AUTHOR PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER DEWEESE Heather Christle turns to poets, historians, psychologists, Medieval mystics, philosophers, scientists, and pseudo-scientists in her search for clues to the mystery of human tears. She considers performance art pieces, silent films, and NASA missions. She interviews researchers and digs through the archives of a turn-of-the-century physician famous for pioneering “bed […]
Joshua James Amberson
Joshua James Amberson's work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and Tin House, among others. He's the author of the chapbook Everyday Mythologies on Two Plum Press, and he's currently working on a young adult novel about memory loss and a collection of essays about eyeballs.
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The Crying Book Review: Heather Christle’s Poetic Bites of Prose Investigate the History of Our Tears
Heather Christle wants to know why we cry.
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Verse and Surf: Mother Foucault’s Annual Poetry Festival at the Sou’wester
Mercury Staff Two-and-a-half hours’ driving time from Portland and just across the state line from Astoria sits the Sou’wester Historic Lodge & Vintage Travel Trailer Resort, a longtime favorite of Rose City writers, artists, and oddballs. Five years ago, when the folks at Mother Foucault’s Bookshop—one of Portland’s favorite not-giant booksellers—were dreaming up a getaway […]
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Mother Foucault’s + the Sou’wester + Poetry = The Fifth Annual Airstream Poetry Festival
The fifth year of this magical, seaside poetry festival is looking to grow.
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Judith Arcana’s Biography of Activist Grace Paley Sees Her Whole Life
EBERHARDT PRESS When Judith Arcana first approached short story author and activist Grace Paley about writing her biography, Paley said no. “She said she didn’t think there should be a book just about her” Arcana writes, “that her life was no big deal, that she didn’t want to be lionized.” Prepared for this response, Arcana […]
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Judith Arcana’s Biography of Activist Grace Paley Sees Her Whole Life
At Paley’s request, Arcana didn’t shy away from writing a critical portrait.
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Pulver Maar Review: New Bizarre Poems from Zachary Schomburg
ZACHARY SCHOMBURG Early in Pulver Maar, Zachary Schomburg tells the story of Wanda, who found a disembodied arm at the top of a mountain and “took out an ad in the newspaper./Whose arm? read the ad above a photograph/Wanda took of the arm. She wrote a song about it/on the piano, and sang the song […]
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Pulver Maar Review: New Bizarre Poems from Zachary Schomburg
Zachary Schomburg’s new poetry book is like a “B-sides and rarities” collection of his latest work.
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Portland’s AWP Conference On the Cheap: A Guide to AWP Offsite Events
MICHELLE MRUK This year, the annual gathering of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), the largest writer’s conference in the country, lands in Portland—which is huge! If you have any creative writers in your life, chances are they’re freaking out—if not for the conference itself, for the fact that it’s bringing fellow writers, […]
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Portland’s AWP Conference On the Cheap: A Guide to AWP Offsite Events
The largest writing conference in the country isn’t just for writers. Here are our picks for AWP 2019!
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Book Review: User Not Found, Felicity Fenton’s New Chapbook, Dives into Social Media Addiction
“As a child plotting my future adulthood, I couldn’t imagine becoming someone who ogled the glow of screens and sweat-clenched the square edges of devices,” writes Felicity Fenton in her new chapbook, User Not Found. “Not once did I believe I would partake in an incessant perusal of digital walls, skimming notes and pictures from […]
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In the New Chapbook from Future Tense, Felicity Fenton Dives into Social Media Addiction
Felicity Fenton’s new chapbook from Future Tense playfully interrogates social media addiction.