. Okay! Okay! I know I should wait until we get the final proof editing done of the printed version. But I am so excited about the (extremely near) completion of this anthology that I want to tell my virtual world inhabitants that the book is on the brink of being released. Everything is uploaded and we are waiting for our proof copies to check the formatting and how it all looks in print. Once all of that is given the green light, I will post information about how you can order your own extremely reasonably priced ($6.32) copy of our book .
On the Fly: Stories in Eight Minutes or Less
A collection of short fiction and creative non-fiction -- each written in eight minutes -- these gems range from the raw as originally put to paper, to the peer edited and polished story. The writing shows the strength and energy that can be generated by writing quickly and honestly using prompts. The Collective's hope is to inspire writers in the sitting-down-and-writing-process and to provide enjoyment to both readers and writers. Introduction by Ariel Gore.
Soon, readers, soon! I will give a link to the publishing site when we've done our final proof. As a matter of fact, the book will probably live on the left side of my website for a while! .
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Thank you to Mead Hunter at Blogorrhea for passing along this interesting idea! Hmmm! I like it.
Not long ago, playwright Fin Kennedy brought a cool new scheme to my attention: the Adopt a Playwright Award, in which contributors can pool their resources to make sure at least one unsung new voice gets produced every year.
What I love about this concept is that it completely bypasses the galumphing machinery of the play selection process that is more standard – you know, the one in which a play is test-marketed as though it were a new brand of snack food. Fin elaborated on the strengths of the program yesterday on the Guardian’s TheatreBlog – thank you, Mme. Kollodi, for leading me to this.
Read all about it, and let’s talk about what it would take to launch this here.
I support the idea of doing this for a playwright (and still need to finish reading the article myself *grin*), but I think there may be other applications of this idea for other dreative types!
It's my great pleasure to announce the first public performance of Alltopia Antholozine's contributors. May it be the first of many! Our Spring issue, "Home," is currently in the capable and creative hands of our publisher, Eberhardt Press , and will be reader-ready in about a week. We will be celebrating the release of this issue at The Press Club, located in SE Portland, on April 25th.
Details:
When Saturday, April 25 - 6:00 PM until 7:30 or so...
Where The Press Club - 2621 SE Clinton St. (503) 233-5656; they have a full bar, plus a great menu (think: crepes, bistro sandwiches, etc.) and an extensive selection of wines, but are also an all-ages venue.
What The Spring issue - Home - will be available for purchase at the reading for $8 / copy. It will also be available at a few local purveyors of quality independent publications. Check our website for details, soon.
One of my poems is being published by the 'zine and I am planning on being there to read on the 25th.
"The economy is falling, the economy is falling...."
I've heard the cry. I've seen the cutbacks, seen the foreclosures, the disappearing businesses, the lay-offs, the downsizing. I've been present literally or virtually while clients plead and reason and rant and request that services not be cut because of x or y or z. And still I was in shock when two friends were suddenly laid off.
Yesterday I learned that Mead Hunter was laid off from Portland Center Stage. He was the Literary Director and resident dramaturg, as was another person in the literary department, which pretty much eliminates that department. This morning I learned that another friend, Jenn Rehnke, an advocate for accessibility and an all around good human being was also let go from Portland Center Stage.
I know my shock and disappointment, as well as musings about how their absences will affect the future of PCS, are nothing compared to what the two of them and the other two or three let go are experiencing. But I am surprised and I, well, I'm, um, surprised. Mead had spearheaded the popular JAW festival, was a huge advocate of new play development, and was a great supporter and promoter of PCS. Jenn was good at her job, seemed to have excellent rapport with the box office staff, friendly, and a big advocate of disabled patrons rights and was great to work with in that capacity, an artist and supporter of the arts.
I'm having a hard time imagining PCS without their talents and personalities. I feel for them as they are forced into new beginnings - of which I'm sure they are very capable and will triumph in whatever comes their way next. But the suddenness and their loss are significant. I hope that the larger Portland theatrical and creative communities outside of PCS will remain their home and that there is something waiting for their skill sets and person-hoods to step into.
Today I received an email from a friend about a mutual blog. There are, I think, five of us who can contribute to it; but it has been mostly inactive. It was a good idea, born of a "cabal" style workshop/group which someone other than today's email writer set up two or so years ago. But little has been posted recently and it was dormant for a long time.
I have this blog. The email writer has two of his own blogs, as well as work-related blogs. The person who originally set up the cabal blog has one or two blogs of her own. And we are all busy.
