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Writers in the Schools End of Year Celebration
June 17, 2021 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
FreeJoin Writers in the Schools classroom teachers and writers-in-residence in celebrating the culmination of an incredibly challenging and fruitful 2020-21 school year filled with moments of creativity and community-building. Writers and teachers will take to the mic to share their own words and stories including WITS writers Alex Behr, Ed Edmo, Matt Smith, and Jennifer Perrine, Director of Youth Programs, Emilly Prado, and many more. Hosted by Jules Ohman, WITS Program Specialist.
Alex Behr is a writer and editor based in Portland, Oregon. After receiving an MFA in creative writing from Portland State, she’s taught fiction and creative nonfiction at Portland high schools through Writers in the Schools residencies. Her writing has appeared in many online and print publications, including Bitch, Mutha, Propeller, Nailed, Salon, and Tin House. Her debut story collection, Planet Grim, was published in October 2017 (7.13 Books).
Jennifer Perrine is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Again (Airlie Press, 2020). Their other books include No Confession, No Mass, winner of the Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Award and the Prairie Schooner Book Prize; In the Human Zoo, which was selected for the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize; and The Body Is No Machine. A recipient of fellowships from Literary Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, Perrine lives in Portland.
Ed Edmo is a Shoshone-Bannock poet, playwright, performer, traditional storyteller, tour guide and lecturer on Northwest tribal culture. Ed offers guided tours to the She Who Watches petroglyphs on the Columbia Gorge, as well as to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon’s high desert country. He conducts workshops, traditional storytelling performances, dramatic monologues and lectures on issues such as cultural understanding and awareness, drug and alcohol abuse, and mental health. Ed is a published short story writer, poet and playwright, and serves as a consultant to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.
Emilly Prado (she/her) is the Director of Youth Programs at Literary Arts. She began her work with the organization in 2017 as a Writer in the School before joining the staff in 2018 as a WITS Program Specialist and BIPOC Apprenticeship Supervisor, then as Interim Director of Youth Programs beginning in 2020 before becoming the full-time Director in 2021. Emilly’s work as a writer focuses on creative nonfiction and journalism, with an emphasis on amplifying the voices and experiences of people from marginalized communities. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist with publication in outlets including NPR, The Oregonian, Eater, The Stranger, and more. Emilly is the author of youth non-fiction title Examining Assimilation (Enslow, 2019) and the essay collection Funeral for Flaca (Future Tense Books, 2021). She is a Tin House Workshop alumna amongst others, and moonlights as a DJ with Noche Libre, the Latinx DJ collective she co-founded in 2017. Learn more at www.emillyprado.com
Jules Ohman (she/hers & they/them) is a program specialist and writer for Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools program. She co-founded the nonprofit Free Verse, which teaches creative writing in juvenile halls, and works as a grant writer. Jules writes novels, walks a lot, and lives with her partner in Portland. She earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of Montana. Her debut novel, Body Grammar, is forthcoming from Vintage.
Matt Smith grew up in Iowa and Arizona. He earned his BA in English Literature from Arizona State University. He spent the subsequent four years after college in South Korea as an ESL teacher. His short fiction work centers on the intersections of race and identity. He is currently working on a collection of short stories focused what it means to be multi-racial in America. Matt was a 2017-18 WITS apprentice.