Each week, Literary Arts staff will round up news, events, and more happening in the literary community. Let us know if you have any events or book news to share.
VIRTUAL LITERARY EVENTS
Annie Bloom’s Books presents: Lori Tobias with Laura Stanfill
January 14 | 7:00 p.m. PST | Free
A livestream reading with Lori Tobias from her new book, Storm Beat: A Journalist Reports from the Oregon Coast. She will be in conversation with Portland writer and publisher Laura Stanfill, author of Sad House: Parenting, Grief, and Creativity in the Coronavirus Crisis.
MFA Alumni Reading: C. R. Grimmer, Genevieve Hudson, & Suman Mallick (Portland State MFA)
January 15 | 4:00 p.m. | Free
Winter Fishtrap: Resilience
An Online Conference: Saturdays, January 9, 16, 23, 30
Join Fishtrap this January for Winter Fishtrap as we explore the role Resilience plays in our communities, our cultures, our world, and our lives. Be a part of the conversation as we examine these questions:
- How does Resilience impact mental health?
- How do cultures survive, even thrive?
- What does Resilience look like in the natural world?
- What is the role of imagination in building Resilient communities?
The Writing Body (IPRC)
January 17 | 10:00 a.m. | $65 (scholarships available)
In this three-part workshop, we will allow the emotional and intellectual bodies, as well as the body in space, to inform writing practice. Through somatic awareness, movement, and meditation practice, we will generate written work.
Powell’s Books Presents André Aciman in Conversation With Jonathan Burnham
January 17 | 5:00 p.m.
André Aciman, the New York Times-bestselling author of Find Me and Call Me by Your Name, returns to the essay form with a collection of thoughts on time, the creative mind, and great lives and works. Aciman will be joined in conversation by Jonathan Burnham, President and Publisher of the Harper Division at HarperCollins.
Consider This with Emma Green
January 19 | 5:00 p.m. PST | Free
Join Oregon Humanities for a conversation with Emma Green, a staff writer at The Atlantic who covers politics, policy, and religion. We’ll talk about how faith overlaps with voting, running for office, volunteering, and other ways people interact with democracy in the United States.
The Moth National Mainstage
January 27 | 4:30 p.m. PST | $15
Join The Moth for stories from the razor’s edge. Taunting fate and laughing in the face of danger. Close calls, brazen stunts, or death-defying heroics. Dancing too close to the fire, grazing the flames or magically escaping unscathed.
RESOURCES & OPPORTUNITIES FOR WRITERS
The Big Moose Prize
Deadline: January 31
The prize is open to new, emerging, and established writers with an unpublished novel. The winner of this contest will receive book publication, a $1,000 cash award, and ten copies of the book.
Fields Artist Fellowship
Deadline: February 15
The Fields Artist Fellowship aims to support artists who are at a pivotal moment or inflection point in their careers, where the fellowship can provide meaningful impact. Oregon Community Foundation and Oregon Humanities will award four Fields Artist Fellows $100,000 each over a two-year period; along with robust professional development, networking and community building opportunities. In addition, a one-time sum of $10,000 will be awarded to eight finalists.
2020 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction
Deadline: February 15
This contest is open to any short fiction writer of English. The prize includes a $2,000 cash award and publication of the winning manuscript. Judged by Alice Sebold.
Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships
Deadline: February 23
The 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships are $50,000 awards given to honor poets of literary merit appointed to serve in civic positions and to enable them to undertake meaningful, impactful, and innovative projects that engage their fellow residents, including youth, with poetry, helping to address issues important to their communities.
Dramatist’s League Foundation
DGF provides emergency financial assistance to individual playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists in dire need of funds due to severe hardship or unexpected illness.
Waterson Desert Writing Prize
The Prize annually honors literary nonfiction that illustrates artistic excellence, sensitivity to place, and desert literacy — with the desert as both subject and setting. Inspired by author and poet Ellen Waterston’s love of Central Oregon’s High Desert, the Prize recognizes the vital role deserts play worldwide. Emerging, mid-career and established nonfiction writers are invited to apply. Previous applicants who have not won an award are eligible to submit a new project. The Prize is awarded to a nonfiction full-length book proposal.
We Need Diverse Books Emergency Fund
We Need Diverse Books have recently updated their eligibility criteria so that even more diverse creatives can apply during this challenging time. Grant amounts range from $500–$1,000.
FOR KIDS/TEENS
Bodecker Foundation Virtual Workshops
Dates vary
Led by professional artists, writers, musicians, and educators, our FREE creative workshops for high school students include a mix of online group activities and offline individual and/or collaborative project work. February offerings include Socially Engaged Art with Patricia Vázquez Gómez and Lyric Writing with Chris Funk. See all available classes here.
Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards Program in Partnership with We Need Diverse Books
Deadline: March 2, 2021
Calling all high school seniors attending a public high school in the United States! We Need Diverse Books and Penguin Random House are happy to announce that submissions are open for the 2021 Creative Writing Awards, a scholarship program dedicated to furthering the education of students with unique and diverse voices.
Waterson Student Essay Competition
The student award contest is open to all high school-age students (grades 9-12), 18 years old or younger, who reside in Crook, Deschutes, Harney, Jefferson or Lake County. Public school, private school and home-schooled students are eligible.
WHAT WE’RE READING
The White Man’s Audacity by Mitchell S. Jackson
To be appalled at what happened Wednesday is to believe that America has ever been a true United States, not a country diseased by the psychosis of a supreme white race.
Blog cover image from Rosie Kerr.