So, today, the cabal originator sent out an email requesting input on putting the for all practical purposes abandoned blog to sleep. So far, a second (the originator) and an aye (me). Why take up thought waves on something that was a good idea but has gone nowhere? Why give any of us one more thing to feel guilty about.
It was a great group when we were meeting in person and I wish we had time for more of that. But the blog never became a cohesive entity and no one had or has the time to keep it timely.
So, goodbye, Dramaturgy Cabal. It will be available for a little while yet, and today's email writer will announce it on the site, with a list of references to similar content which is better attended to. And soon, it will join the blogs of days past, in peace.
Last night was Miss Fit Dragons' first night of practice *on* the water. The river was calm. It was not raining. There was no wind. The boat was relatively free of water even though our practice time started at 8 pm.
Awesome!
I'm so glad I hung in there through my doubts about the huge commitment. About doing a team event. About wondering if my shoulders and wrists and arms could do it. The running up and down the flights of stairs at the coach/trainer's office as part of our circuit training.
Being on the water, the paddles dipping and pulling and resting together. The moments when timing was pretty spot on and we glided through the water - beautiful.
Paddling water is so much easier than paddling air.
Photograph of a previous Miss Fit Adventures Dragon Boat team (the Miss Fit Dragons).
(Information taken from craigslist posting.) On February 18th at 7 p.m. at the Mission Theater, Back Fence PDX will take the stage with local Portlanders, Jeff Baker, Anis Mojgani and others telling unmemorized, true eight-minute stories based on the theme, The Moment After.
Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door. More info at www.backfencepdx.com.
Presenting our February storytellers:
Anis Mojgani is a former resident of the Oregon Literary Arts Writer's-In-The-Schools program and has appeared on HBO and NPR. Anis' work has appeared in Rattle and alongside the works of US Poet Laureates Ted Kooser and Billy Collins, in the anthology Spoken Word Revolution Redux. Originally from New Orleans, Anis currently lives in a white house in Portland, Oregon, with three guys and a cat named Ivan, whom Anis believes loves him.
Jeff Baker is The Oregonian's book editor. He is a University of Oregon graduate and has won awards for criticism, feature writing and sports journalism.
Ezra Caraeff is the owner of Slowdance Records, a pug enthusiast and the music editor for the Portland Mercury
Jordi Barnes writes and performs sketch comedy in the nationally acclaimed sketch group The 3rd Floor. She co-writes the blog Princess, was interviewed for the comedy site Hello Hilarious and a piece of hers will appear on mcsweeneys.net. She and her husband, fellow sketch comic Ted Douglass, have a five month old girl and eleven year old puppy.
Vanessa Veselka is a musician and writer living in Portland. Additionally, she has been a union organizer, an underage stripper, a student of Paleontology, a bartender in Vienna, and hitchhiked over 40,000 before the age of 22. Her work has been published in Tin House, YETI, Bust, Bitch and Maximum Rock 'n Roll. You can hear some of her music at www.myspace.com/vanessaveselka. She is also in the Goth band, Nitebrite.
Heather Strang is a writer, journalist and coach. At any given time you can find her buzzing around the kitchen cooking, shaking it to her favorite Beyonce song or single-handedly attempting to change the world. In that order. To learn more, visit: www.HeatherStrang.com.
Brad Fortier is the education director for the Brody Theater in PDX. He has performed improvised theater around town and around the world representing the US in numerous international performance festivals.
Intermission entertainment by Melody Jordan and her Gang of Hula Hoopers!
Back Fence PDX is an evening with people telling their true eight-minute stories based on the month's theme. The stories must not have been performed publicly prior to their Back Fence PDX telling. We are also a blog with a weekly story by a writer, blogger, or someone with an unusual story about the topic.
Write and build your own book with Clare, Tif, and your new collaborators in an intensive two-day weekend workshop at the end of February.
"Book Arts, Interdisciplinary Exploration, and the Creative Process" is open to adults of all skill levels. Experienced book artists may find it especially engaging. Sign up by February 19 at Oregon College of Art and Craft or email studioschool@ocac.edu to receive a tuition discount.
Collaborations burst our bubble of solitude and return us to our individual work with a deeper understanding of our distinct voice. Similarly, explorations into unfamiliar disciplines and media enrich our individual creative practices while offering new, challenging opportunities for contextualizing our work.
BOOK ARTS, INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION, AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Feb 28 and March 1, Saturday and Sunday
9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Tuition received before February 19: $170
Tuition received after February 19: $190
Studio materials fee: $25
Collaborations burst our bubble of solitude and return us to our individual work with a deeper understanding of our distinct voice. Similarly, explorations into unfamiliar disciplines and media enrich our individual creative practices while offering new, challenging opportunities for contextualizing our work.
