of Cafe Lena, he said, "The past ten years have been the best twenty of our lives!"

Steve Sander is married to Leanne Grabel and they have two lovely and talented daughters.

Leanne Grabel

LEANNE GRABEL has appeared in various shows put on by Writers On The Edge. She was a featured author at the very first Yachats Writers' Series, held June 20, 1997 and has returned to the stage here as part of her writing critique group, Vaudvillaineous Poets, and "The Memory Place."

Leanne was co-founder and co-owner of Cafe Lena, the infamous literary cafe in Portland. She is the author of the books Lonesome and Very Quarrelsome Heroes , and The Family Fate Ate , and is the editor of Prison Poetry Project , a compilation of writing and photography by incarcerated violent offenders in MacLaren Youth Correction Facility. Her chapbooks include There's a Pig Running Free , Anne Sexton Was a Sexpot, The Last Weekend of Sylvia Plath, Short Poems by a Short Person, Flirtations, and The Heart .

Her poetry-based theatrical shows include One Woman Shoe, The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression, The Circus of Anguish & Mirth, and most recently, Anger: The Musical all of which have been produced on various Portland stages. She teaches poetry to at-risk teenagers in summer camps, Portland public schools and juvenile prisons.

http://www.leanegrabel.com

Elizabeth McLagan

ELIZABETH McLAGAN was a founding member of CALYX. She has also been a bookkeeper, gardener, housecleaner, writer and high school English teacher. After her son graduated from high school, Ms. McLagan returned to graduate studies and earned an MFA in Poetry from Eastern Washington University. Since then she has taught composition, creative writing and literature at Portland Community College, Cascade Campus. Ms. McLagan has also pursued research and writing in the area of minority history in Oregon. Her nonfiction publications include A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, Women and Minorities in the Construction Industry, and Notes Toward a Biography: The Papers of John Hiram Jackson. Her poems have been published in numerous literary journals, and in 1990 a chapbook of poetry was published by Howlet Press. She has won poetry awards from the Oregon State Poetry Society, Clark College, and Cream City Review, as well as the 2001 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Introjournals Award. Her full-length manuscript, Visitation in the Form of a Blue Feather, is currently in search of a publisher.

Margarita Donnelly

MARGARITA DONNELLY, one of the founding authors of CALYX is currently its Director. She is the recipient of the American Book Award, Literary Arts Stewart H. Holbrook Award, two CCLM Editors Awards, and a Fishtrap Gathering Fellowship for her short fiction. Her work has appeared in The American Book Awards Poetry Anthology, Small Press Magazine, Women and Aging, the Feminist Bookstore Newsletter, and Women's Press, for which she was a founding editor. She writes book reviews for the Oregonian and Women's Review of Books. She received the 1994 inaugural Distinguished Achievement Award from the Oregon State University Friends of the Library, as well as the 1990 Women of Achievement Award from the OSU Women's Studies Center. She has lectured widely, including at the 6th International Feminist Publishers Conference in Melbourne, Australia, and the Hawaii Literary Council in Honolulu. Ms. Donnelly has taught at the Centrum Writers Workshop, Bay Area Writers Conference, and at the American Library Association Conference. She served on the selection panels for the Washington State Arts Commission, Idaho Arts Commission, Oregon Arts Commission, Seattle Arts Commission, and the Cottages at Hedgebrook Women's Writing Retreat on Whidbey Island, Washington. She has also edited six anthologies at CALYX Books including their newest, A Fierce Brightness. She was born and raised in Venezuela and Spanish is her first language.

Donna Henderson

DONNA HENDERSON chapbook, Transparent Woman, produced on a letterpress from handset type, printed on fine paper and bound with string, was a finalist for the 1997 Oregon Book Award for Poetry. The title poem of this collection was first published in Calyx Journal and subsequently included in A Fierce Brightness." Her most recent chapbook, Gazpacho, contains a sequence of poems on the final illness and death of her mother, together with watercolors by her sister Darcy V. Henderson. In the past few years, Donna Henderson's poems have appeared in Fireweed, First Things, Room of One's Own, and other magazines. Her reviews and articles have been published in journals of spirituality, literary scholarship and social work. Her poem Dawn is included on the CD Alive at Dawn by pianist Diane Baxter, principal keyboard artist for Yaquina Orchestra and the Bloch Music Festival. She has received various state, national and international recognitions, including a Pushcart Prize nomination. Ms. Henderson recently completed her first full-length collection of poems, Are You With Me Here? Her photography and mixed media artwork is regularly exhibited at the River Gallery in Independence as well as in one-woman shows around the Willamette Valley. Ms. Henderson is a licensed clinical social worker with a private practice in pyschotherapy in Monmouth, teaches counseling at Western Oregon University and is currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at Warren Wilson College.