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Grace Paley’s Life Stories with Judith Arcana
September 15, 2019 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
$8To ensure that you are able to join us for the event, please rsvp for all guests. Guests who are walk in on the day of the event are not guaranteed seats.
On September 15, please join Judith Arcana, author of Grace Paley’s Life Stories, for a conversation with poet and publisher Carl Adamshick, and for readings by both writers from the book. Grace Paley’s Life Stories is the only biography of renowned author and activist Grace Paley and explores the roots of her political consciousness and traces her work as an activist as it grew into her work as a storyteller. It was recently reprinted in a glowing 2nd edition by Eberhardt Press in Portland.
Arcana and Adamschick will discuss the importance of this book, and of Grace’s life and writing, and will read passages and answer audience questions. Judith Arcana will be available afterward to sign books.
Judith Arcana writes poems, stories, essays and books. Her most recent collection is Announcements from the Planetarium, poems about conscious aging. Also recent are new editions of 4th Period English, poems about immigration, and Grace Paley’s Life Stories, a biography of the internationally acclaimed activist and writer. Coming next year is Hello. This is Jane, stories seeded by pre-Roe abortion work in Chicago. She lives in Portland.
Carl Adamshick has worked for ten years as editor of Tavern Books, a non-profit publisher dedicated to poetry and the preservation of books and book culture. In addition to Birches (2019, Four Way Books), his published works include Curses and Wishes, recipient of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, Saint Friend, and Receipt. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Grace Paley (1922-2007) was a committed activist and a globally celebrated writer. She sat down in front of rolling tanks and rearing horses, got arrested on the White House lawn, and traveled across the world to negotiate prisoner exchanges during the US war in Viet Nam. She was one of the great masters of the short story form, a model for everyone writing stories in any language in any country.