By Laura Misch On February 26th the University of Portland hosted best-selling author, Rebecca Skloot, as the 2018 Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writer. She gave an amazing talk addressing everything from her famous book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, to goldfish surgery (yes, it’s a real thing!). It was a great event filled with laughter and critical conversation. Here…
An Interview With Sarah Bokich
By Keaton Gaughan In anticipation of her up-coming campus reading, I sat down with poet and esteemed UP alum, Sarah Bokich, to learn a bit more about her, her newest chapbook, and life after UP. You can peruse our exchange below. Come hear Sarah read from her newest publication on Thursday, February 8th at 7:30pm…
Interview with Leni Zumas
by Keaton Gaughan Leni Zumas, author of the upcoming fiction novel Red Clocks (selected for Publishers Weekly’s “Top 10 Literary Fiction” list), will be visiting campus later this month as part of the University of Portland’s 2017-2018 Readings and Lectures Series. Her reading will be November 15th at 7:30pm in the campus bookstore. Zumas teaches in the MFA creative writing program at Portland State University. She is also the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator, and…
An Interview with Dr. Hill on the German novelist Julia Franck
by Monica Salazar Award-winning, contemporary German author Julia Franck will be visiting campus for the University of Portland’s Readings & Lectures Series this November. In her writing, Franck explores Germany’s dark, complex history and how major political events shaped the lives of everyday German citizens—especially women—during the twentieth century. I sat down with Dr. Alexandra Hill, a German professor here at UP who has written extensively about Franck in her academic publications, to ask her a bit about…
An Interview with O. Alan Weltzien
by Elizabeth Barker As students at the University of Portland, we are fortunate to have many amazing artists share their work with us. Recently, UP alumni Kunal Nayyar, from the primetime TV show The Big Bang Theory, came to share some wisdom at a Q and A before midterms. O. Alan Weltzien is going to join this list of speakers, and you definitely do not want to miss this one. Weltzien, a current English…
An Interview with Peter Rock
Award-winning novelist Peter Rock is a University of Portland Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writer and our final guest in the Fall Readings and Lectures series. Rock received his BA in English from Yale and has won numerous awards and fellowships for his writing, including Stanford’s Wallace Stegner Fellowship. He lives and writes in Portland, and teaches writing at Reed College. His most…
An Interview with Willy Vlautin
Novelist Willy Vlautin is the next guest in our Autumn Readings & Lectures series hosted by the University of Portland’s English Department. He has published four novels: The Motel Life (2007), Northline (2008), Lean on Pete (2010), and The Free (2014). For all the violence and tragedy that fuels the characters and storylines of his works, Willy Vlautin is one hell of a friendly guy. His band, alt-country…
An Interview with Kate Gray
Poet and author Kate Gray is the first guest in our Autumn Readings & Lectures series hosted by the University of Portland’s English Department. Her work in her poetry collection Another Sunset We Survive and in her first novel Carry the Sky explores the rhythms of water and rowing, the personal and impersonal erasure of queer and female…
Live and Repeat with Jae Choi
by Olivia Van Wey Poet Jae Choi is a master of positioning words to the tempo and vibe of her pieces as she admits during her lecture, “I like sound obviously.” Behind her playful, courteous nature is a methodical mind that considers the power of language as she channels it to convey a love of…
A Preview of the Poetry of Eva Hooker
by Hope Dorman On Monday, April 4th, the Garaventa Center and Department of English together are hosting “Godwit”, a poetry reading from Sister Eva Hooker. As a Writer in Residence and professor of English at St. Mary’s College in Indiana, she has some expertise in the subject, but her subject matter is what makes her…