Writing is a labor of love for members of the Oregon chapter of the National Writers Union. Our Writers Corner Program–which offers local writers an opportunity to share their writing aims, experiences, and challenges–begins almost all our chapter meetings. Join us to hear from our local writers and help us build our writers community.
For more information about the program or to volunteer to present at a future meeting, write Kacey Carpenter <kaceycarpenter@gmail.com>
Past presentations:
Sunday, November 10, 2024, 4:00 PM Pacific Time Check out the video recording here
Bio: Zachariah O’Keeffe, Author, History Student, Lover of Horror
Zachariah O’Keeffe is a writer of short horror and tragedies that meditate and explore the everyday anxieties and fears of life and the world we made, and by doing so, making a peace with them.
Zachariah lives in Portland, where he’s from as a rare native, and encourages his peers to explore their chosen crafts and art.
Blog: Roll for Writing
Social: Roll for Writing Facebook
Book: Tales from Port Astor
Sunday, September 8, 2024, 4:00 PM Pacific Time Check out the video recording here
Bio: Kacey Carpenter, author, community organizer, volunteer
Kacey Carpenter is an author, community organizer, digital innovator, parent, and volunteer leader. He has a passion for life, family, and friends and loves the outdoors, coaching, teaching, traveling, and volunteering.
Kacey lives in Oregon and serves candidates, campaigns, and causes to ensure democracy, protect our planet, and fight for equity, inclusion, and justice for all.
Books: Do Not Die Today, coming this fall, 2024, READY, SET, GO! Playbook for Campaigns, Candidates, and Causes 2023; My Journey with Bernie, 2017.
Sunday, July 14, 2024, 4:00 PM Pacific Click to watch the recording of the “The Future Predicts Science Fiction” here.
Bio: David D. Levine, writer
David D. Levine is the Hugo- and Nebula-winning author of the space caper novel The Kuiper Belt Job. He is also a member of Book View Cafe, a writer-owned publishing cooperative, and Oregon Science Fiction Conventions Inc., a non-profit organization which produces OryCon and other SF conventions. In 2010 he spent two weeks at the Mars Desert Research Station, a simulated Mars base in the Utah desert. David lives in a hundred-year-old bungalow in Portland, Oregon.
Books: The Kuiper Belt Job (Caezik 2023), Arabella of Mars (Tor 2016), Arabella and the Battle of Venus (Tor 2017), Arabella the Traitor of Mars (Tor 2018), and more than fifty science fiction and fantasy stories. His collection Space Magic (Wheatland Press 2008) won the Endeavour Award for the best SF or Fantasy book by a Pacific Northwest writer.
Sunday, May 19, 2024, 4:00 PM Pacific Time Watch the Video Recording
Bio: Gus Frederick
Gus Frederick is a native Oregonian, born in Salem in 1954, 100 years after his hometown of Silverton was founded. He is by training a filmmaker and photographer, although he has broadened that term by necessity to multimedia artist. He works as a conceptual artist, photographer, filmmaker and animator for the Oregon State Fire Marshal. A long-time local history enthusiast, he continues to be fascinated with many of the incredible stories from the Silverton Country.
Books: The Annotated Cartoons by Davenport (2006), Silverton, Timothy Woodbridge Davenport: The Collected Works, The Dollar or the Man, Liberal University of Oregon (2023)
Sunday, March 10, 2024, 4:00 PM Pacific Time.
Sean Weeks delivered his presentation “In the Land of the Blind” with this
video recording, followed by questions and appreciation, and discussion of
next steps.
Bio: Sean Weeks, Essayist, screenwriter, and novelist.
Sean Weeks, a writer and classicist based in Salem, Oregon, intertwines his passion for writing, classical studies, and archaeology into his work. His writings, influenced by his studies in ancient history and anthropology, practice empathy and offer new perspectives. Outside of writing, he enjoys board games, painting miniatures, and composing keyboard music.
Published works: Blog, Articles, Short Stories
Bio: Lura Frazey, Writer
Lura Frazey is co-author of Life Beyond My Body: A transgender journey to manhood in China, winner of the 2017 Lambda Literary award for Transgender Non-Fiction.
A freelance copywriter for many years, Lura has written everything from egg carton labels to online magazines. She’s ghosted for movie stars, scripted Nobel Prize winners, and turned engineering jargon into plain English. She is currently working on a novel inspired by an old family story.
Books: Life Beyond My Body: A transgender journey to manhood in China, Transgress Press, 2017.
Bio: Julia M. Allen, professor emerita of English at Sonoma State University
Although my writing is academically-informed, I try to make it accessible to all readers. As a rhetoric scholar, I enjoy exploring how feminist writers historically have used unconventional rhetorical strategies in attempts to change social conditions for women and other marginalized populations. Over time, my explorations have expanded beyond the purely linguistic to include multimodal and material efforts. Most recently, I have enlarged my scope further to tell the stories of women who have fused their lives and their rhetorical work for social justice.
Books: Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins, SUNY Press, 2013 and (with Jocelyn H. Cohen) Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press, Lever Press, 2023.