Oregon Book Awards Author Tour: Newport

M. L. Herring is associate professor emerita of science communication at Oregon State University, where she continues to lead workshops to inspire people to experience the world through observation, art, and ecology. She lives in Corvallis.

Jamie Mustard is a conceptual artist, artistic director, culturist and award winning writer including his work on art, imagery and the messaging of ideas. Jamie has worked in fine art, music, film and design. He produced the documentary, Showbiz is My Life, which was screened by Lincoln Center as one of the best films of the year upon its year of release. His literary memoir was written as a systematic deconstruction of his early life as a crime scene – Child X about being handed over at birth to a dark movement, was released at the end of July 2025. His graphic novel, HYBRED, set in a future-adjacent sci-fi, alternate reality Los Angeles of his youth will be published in the late Fall of 2025. His recent work of graphic literature, is a science fiction episodic work exploring the darkest reaches of humanity utilizing vivid imagery and fine art. Both books were conceived and art directed by Jamie. 

Growing up in severe poverty, illiteracy, abandonment and neglect in inner city Los Angeles, unable to write or even use a comma at age 20 he overcame obstacles to eventually graduate from The London School of Economics and Engalitcheff Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems (ICPES) at Georgetown University. In the fall of 2025, Jamie was invited as a guest of the Armenian government to present to the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Affairs. He was also a guest of the US Embassy in Armenia as the first to bring a new science on trauma as a biological injury to the Caucasus. 

Jamie is also the writer of The Iconist, A Kid’s Book about the Impossible and co-author of the groundbreaking book, The Invisible Machine on the biology of trauma.  

Pronouns: any/all

Jennifer (JP) Perrine is the author of five award-winning books of poetry: Beautiful Outlaw, Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. Their other recent work appears in Best Small Fictions, A Mouth Holds Many Things: A De-Canon Hybrid Lit Collection, and Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, and Poetry. A two-time winner of Arts and Culture Diversity and Inclusion Awards from the Asian American Journalists Association, Perrine lives in Portland, Oregon, where they cohost the Incite: Queer Writers Read series, perform stand-up comedy, and work as the equity and racial justice program manager for Metro Parks and Nature.