New Literary and Arts Publication : PCR

There's a new publication in town. Well, and beyond - it's not limited to just Portland, OR.

Port Cities Review

You can sign up to be one of the first on the list of updates. They are also now open for submissions.

Click on the PCR Facebook page link to read more about them the publication.

It looks like a great lineup behind this venture and I'm looking forward to the first issue. And the second, and so on.

Who knows, I may even find something to submit!

Check it out and and sign up to be there for its launch.

A Very Art-full Day

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Saturday began with a trip to Wordstock.

Before I get into today's events, I want to take a little side trip to tell you how I ended up there. Or, how I ended up there as I did, today. Which was not how it all began.

I originally held the day to attend Wordstock. I knew I'd be working on Sunday, because I almost always work Sunday late afternoon into the evening. So, Saturday it would be. So, nothing scheduled for the day. Then along came an email from the Portland NaNoWriMo ML (Municpal Liason, for those not up on NaNoWriMo lingo). She announced that the Salem group and the Portland group were going to go in together on a booth at Wordstock and needed volunteers.

Hey, I thought. Sure. Why not? I'm going anyway! So I signed up. I was the second or third person to sign up, so I got to pick my time slot - the only slots filled were ones I couldn't (or wouldn't) do anyway.

Time passed. Then came an announcement that the NaNogroup didn't have enough money so they couldn't have a booth. I was disappointed, but I'd already received two other emails asking if I'd volunteer for two other writing groups I have association with. I looked at one and decided I'd rather just go as a participant. Then the second group, which was Write Around Portland, asked me if I could volunteer.

If you've been following my blog for any length of time, I'm sure you've noticed Write Around Portland crop up more than once. I love Write Around Portland and everything they do. So I looked at the schedule of what they needed and picked my top two and replied, "yes!"

I had a sign-through rehearsal for the play I'm interpreting next week, so I selected times which would be within the vicinity of that, time-wise. With enough time to meet up with my interpreting teammate and our sign coach before the play started.

All was going great. I got my first choice of volunteer slots.

Then a couple or so days ago I received a request for interpreting work at Wordstock. I jumped at that call, though I'm trying, as much as possible, to not to work on Saturdays. But to interpret at Wordstock? Yes. You bet I wanted to do that and I got the job. That was scheduled to end an hour before my Write Around Portland volunteer shift started, so it was perfect. The author was a joy to work with and I enjoyed meeting her, hearing parts of her book and about her process; and I have a copy of her book to read.

It was a perfect day.

Interpreting at Wordstock and meeting a very nice author/stand-up comic/publicist from NYC. Then having an hour to wander and look around, buy a couple of books, pick up brochures and information. Volunteering two hours with another personable and nice to share space with volunteer for my favorite non-profit. Followed by a couple of hours for dinner and going over the script, discussion with our sign coach. And then our sign-through for the play at Portland Center Stage. Or our sign-through of Act One because in Act Two our headsets weren't working correctly and we finally gave up after about 30 minutes of struggling to be able to hear. But it's okay - Act One is the most challenging due to pace and density of information.

So I guess that's my story. A very art-full day of literature, interpreting about literature, meeting people, and being at the theater.

A good day.
*

submissions: Hag Magazine: Eating Well & Aging Badly

From the editor, Ariel Gore:

I'm writing because you may be a bad-ass writer, photographer, or artist who is ready to step into your hag power OR you may know one who is ready...


(As we've learned from Lindsay Lohan and her fabulous nail art, you're never too young or too beautiful to be a hag.)


In any case, the zine tentatively titled Hag Magazine: Eating Well & Aging Badly will launch in 2011. We are seeking quality memoir shorts, reviews, art, comics, personal essays, excerpts, photography, fattening recipes, interviews, a few good hag rants, radical activist morality tales, How-to do things you're too old to do, and anything else your genius mind can imagine in such a magazine.


Contributors are encouraged to interpret the title of the magazine in the broadest possible way and avoid articles like "Why I am a Cool Hag" or--worse yet--"How to Look 30 When You're 50."


A hag can be 15 or 115 years old, and any gender under the sun. A hag is likely proud of how far s/he's come and doesn't need to look or act like a child.


Stories can be set in later life, but they don't have to be (A 20-year-old chain-smoking over-dieter is probably aging pretty badly--we will take her in!)


Please Forward Widely


Deadline: December 1st, 2010


Word limit: 2,000


Hag Magazine
1807 Second St. #32
Santa Fe, NM 87505

authors in conversation

PORTLAND ARTS & LECTURES 

SUBSCRIBE ONLINE!

Margaret Atwood & Ursula K. Le Guin

Together In Conversation
Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.

Margaret Atwood is the acclaimed author of over 30 books, including The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and The Year of the Flood. The Washington Post calls her “Canada’s greatest living novelist.”

Ursula K. Le Guin is one of Oregon’s preeminent writers. She is the author of over 40 books and is revered by readers and critics in almost every genre, including science fiction, fantasy, poetry, children’s books and literary criticism.

There are some other great writers in this series - but this one really caught my attention. This series generally sells out - so, if you're local or will be in town, get the tickets while you can. I suspect this season will sell quickly.