This workshop is taught by the collaborative team of book artist/letterpress printer Clare Carpenter and writer/editor/performer Tiffany Lee Brown. With their guidance, participants combine hands-on studio work with discussion and exercises exploring intuitive process. On the first day, students develop book dummies, maquettes, and sketches of their ideas, focusing on how content informs presentation. On the second, students integrate their writings and structures in a collaborative project.
Class number BA 701
phone 503 297 5544
Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC)
8245 SW Barnes Road
Portland, OR 97225 www.ocac.edu
TIFFANY LEE BROWN & CLARE CARPENTER, INSTRUCTORS
To read more about the instructors, go to 2GQ, where this post was originally found.
Next Saturday there is a reunion I was invited to attend; and I will. But I hate the word or hate the concept is probably more accurate. I don't hate this group of people and it could actually be fun. It's just that I never go back. Or haven't until now. So here I go, again, trying something new. It must be the year for stepping out of what's familiar.
I learned to not go back from my mother. She's the expert. "Don't look back because you'll only get slapped in the face. There's nothing worth going back for, anyway." My family doesn't hold reunions and no one would go, even if someone tried. A legacy of the ultimate "letting go," although it is not quite the spirit of how this phrase in usually intended.
This reunion is for the Portland Women's Theatre Company, in which I was involved for several years when we first moved to the area in 1985. It could be fun. A couple of the people I've seen here and there over the years; others I haven't seen nor heard from at all. I was involved in the middle years of the group (which has been defunct for a while). This reunion was sparked by the interest of a woman researching the history of the group along with some other resources in the area. That woman just happened to be a student in one of my partner's classes. So, in some ways, my partner is partially responsible for this reunion or at least for lighting the spark of inspiration which led to this project.
So, with hope for a paradigm shift of understanding, I will go to the reunion which is, thankfully, being held at the home of one of the people we have kept in touch with since that time. And I will go into it with a positive outlook and deep down the awareness that, again, my mother's lesson may not be the whole truth. Maybe sometimes you can revisit the past and have it be okay.
Grace Constantine of Deviant Dance (a performer in 2GQ's Public Works series) joins a fabulous list of performers to raise funds for the Winter Homeless Shelter. January 24th at 6 pm in Vancouver, Warshington [sic]. Keep reading for details.
Shimmy Shake & Share Dance Festival Benefit for Winter Homeless Shelter St. Paul Lutheran Church 1309 Franklin St. Vancouver, WA 98660
January 24th 2009 Evening show 6pm, doors open at 5:30 $10 donation, all ages
Here is a list of the evening performers:
Raks El Sehr Carol Love Taheya PURE Oberon Zaina Jewels Scottish Country Dancers 10 min. intermission Jane Archers Troupe Karla Khmer Angkor dance troupe (parents are allowed in with their child) Grace from Deviant Dance Bhrigha Gypsikelt Caravan Dance Collective Saqra
Celebrate Write Around Portland's 10th year by joining them for 10 Days of Writing — free, two-hour workshops open to everyone. Write with them for one workshop, or come for all 10!
Writing journals, pens and snacks will be provided. These workshops are perfect for both the new and seasoned writer.
You can register by phone at 503.796.9224, via email at tendays@writearound.org, or can just drop in at one of the locations listed below.
10 Days of Writing are made possible by a generous grant from the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition and the Oregon Cultural Trust.
Here is another snippet from Richard Foreman's notebooks for you to play with. (Jump down to 12/28/08 for more information. Basically, this writer/director/producer writes every day and makes his raw material of random dialogue available for anyone to use. So, use it!)
Challenge yourself to create characters and a scene to go with this dialogue. Of course, snip, expand, alter as needed!
= = from the Richard Foreman notebook Cafe 2 here = =
Is this really your kind of town?
I haven't been here very long.
But you get the feel of things kinda fast, or I miss my guess.
I'm the kind of person--
Nothing satisfies you, yes?
You're right
So this isn't really your kind of town. I mean, for the first day or two, you said to yourself, hey , maybe this is ok. You managed to squeeze out a little poetic frisson from a turn around the corner into this vista, then that vista, but then with a lkittle more time, it didn't resally seem to hold up, did it.
You're right.
Of course I'm right. This town is a shit town. Take it from me, I had deep experience of this shit town, and a shit town is what it is.
