Why There Are Words: Peace and Justice

Why There Are Words – Portland returns for a second year of outstanding live author readings February 17, 2019 (Sunday) at 4pm, at  Leach Botanical Garden in SE Portland. The following six acclaimed authors will read on the theme of Peace and Justice.

Doors open at 4PM; readings begin at 4:15. $10 at the door; proceeds to benefit Leach Botanical Garden. Donations to WTAW, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, are always welcome. For details, including readers’ full bios, see whytherearewords.com/pdx.

Stevan Allred lives in Portland, Oregon, halfway between Hav and the Isle of the Dead, which is to say he spends as much time burrowed into his imagination as he possibly can. The Alehouse at the End of the World, his debut novel, was published by Forest Avenue Press in November 2018. He is the author of A Simplified Map of the Real World: The Renata Stories, and a contributor to City of Weird: 30 Otherworldly Portland Tales. His work has also appeared in Brave on the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life, Clackamas Literary Review, Bewildering Stories, Mississippi Review, and many other journals and anthologies.

Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and numerous other locations around the world. He is the recipient of a National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, the Globe and Mail, and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller that has been translated into thirteen languages and awarded the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, Washington Post, and GQ. He is one of 25 writers featured in the new anthology of speculative fiction, A People’s Future of the United States. He lives in the woods just south of Portland, Oregon.

Rachel King’s short fiction has appeared in One Story, Flyway, the Museum of Americana, Lunch Ticket, the Concho River Review, the Farallon Review, and Ashland Creek Press’ Among Animals 2 anthology, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her novel People along the Sand was a finalist in Forest Avenue Press’ 2018 open reading period, and her poetry chapbook Between Work and Light is available through Dancing Girl Press. She copyedits fiction and nonfiction and is the managing editor at Ruminate Magazine. She lives in her hometown of Portland.

Mary Milstead‘s writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Shirley Magazine, and Portland Review. She holds an MFA from Portland State University, where she won the Tom Doulis Graduate Fiction Writing Award, and where she now teaches writing. She’s at work on a memoir and a novel.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, musician, and Torah teacher. She is the author of Divinity School (APR/Honickman First Book Prize, 2015) and Fruit Geode (Augury Books, 2018). She is the creator and performer of Girls in Trouble, an indie-folk song cycle about women in Torah, and A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, a one-woman chamber-rock opera about finance and mysticism, currently being made into a feature film. An internationally touring violinist and singer, she lives in Portland with her husband and two children. She loves plants, ancient texts, and coffee, and is currently at work on a spiritual memoir.

Sam Roxas-Chua 姚 is a poet and multidisciplinary artist from Eugene, Oregon. He is the author of Saying Your Name Three Times Underwater (Lithic Press), Echolalia in Script: A Collection of Asemic Writing (Orison Books), and the chapbook Fawn Language (Tebot Bach). His poems and artwork have appeared in various journals including Narrative, december magazine, and Cream City Review. In 2014, his poetry sequence Diary of Collected Summers was awarded the Missouri Review’s Miller Audio Prize. His asemic work has been exhibited at selected galleries including the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. He also directs The Requatorist Studio, an organization dedicated to writing mentorship, publishing, and audio recording services.

Many thanks to the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition and to the Oregon Cultural Trust for supporting WTAW PDX and for helping art, literature and community flourish in southeast Portland.

Please note that accessibility will be limited for our November event. Due to the Johnson Creek Bridge construction, there will be no vehicle access to the Manor House and no access from the parking lot at SE 122nd Drive/Brookside. Parking will be at the SE Claybourne lot. The walk from parking to the Manor House is about 800 feet downhill through the garden on paths that are lovely, but regretfully are not wheelchair accessible, and not easy to navigate for those with mobility challenges. The bridge construction is now scheduled to be complete in March 2019, at which point all future WTAW PDX events will be fully accessible.

WTAW PDX is the Portland, OR branch of Why There Are Words, an award-winning national reading series. WTAW PDX launched in February 2018, with quarterly readings (February, May, August, November) on the third Sunday from 4–6 PM in the Manor House at Leach Botanical Garden, 6704 SE 122nd Ave., Portland. For more information see wtawpdx.org or email coordinators Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet and Virginia Bellis Brandabur at wtawpdx@gmail.com. Leach Botanical Garden phone: 503-823-9503.

Leach Botanical Garden is a 16-acre botanical park and historic home in outer SE Portland, OR; it is free and open to the public. Part of Portland Parks and Recreation, the Garden cultivates and nurtures positive natural, cultural, and educational experiences for a diverse community of Portland residents and supporters. For more information, see www.leachgarden.org.

A program of WTAW Press, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, WTAW PDX is hosted by curators Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet and Virginia Bellis Brandabur. More information here.