• April 18, 2024
          Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Portland Arts & Lectures 2023/24
          April 22, 2024
          Letter Writing Social
          April 25, 2024
          Verselandia! Youth Poetry Slam Championship (2024)
          April 26, 2024
          BIPOC Reading Series April
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  3. Jessica (Tyner) Mehta
Jessica (Tyner) Mehta

Jessica (Tyner) Mehta Oregon

Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, interdisciplinary artist, multi-award-winning poet, and author of several books. Place, space, and personal ancestry inform much of her work. She’s also the owner of an award-winning small business. MehtaFor is a writing services company that offers pro bono services to Native Americans and indigenous-serving non-profits.

Her novel The Wrong Kind of Indian won gold at the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) and at the American Book Fest Best Book. Mehta’s Savagery won the Reader Literary Reviews 2020 award for “most innovative collection of poetry.” Selected Poems: 2000 – 2020 received the 2020 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Books. Jessica has also received numerous fellowships in recent years, including the Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship at the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington and the Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship at The British Library in London. Jessica is a popular speaker and panelist, featured recently at events such as the US State Department’s National Poetry Month event, “Poets as Cultural Emissaries: A Conversation with Women Writers,” as well as the “Women’s Transatlantic Prison Activism Since 1960” symposium at Oxford University.

She has undertaken poetry residencies around the globe including at Hosking Houses Trust with an appointment at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, Paris Lit Up in France, and at the Crazy Horse Memorial and museum in South Dakota. Her work has been featured at galleries and exhibitions around the world, including IA&A Hillyer in Washington DC, The Emergency Gallery in Sweden, and Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. Her doctoral research addresses the intersection of poetry and eating disorders. Learn more at www.jessicamehta.com.

Events, Classes, and Seminars

Our events, classes, and seminars bring the community together to hear, learn, and discuss the most compelling issues and ideas of our day. We hope you will join us in our downtown Literary Arts space, online, and at partnering venues across Portland and Oregon.