That doesn't leave much doubt.
On the other hand, a lot of oppoprtunity is here, for somebody looking for a certain kind of something.
many people make new year's resolutions. some people keep them, some don't. some make them later. some start the year fresh as if nothing happened before, some commit to doing better.
i don't want to make promises i can't keep. and i don't want to continue to say 'i will.' so.
it's time for another year. and, while i've definitely learned a few things this last year and there are changes i want to make, i don't want to set myself up. if i make a promise i stick to it no matter what; which is not always a good thing; sometimes the promise was a mistake in the first place or wasn't what i meant or is detrimental in some way. so.
what i want to do better in 2009: - write more often on a regular basis - have more time off; meaning down time not just 'to do' time - keep up with the exercising - get enough sleep more often (may be related to time off) - play more - make dates more often that do not include anything to do with work - learn to avoid the charged cloud of conditioning (shh, it's a secret) - learn something new - believe in myself
what i'm already doing towards these: - am signed up for a winter writing workshop (Lit Star Training with Ariel Gore) - in February, I have some pairs of days marked off (January doesn't look so good, due to a play - note to self...) - have a 10k walk event on Jan 4th and a 5k walk event mid-march; joined a dragon boat team and training starts next week and continues into june - sleep... make good faith efforts; keep sleep needs at top of awareness of things to do - am noticing that 'charged cloud'... step one - dragon boats is new! - i like my nanowrimo novel, despite its need for heavy revision and recognize that it is no more outlandish or dumb than many things being written and published; is it a urinetown idea? no, i think it's more based in this world than that play - but wouldn't it be great if it were that successful?!
i think i'm off to a good start.
i hope your new year gets off to a good start and that you remember the good things from 2008 because, although there were some pretty awful things, i know, i'm sure there were at least a few good things. like seeing the sun break through the clouds and shining down on a bright yellow dandelion in the middle of a field of green. or seeing one perfect honey crisp apple sitting right there waiting for you to pick it up at the grocery store when they were on sale. or having a child walk up and offer you a grin spreading from cheek to cheek with an outstretched hand to give you a blue m&m.remember a smile and pass it on.
Portland Center Stage's NOW HEAR THIS invites you to a rehearsed concert reading of
CONTINUUM a new play by Patrick Wohlmut
written with the support of a playwriting commission from
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
directed by Stan Foote
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 7:00 pm Portland Center Stage, 128 NW Eleventh Avenue on the Main Stage
The outstanding cast includes: Paul Glazier, Michael O'Connell and Amaya Villazan Admission is free and all are welcome A discussion will follow the reading
In the abstruse world of astrophysical research, Peter -- whose promise in the field is dubious -- needs all the help he can get. But he gets more than he bargained for from a brilliant but erratic collaborator he rescues the streets. In the course of their cat and mouse game, roles reverse and shift, stars and planets collide, and both men find that the universe is not as quantifiable as they expected.
Patrick Wohlmut Patrick is an actor and playwright. His most recent stage role was as Harry Berlin in Mt. Hood Repertory's production of Luv, where he also played Colm in Sea Marks. Other favorite roles include Vaughn in In Apparati, for Defunkt Theater; Faust in Faust. Us., for Stark Raving Theater; Peter Austin in It's Only a Play, for Profile Theater; Sebastian in Twelfth Night, for Portland Actors Ensemble; Ted in Three Plays Five Lives, for Liminal Performance Group; Miles in The Drawer Boy, for Artists Repertory Theater, which also starred William Hurt; and Todd in Earth Stories, for VERB: Literature in Performance, a role that earned him a Portland Drama Critics' Circle Award for Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role. As a writer, two of his short plays - The Surrogate Mothers and K-PAN - were featured in Portland State University's New Plays Festival in 2002. He was also a featured writer for Bump in the Road Theater's 2004 original production, (Old Age Ain't) No Place for Sissies. In addition to being the recipient of a Sloan Foundation New Science Initiative commission, Patrick is also working on a play titled The Chain and the Gear, about the effect of the hit-and-run death of a cyclist on a southeast Portland community; a novel, Putting Woody to Rest, about two teenagers who are haunted by the ghost of Woody Guthrie; and is co-writing and self-publishing a book of poetry with PDX Magazine editor Hollyanna McCollom, titled Assemblage. He lives with his wife and two children in Portland.
Richard Foreman is a writer, director, designer and the founder of Ontological-Hysteric Theater in NYC. He has written and produced over fifty of his own plays, in the US and in other countries.
You can read much more about this interesting writer and his work here.
