UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

English

2021 Writers Magazine Published Online

The English Department is proud to announce the publication of UP’s student-run creative writing journal Writers Magazine.  This year’s all-online 2021 edition is built around the theme of “Good Bones” and gathers the year’s best writing and images by students from across campus.  It’s now available here.

Additionally, we are excited to announce that beginning fall 2021, UP will offer a Writing minor.  This addition will give a broader spectrum of students on The Bluff the chance to exercise their creative and communicative powers.  (Students in the professional schools are especially encouraged!)  The Writing minor involves a combination of workshop-style courses (playwriting, news writing, nonfiction, poetry, fiction, screenwriting) and English electives.

For details in the fall, students can contact Fr. Pat Hannon, hannon@up.edu, John McDonald, mcdonald@up.edu, or English Chair Lars Larson, larson@up.edu.

Poetry Reading: Laura Read, March 26

Poet Laura Read will present her work in a reading on Tuesday, March 26, at 7:30 p.m., in the Pilot House bookstore. The reading is free and open to all.

Laura Read’s chapbook The Chewbacca on Hollywood Boulevard Reminds Me of You won the Floating Bridge Chapbook Award in 2010, and her first full-length collection, Instructions for My Mother’s Funeral, was chosen as the winner of the AWP/Donald Hall Prize for Poetry by Dorianne Laux in 2011 and published in 2012 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her second collection, Dresses from the Old Country, will be published by BOA in October of 2018. Her individual poems have received awards from The Florida Review, Dogwood, and Crab Creek Review and have been published in many different journals, including most recently, Radar, Beloit Poetry Journal, Blood Orange Review, and The New York Times Magazine. She teaches English composition, literature, and creative writing at Spokane Falls Community College and helps advise SFCC’s creative arts magazine The Wire Harp. 

For more information contact the English department at english@up.edu.

TLC From The TLC: “Why English?”

Why do all UP students take an English course, regardless of their professional aims? This week on the Teaching & Learning Blog, English chair Lars Erik Larson details how ENG 112 works within UP’s Core program. This is the second essay in Core Matters, a year-long series started by Andrew Guest that offer a discipline-by-discipline explanation of our University’s existing core curriculum.

Author, Musician Willy Vlautin, Nov. 28

willy-vlautin-copyOregon novelist and musician Willy Vlautin joins our campus on Monday, November 28, at 7:30 p.m., at the Pilot House bookstore.  Born and raised in Reno, Nev., Vlautin has published four novels of dark literary realism: The Motel Life, Northline, Lean on Pete, and The Free. His bands include Richmond Fontaine and the Delines. Vlautin’s storytelling in both prose and song explores economic vulnerability, addiction, and relationships in the overlooked spaces of contemporary America.  A short interview on the English Department Blog can be found here. A recent short story of his, “The Kill Switch,” is available here. For details contact Lars Erik Larson, English, at larson@up.edu or x7267.

Dan DeWeese Reading, Sept. 22

deweeseAuthor Dan DeWeese will read from his work as the first 2014-2015 guest of the English department’s Readings & Lectures Series on Monday, September 22, at 7:30 p.m., in Buckley Center room 163. His reading is free and open to faculty, staff, students, and the public.

DeWeese is the author of a novel, You Don’t Love This Man, and a story collection titled Disorder. He is also founding editor of Propeller, a web magazine of books, film, art, and culture, and of Propeller Books, the magazine’s publishing imprint. He teaches writing and film courses at Portland State University.

For more information contact Genevieve Brassard, English, at 7543 or brassard@up.edu.