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Spring 2011 : Fail
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Oregon Humanities: Spring 2011
Talking Shop
Oregon Humanities joins forces with Portland Center Stage in brown-bag discussion series
Ever wish you could peek behind the curtain to see what happens backstage at a show? Shop Talk, a new partnership between Oregon Humanities and Portland Center Stage, lets you go even further—into the minds of the playwrights, directors, and performers. The monthly brown-bag lunch series, which began in February and runs through May, pairs thespians with humanities thinkers for provocative public discussions.
In February, Futura playwright Jordan Harrison and digital initiatives librarian for the District of Columbia Public Library Aaron Schmidt talked about the future of the book. In March, director Rose Riordan and Portland State University psychology professor and documentary filmmaker Jan Haaken discussed mental health issues raised by the play One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “People’s lives have to fall apart pretty badly before they are hospitalized,” Haaken says, “and when the state steps in, it steps in with a very heavy boot.”
On April 20, Opus cast member Matthew Boston and writer, artist, and jazz drummer Tim DuRoche will riff on music, creativity, and chemistry. In the final installment, on May 6, author/actor Lauren Weedman, whose credits include Bust, the Daily Show, and Hung, will talk about memoir, truth, and fame with Back Fence PDX co-producer B. Frayn Masters. “They’re friends,” says PCS’s Kelsey Tyler of the comedians, “so it should be a hoot.”
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Oregon Humanities magazine examines topics of broad public interest from a variety of perspectives and approaches. Recent issues of this publication have focused on stuff, nostalgia, and civility. Through good and thoughtful writing, Oregon Humanities magazine enriches our understanding of important subjects and stimulates conversation and reflection among readers, their friends, families, colleagues, and neighbors.
Contributors
Amanda Waldroupe
Amanda Waldroupe is a freelance journalist living in Portland. Whenever she fails, she buckles down and tries, tries again.
Debra Gwartney
Debra Gwartney is the author of the 2009 memoir Live Through This, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Oregon Book Award, and the PNBA award. She is currently working on a memoir about growing up in the West and the heritage of Narcissa Whitman, a project for which she received a research grant from the American Antiquarian Society. Debra lives on the McKenzie River with her husband, Barry Lopez, and is on the nonfiction faculty at Pacific University.
John Holloran
John Holloran lives in Portland and teaches at Oregon Episcopal School, where he is the chair of the history department. His last essay for Oregon Humanities was “Under a Spell” (Summer 2009).
Kim Stafford
Kim Stafford is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College and author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Muses Among Us: Elegant Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft. This essay is a section from his book-in-progress, 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do.
Kristy Athens
Kristy Athens’ nonfiction and short fiction have been published in a number of magazines, newspapers, and literary journals, most recently High Desert Journal, Eclectic Flash, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and Five Fishes Journal.
Matthew Stadler
Matthew Stadler is a writer and editor in Portland. He writes about cities and urbanism for journals including Volume, Netherlands Architecture Bulletin, Domus, and Camerawork. His book about urbanism, Deventer, is forthcoming from 010 Uitgevrij, in Rotterdam. In 2009 he cofounded Publication Studio (http://www.publicationstudio.biz) in Portland.
Sarah Gilbert
Sarah Gilbert is writing a book about mothers looking for emotional healing in food. In February, she decided to begin homeschooling her eldest son.
Susan Meyers
After growing up selling corndogs and cotton candy at carnivals up and down the West Coast, Susan Meyers extended her gypsy lifestyle by spending several years in Latin American before coming home to the Pacific Northwest. Her work has recently appeared in CALYX, Dogwood, Terra Incognita, and The Minnesota Review, and it has been the recipient of several awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship. She teaches writing at Oregon State University.
Commentary
The Talking Shop article presented a topic of two groups coming together that’s very interesting, and it contained information that made me want to learn more but left me frustrated.
The first paragraph made me want to have the basics answered. Like- okay, so there are these brown bag discussion series between Oregon Humanities and Portland Center Stage that began in February, took place again this month. There are more next month. How can I access this information? Who exactly gets access to this? Where is it being presented? Is it free? Will it be presented after the fact in a write-up this magazine or only for those invited to the discussion?
I feel like there was another part of the article that must have answered all this and somehow I missed where the info was—there’s a ‘final installation’ and I don’t know where the first ones went. The when, where and how much on the lunch series part wasn’t clear to me.
Angela Baumgartner | 25 Mar at 07:38 PM
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