He is a very prolific writer. Every day he writes around a half to three pages of dialogue. It is random and is generally not connected from day to day. He periodically (meaning every few months) reads through what he is written and gathers bits that catch his attention. When he gets enough bits that feel like they could be a play, he starts constructing a script.
He saves this writing in his online notebooks, which are there for anyone to peruse. And not only to look through, but to pick out parts which spark a writer's, director's, actor's, dancer's, or anyone's interest. Foreman writes:
I here make available my notebooks for the last fifteen years or so in the hopes directors/writers will make use of the material as I do. Choosing, arrangning, re-arranging, inventing situations into which the dialogue can be dropped, and ending up with a theatrical poerformance.
This material if offered freely. I ask no royalty. Because of the unique way I generate plays-- this may mean I myself will still be using from this pool of material in the future. I invite you to do so also.
The only thing I ask is that if you make use of this material in performance a) you simply notify me, so I can know if this material is stimulating anyone. b) any material used for production or publication displays in program or title page-- relatively prominantly-- the statement that the text involved is re-arranged material taken from the notebooks of Richard Foreman.
So, with that in mind, after the video is a small sample I have collected to pass on to you, from his notebook, SEEDS. Take from it what you will and write / paint / draw / dance / create! using whatever pieces of this peak your interest. If what I have selected leaves you flat, click here to go to his online notebooks and find another piece which suits you better.
The following video is an interview with Richard Foreman, where he discusses his creative process.
I did make it to the cumulative word count total for today. It took several short bursts of writing - primarily due to my schedule today - with a final sprint at 11:30 pm. But I did make it to over 15,000 today before midnight.
At 11:49 I updated my word count to15,162 (the goal was 15,003).
It's interesting that what started out as the main characters are the ones moving the slowest and the least is happening with them. I mean, there is something major, but it is slow and being dragged out so that I am not even sure they are still the main characters. They are; but the action lies elsewhere, unless watching slugs move through grass excites you. Hopefully they will pick up the pace a bit.
One thing I am wondering, though, is whether that generally critical internal editor has a hand in this. A few days ago I was given the basic structure of a plot by the characters - with details omitted and a sense of what that will look like, absent. So I wonder if the internal editor is not happy with that plot and is forestalling having to actually deal with it.
I've been waiting for my writing totem to appear. Other than the mug of coffee with soy milk and either my jammies if I am home or my found-in-New-York striped scarf if I am out in the world, I haven't had that little something which leads me forward as I travel the novel in a month road.
On Wednesday, I was given the gift of totem. Whew.
The Write Around Portland group I have been facilitating ended on Wednesday. Among a basket of things the group very sweetly put together (of things from a piece I had written, which had become an example for an exercise we did - such as a can of Campbell's tomato soup, jello, Tang - don't ask, when I get the piece cleaned up I will post it or publish it and you'll see, it makes sense) ... among the things was a Yellow Rubber Ducky cheerleader complete with pompoms.
I immediately knew that was my writing totem. When I am not writing, the ducky lives on the dash of my car, a reminder that I will get back to it and that I am rightly doing what I need to be doing at that moment - and my novel will move forward.
It makes me smile! Thank you wonderful writers of the group for this gift.
It opened tonight and there are three more opportunities if you haven't seen it:
Music in the Middle: An Evening of Duets with Mike Barber and Cydney Wilkes Friday-Sunday October 31-November 2, 2008 8PM, $15 admission nightly additional matinee performance Sunday @ 2 PM
Two of my all-time favorite dance performers are presenting new work. The process leading to this production is one of dedication to their art and communities. What the year-long commitment to practice, flying here and there (within and without the US) , fundraising, and performance entailed, I will leave up to readers to discover. Both of them have the skill, presence, and dedication required. I am sure it will be an evening of delight and inspiration. Four opportunities to see these masters perform their own duets and to perform a new work created for them by Deborah Hay, another master of dance.
Music in the Middle: An Evening of Duets with Mike Barber and Cydney Wilkes Friday-Sunday October 31-November 2, 2008 8PM, $15 admission nightly additional matinee performance Sunday @ 2 PM
Music in the Middle is the NW premier of Deborah Hay's duet Found Music, as well as that of two duets created by long time collaborators and Portland favorites Cydney Wilkes (Cul De Sac) and Mike Barber (Bomb), These two duets explore the artists' responses to how two individuals can inhabit the same space. Original music for Bomb and Cul De Sac is composed by Barber's and Wilkes' long time collaborator Heather Perkins.
