W.o.o.t.s.

Are you a young artist looking to engage with your community? The Portland Art Museum’s Artist in Residence Lexa Walsh will be teaching a workshop called Socially Engaged Art Making that encourages students to explore the relationship between art and community.  This is a free 10-week course in which young artists will work in an array of formats, from public art, documentary, alternative education, and others.  The work produced will be influenced by youth culture and final projects will be a collaboration with local community partners.

Interested artists should email a CV outlining why they’d like to be in the course; they should include any collaborative experiences they’ve had.  Applications must be submitted to danae.hutson@pam.org by Feb. 1st.

For more information go to: http://portlandartmuseum.org/page.aspx?pid=439

It was certainly a 21st-century reading at Broadway books on Wednesday night, with students reading their comics projected onto a screen and playing radio pieces they had pre-recorded for broadcast. The pieces were produced in two residencies at Benson High School this past semester: graphic novelist Nicole Georges taught in Dave Mylet’s classroom, and journalist Emily Harris taught in Steve Naganuma’s broadcasting class.

With such interactive pieces, the audience had questions for students about the process behind their creating. Each piece had been inspired by an in-class assignment. One student from Emily Harris’ class told about selecting a “boring” item from a sack and then writing about it, in this case a rock. The subsequent broadcast piece was amazingly textured, with a sensory description of a rock that the audience could virtually smell and feel as the student described it. In Nicole Georges class, students chose “weird” headlines and created a comic about them. Again, students displayed impressive creativity, building a multi-page story around a deceptively simple phrase.

It was certainly an entertaining evening for everyone involved. Many thanks to Broadway Books for hosting and to all those who came and participated!

The December 8 WITS reading for Madison High School students was a great success.  An unprecedented number of Madison students, teachers, families and friends packed the BiPartisan Cafe to join WITS writers John Isaacson and Hunt Holman.  Cheers to the great audience and participants!

Madison English teacher Gene Brunak

On Tuesday December 6, Powell’s City of Books hosted the release party for the 2010-2011 WITS anthology of student writing, No One Carries an Umbrella Here. More than 130 students, family members and other community members came out to celebrate student writers reading their poems, plays, prose and comics from the anthology.

The above photo features Lincoln student Lexi Walker reading “A Voice That Darkened with Age.”  Audience members may have recognized another student writer, Jin Mei McMahon from Cleveland High School, who read a piece titled “Her Logic.”  Jin Mei was this year’s winner of the Glimmer Train Prize for Prose.  She “opened” for biographer Stacy Schiff at her Portland Arts and Lectures event this fall.

Stephen Kennedy reading his comic at Powell's

WITS writers Hunt Holman, Mark Pomeroy and Donna Prinzmetal read pieces for students who were not able to attend the event.

Thank you to all the students, teachers, and writers who contributed to the WITS anthology.  A big thank you to Powell’s for hosting!

Tom Brokaw fields questions from Wilson High students.

Tom Brokaw made time during a busy Portland visit to meet with students from Wilson High School at the new Literary Arts event space downtown. He told the student journalists they are coming of age at a critical time. While the future of print journalism is uncertain, Brokaw said he remains optimistic that “the culture of journalism, that of informing US citizens of what is being said around the world in their name, will not change.” Then he opened the floor for student questions, “or answers.”

One visitor remarked that when listening to coverage of the Pearl Harbor attack, she was struck by the emotion in the correspondent’s voice. Asked to name an event that had a similar effect on him, Brokaw said, “9/11. We were as unprepared for 9/11 as they were for Pearl Harbor. Nobody knew what was coming next.” He remembered being focused on getting through the next hour, and telling the audience what was known, without adding speculation.

Students arrived at the meeting with questions already prepared. They had read in class copies of Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation, supplied by Literary Arts’ Students to the Schnitz program. They were on their way to his appearance at the Schnitzer that night. After a lively discussion, Brokaw offered his signature advice to those aspiring to a career in journalism, “Have you thought about medicine?”

Our second year of matching volunteer mentors with high school students at Franklin High School was a great success! Student interest was even higher this year, with 37 students receiving one-on-one help with their college and scholarship application essays. We’re excited to be expanding the program to Madison High School this year, with a mentoring session planned for November 29.

Many of this year’s mentors are enthusiastic returns from the previous event. We also have a great new crop of volunteers who were inspired to help after reading Susie Bartley’s essay in the fall edition of Literary Arts’ newsletter, Words Matter. With backgrounds as lawyers, teachers, psychologists, writers, artists, philanthropists, and doctors, our volunteers bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to share with students.

Despite the blustery, rainy afternoon outside, the Franklin school library was alight with positive conversations. Students answered a questionnaire to spark topic ideas, and mentors worked on helping them craft their experiences and aspirations into thoughtful and unique pieces.

This November, Figment is teaming up with The National Writing Project to sponsor the Junot Diaz Writing Contest, judged by Pulitzer prize-winning author Junot Diaz.  Figment is an online writing community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors.  

            Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, stands out for his masterful, compelling command of voice; his writing is instantly recognizable as his own. This unique and impressive control of tone has inspired Figment to sponsor a fiction-writing contest which encourages each writer to develop his or her own distinct voice.

The contest is open to writers over the age of 13 in the United States and submissions are being accepted through November 30^th, 2011. Finalists will receive signed copies of Diaz’ books, and the winner will receive a special Oscar Wao Prize Pack You can read the contest rules in full, here.

The theme of this contest is Creating The Narrative Voice, and Figment offers three different prompts to choose from, all geared toward the development of a strong narrative voice:

First Person:
Without naming or describing your narrator, write a story in which you make the narrator’s age, personality, and philosophy/outlook on life evident through his or her voice.

Second Person:
Write a story about an ordinary day in the life of an extraordinary person, such as the president, supermodel, or a homeless boy. Narrate the story entirely in the second person.

Third Person:
Write a story in which you describe a person using only attributes generally considered negative (for example a character who is usually late, sloppy, and mean), but through the voice of your narrator, make that character likable.

In addition to selecting the contest winners, Junot Diaz will be writing a post for the Figment blog about how best to develop your tone, as well as answering your questions on the Figment forum. Post your questions for Junot Diaz here!

This contest is a wonderful opportunity for young writers to share their work in a supportive and stimulating forum, and have the chance to learn from an established and beloved author. To read more about the contest and submission guidelines, or to learn more about Figment, visit their website at www.figment.com.

Good luck to all contestants!

—Acacia, WITS Intern

Each year, Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia sponsors a poetry contest open to high school girls. Now in its 48^th year, the contest awards honors and prizes for the best poems submitted by girls who are sophomores or juniors in high school. The contest, named for Nancy Thorpe, Hollins class of 1960, aims to support and encourage the work of young, female poets.

The winners are selected by faculty and students in the creative writing department at Hollins University. The first place winner will receive a $200 cash prize, free registration, transportation to, and housing for the Lex Allen Literary Festival at Hollins University on March 10, 2012, publication in Cargoes, Hollins’ student literary magazine, and ten copies of Cargoes. Six second-place winners will receive a $25 prize, publication in Cargoes, and two copies of Cargoes.

Contestants must be sophomores or juniors in high school, must have a faculty sponsor, and may submit up to two poems.  All submissions should be made online here before November 15, 2011. For more information about submission requirements, and to read about Hollins University’s creative writing program, visit the contest webpage.

This contest is a great opportunity for young women interested in poetry to share their work and possibly have that work published. Don’t forget to submit online before November 15^th!

Stephen and Bianca with a friend outside the Schnitz.

For Stephen and Bianca, teachers at at Metropolitan Learning Center, the city is a classroom. They regularly take their students off-campus to see performances of all kinds, including the Arts & Lectures Series. When asked which part of the Students to the Schnitz program is more important, the free books or the free tickets to the events, they answered, “Both!” Stephen likes his students to connect the printed book to the author, a person not so unlike themselves, and the effort they put into writing it. Bianca reports that the free copies of Stacy Schiff’s biography Cleopatra were snapped up by eager students.They are encouraged to mark up the books, make notes in the margins, to interact with the original interactive medium. It’s all part of learning that a relationship with a great book can be for the long haul. Apparently they don’t like to share. “Where’s my book?” Bianca demanded, imitating a student. Thanks to the sponsors of Students to the Schnitz for sharing, so the students don’t have to.

On Tuesday November 18^th Literary Arts held its annual WITS fundraiser luncheon, hosted by Blue Hour. Members of the Literary Arts staff and Board of Directors gathered with almost 200 friends, writers, teachers and other members of the community to support WITS.

We are thrilled to share that the event was a huge success, raising more than $39, 750 for the program. As many are already aware, the WITS program costs more than $200,000 a year to fully fund. We ask each participating school to contribute roughly ten percent of the cost for the program at that school; however, schools are served regardless of their ability to pay. Literary Arts is charged with raising the remaining funds.

Beyond being a financial success, the luncheon was particularly delightful thanks to our wonderful student readers: Rose Hogeweide, Jin Mei McMahon, Orby Fleury and Benjamin Wakefield-Smay. Rose shared some of her fondest memories of working with writer Carmen Bernier-Grand at Roosevelt High School, offering an example of the lasting impact that working with a writer in residence can have on a budding writer. Benjamin and Jin Mei both read from non-fiction pieces they produced during their residencies at Madison and Cleveland High Schools. Orby, a graduate of Jefferson High School, made everyone smile by reading his poem “Make Me Shine in the Lonely Place”.

Shay James, principal at Franklin High School, spoke about the positive effects WITS has on students in the Franklin community.  Gary Stein, managing editor at the Oregonian, shared his thoughts about this year’s anthology, describing the many “little moments that tug at your heart, or shock you, or surprise you.” Finally, WITS writer Karen Karbo, author of the forthcoming book How Georgia Became O’Keefe, spoke about some of her most memorable successes and challenges working with high school students, some of whom she still hears from, years later.

Thank you to everyone who contributed and who came together to celebrate Writers in the Schools!