It's an old story at this point: Rent increases and financial difficulties have displaced a number of Portland arts organizations over the past few years. We saw it happen with Conduit Dance, NW Dance Project, RECESS, and studio spaces like the Troy Laundry Building—to name only a few. And now it looks like the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) is the latest arts organization looking for a new home. The Southeast Portland center known for its low-cost alternative to an MFA and self-publishing services sent out an email blast earlier this week stating the following:
"As you may already know, Portland is currently experiencing a surge in growth and development and the growing pains that go along with them. Unfortunately, the IPRC is not immune to the effects of this transformation. Recently we were informed that the rent for our space in southeast Portland will soon increase by a steep 300 percent. This increase in rent has forced us to find a new home."
A Facebook post gets a bit more specific about how much the IPRC will need to raise in coming months:
The traditional avenues of the writing industry—MFA programs with limited funding and a tremendously unstable job market, expensive summer writing conferences, journals and major publishing houses that have serious issues with gender parity and representing voices that aren't strictly those of white dudes—can make it a deeply uninviting, seemingly inaccessible place. In order to combat this, a healthy small-press scene is hugely important—at least if you care about having a literary community with a diversity of voices and no dearth of imagination.
This is the best argument I can think of for why spaces like the IPRC are so important. I know a number of writers who've come out of the IPRC's certificate program who might not otherwise have gotten an MFA, or who've printed their small-press titles at the IPRC. It's a huge resource for small ventures in a literary market that's too often dominated by a privileged few.
To defray some of these major costs, the IPRC has set up a Kickstarter and plans to host a fundraiser at the Eagles Lodge on Hawthorne, with karaoke, a raffle, and a print pull (because of course there's a print pull). I'll post more about that when we have more details.
