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The Moth Mainstage in Portland: Lineup Announced!

Literary Arts is excited to once again partner with The Moth, bringing the Mainstage in Portland back to The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Tuesday, December 14.

OUR HOST:

Ophira Eisenberg is a standup comedian and writer. She was the host of NPR’s Ask Me Another for nine years where she interviewed and played silly games with Sir Patrick Stewart, Rosie Perez, Awkwafina, Roxane Gay, Bob The Drag Queen, Jessica Walter, Bowen Yang, Debra Messing, Nick Kroll, Chelsea Handler, and more. She’s a regular panelist on Hulu’s Up Early Tonight and has appeared on Comedy Central, This Week At The Comedy Cellar, The New Yorker Festival, Kevin Hart’s LOL Network, HBO’s Girls, Gotham Live,The Late Late Show, and The Today Show. Her stories have also been included in two of The Moth’s best-selling collections, including the most recent: Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible. Ophira’s own comedic memoir, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy was optioned for a television series. Her comedy special Inside Joke is available on Amazon, and her new album Plant-Based Jokes will be available soon.

The Moth, The Moth Radio Hour, St. Louis Missouri, The Sheldon Conert Hall, © Theo R. Welling 2014, © Theo R. Welling

Our Storytellers:

Update 12/13/21: Due to unforeseen circumstances Bushra Al-Fusail will no longer be performing at this event as previously announced.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is an ordained Lutheran Pastor, founder of House for All Sinners & Saints in Denver, Co, the creator and host of The Confessional Podcast, and the author of three NYT bestselling memoirs: Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith Of a Sinner & Saint (Re-released 2021), Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People (2015) and SHAMELESS: A Sexual Reformation (2019).

She writes and speaks about personal failings, recovery, grace, faith, and really whatever the hell else she wants to. She always sits in the corner with the other weirdoes. Read more from Nadia in The Corners or connect with her and other spiritual misfits in a pop-up Chapel for conversation, daily prayer, and exclusive content by visiting thechapel.io.

Bertony Faustin is more than Oregon’s first Black vineyard owner and Winemaker, he is a pioneer. Leading with, “It was great that I was the first but more important that I am not the last,” Bertony continues to work to change the game by changing the players in it. Building community through education with his award-winning documentary Red, White & Black as well as his work with local high school and college kids, he strives to show the freedom in being true to yourself. Since founding Abbey Creek in 2007, Bertony has created a space filled with love, magic, and moments for folks in Oregon and beyond.

For more than fifty years, Carolyn Meyer built a career as a writer for children and young adults, traveling the world to do research for historical novels about people like Marie Antoinette and Charles Darwin. Then at a certain point in her life, with more than sixty books to her credit, Carolyn decided to take her storytelling in a different direction. Her first solo show in her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, called Don’t Call Me Young Lady!, proved that she could actually stand on a stage for over an hour and hardly ever forget her lines. She did it again with a second show, The Old White Lady Tells It. When the pandemic shut down that show, she shifted to weekly podcasts—she prefers to call them oddcasts—under the title of Aging Disgracefully. And that is what she is continuing to do—particularly the “disgracefully” part.

Tiq Milan is a thought leader, storyteller, and media maker whose work on equity and inclusion has had an impact in the US and abroad for over a decade. He travels throughout North America leading discussions on healthy modes of masculinity, intersectional leadership and engineering environment of inclusion. He has lectured at several universities including Harvard, Stanford, and Brown on the importance of inclusion as a tool of innovation and outlines concrete strategies for productive engagement.  He has been listed as one of the most influential LGBTQ people in the world by The Advocate and Refinery 29. He has been a part of the coveted OUT Magazine Out 100, celebrating the work of LGBTQ advocates and celebrities. Tiq has contributed to the anthology, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, an expansive 650-page resource guide covering health, legal issues, cultural and social issues. He also wrote the foreword for OP: The Best of Ten Years of Trans Male Culture. He is currently featured in the Netflix documentary Disclosure and is an Executive Producer for the upcoming documentary The Aggressives 2, a follow-up to the original award-winning doc, The Aggressives (1998).

A journalist for over 15 years, his work has appeared in the New York Times, Buzzfeed, NBC, CNN, BET, and many others. His 2016 TED Talk has been viewed over 3 million times and continues to inform and inspire people all over the world. Most recently, he was featured in the Oscar nominated Netflix documentary Disclosure. His memoir, Man Of My Design: A Self-Determined Life is slated to be published Fall of 2022.

George Sumner lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, Tina Hose, and their dog Miley. Born in Salt Lake City, George is one of six siblings. He was raised in rural Utah, but says he grew up in Vietnam, where he served as a helicopter pilot. George is a retired fire chief. In retirement, he and Tina are active in public and political affairs, serving on community councils and nonprofit boards. They look forward to resuming the travel they love, especially visiting family and friends in the Pacific Northwest.

Our Musician
Canadian/American cellist Trevor Fitzpatrick joined the Oregon Symphony in 2005 and has since imbedded himself into the musical community around him. He is an avid chamber musician, collaborating with groups such as: 45th Parallel, Fear No Music, Third Angle New Music, Chatter New Mexico, and his own RTK Piano trio.Trevor also recently won a position with Portland Opera’s cello section. A Graduate of the Glenn Gould School in Toronto, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the New World Symphony in Miami, Trevor has performed in major concert halls throughout the USA, Canada, South America, and Europe. In addition to his orchestral and chamber career, Mr. Fitzpatrick now has fun teaching his own batch of future cellists with a private studio in Portland. He is the proud father of two little cellists (ages one & five) and lucky husband to cellist Marilyn de Oliveira.

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