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Fall/Winter 2010 : Ha!
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Oregon Humanities: Fall/Winter 2010
The RIPPLE effect
A conference for bloggers sparks ideas and builds connections around rural issues
For some rural Oregonians, blogs have become like a good pair of boots—basic equipment. On RIPPLE, a website run by the nonprofit Rural Development Initiatives, Northwest bloggers and their readers discuss rural issues. In May, the RIPPLE crowd convened in Hood River for a weekend of face time and learned the site had won a 2010 Webvisionary Award.
Joanne Steele, who blogs about rural tourism from Northern California, made one of three blogger presentations at the conference, discussing how she helps small towns market themselves to “explorer visitors”—urbanites looking for a rural experience. “Small towns don’t have to be anything other than who they already are to be successful,” Steele says.
Bruce Sorte, an economist who tours rural Oregon with a 1968 Airstream trailer, also attended. At RIPPLE, Sorte blogs about his conversations with rural Oregonians on improving local economies. “The most important thing,” Sorte says, “is figuring out how to capture more of the retail dollar from what they can produce.” That means finished food products, not just agricultural commodities, for example.
The conference, sponsored in part by a grant from Oregon Humanities, is over, but the conversation continues online. Steele, for one, is in dialogue with people from India to Kansas to the Russian Federation. “My readership is more diverse than I ever thought,” she says. “These are common problems all over the world.”
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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
Andrew Guest
Andrew Guest is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Portland. When not watching, playing, coaching or writing about soccer, he does research on youth developmental and educational experiences through sports, arts, and service activities.
Ariel Gore
Ariel Gore is the author of seven books including Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), from which this selection is excerpted. She is also the founding editor of Hip Mama, and editor of the Lambda-award-winning anthology Portland Queer. She teaches creating writing online at the University of New Mexico and The Attic in Portland.
Courtenay Hameister
Courtenay Hameister is the host and head writer of LiveWire Radio, the co-creator of “Road House: The Play!,” a screenwriter and filmmaker. In her spare time, she likes to imagine what it would be like to have more spare time.
Courtney S. Campbell
Courtney S. Campbell is the Hundere Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University. You can try friending him through his Facebook page.
Jamie Passaro
Jamie Passaro lives in Eugene, where she is a freelance writer and an editor for Northwest Book Lovers, a blog produced by the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. Her last essay for Oregon Humanities was “Driving Mrs. Spacely” (Summer 2008).
Kristin Kaye
Kristin Kaye is a Portland-based writer. Her book, Iron Maidens, was an Oregon Book Awards finalist. She has recently completed her novel To Catch What Falls.
Scott Nadelson
Scott Nadelson’s most recent book is The Cantor’s Daughter. A new collection of his short fiction, Aftermath, is forthcoming from Hawthorne Books in Fall 2011. He teachers creative writing at Willamette University. His latest essay for Oregon Humanities was “Go Ahead and Look” (Spring 2010)
Todd Schwartz
Todd Schwartz is in reality a very serious and reserved person who divides his time between being a Calvinist minister and a funeral home director. Wait…wait! A funeral home director and a Calvinist minister walk into a bar…
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