| KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Dorianne
Laux |
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A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award,
Dorianne Laux’s fourth book of poems, Facts
about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of
the Oregon Book Award. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore
Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published
in the United States in the previous year, and chosen by the Kansas
City Star as one of the ten best books of poetry published in 2005.
(click
here for more) |
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| Susan Bono |
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Susan Bono teaches, edits, writes, and keeps chickens
in Petaluma, CA. She’s been publishing Tiny
Lights, a journal
of personal narrative, since 1995, along with its online counterpart
at www.tiny-lights.com. Her own writing has appeared most recently
in the St. Petersburg Times, The Petaluma
Argus Courier, The North
Bay Theatre Group’s Page on Stage, KRCB radio’s Word
by Word, and the second edition of Sheila Bender’s Writing
Personal Essays (Silver Threads, 2005). |
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| Inez Castor |
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For more than 15 years Inez Castor has been delighting
readers with her newspaper column, Gopher Gulch. Named for her nemesis,
what began as a simple garden column has evolved into a weekly philosophical
comment on life in this best of all possible worlds. Her sense of
humor, her deft use of language, and her unique perspective keep
readers laughing, learning, and looking at themselves and their world
anew. |
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| Barbara Deal |
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Agent Barbara Deal has published seven books and innumerable
articles in professional journals, popular magazines, and major newspapers
around the world. Ms. Deal has been a literary agent for 17 years.
Literary Associates specializes in works that deal with body/mind/spirit.
She consults with small and mid-sized publishers on program expansion,
publicity, marketing, and developing new publishing programs. (click
here for more) |
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| Derrick Jensen |
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Hailed as the philosopher poet of the ecological
movement, Derrick Jensen is the widely acclaimed author of Endgame,
A Language Older Than Words, The
Culture of Make Believe (a finalist
for the 2003 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize), and Walking
on Water.
His most recent work is Thought to Exist in
the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos. He brings to the non-fiction with flair! (click
here for more)
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| Jay Lake |
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Jay Lake is the author of more than one hundred short
stories, three collections, and a chapbook, with an upcoming novel
from Fairwood Press. In 2004, Jay won the John W. Campbell Award
for Best New Writer. Jay is also the coeditor with Deborah Layne
of the critically-acclaimed Polyphony anthology series from Wheatland
Press. (click here for more) |
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| Joseph Millar |
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Joseph Millar is the author of Fortune, (2006) from
Eastern Washington University Press. His first collection, Overtime (2001) was finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Millar grew up in
Pennsylvania and received his MFA from Johns Hopkins University where
he wrote and taught stories, plays, and poems. (click
here for more) |
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Dorianne Laux
 Coauthor of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the
Pleasures of Writing Poetry, she has also taught The Design of the Narrative and has written
essays, memoirs, interviews and reviews. She’s the recipient
of two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships
from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review,
The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Orion, and Ms. Magazine.
She has waited tables and written poems in San Diego, Los Angeles,
Berkeley, Petaluma, California and Juneau, Alaska. In 1994 she moved
to Eugene where she’s now a Professor of Creative Writing at
the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband, the poet Joseph
Millar. http://www.myspace.com/doriannelaux
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Barbara Deal
Barbara Neighbors Deal published her first book at age 22 (Singin'
a Song of Joy, Abingdon Press). In the ensuing 35 years, she has published
six more books, and innumerable articles in professional journals, popular
magazines and major newspapers in the United States, the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe,
Chile, and Peru.
Ms. Deal has been a literary agent for 17 years. Literary Associates specializes
in works that deal with body/mind/spirit: spirituality, psychology, philosophy,
self-help, lifestyle, health and alternative health topics, education,
the new physics, and the areas of convergence amongst these topics. We
accept occasional projects outside our specialty if they show unusual commercial
promise. The agency works with writers in manuscript and book proposal
development, editing (or refer to editor associates) contract negotiation,
book sales to publishers, and sales of subsidiary rights. Ms. Deal is often
asked by publishers to edit books on psychology, self-help, spirituality,
mysticism, and philosophy; most recently manuscripts have been edited for
publication for Paragon House, Abingdon Press, and Element Books International.
Ms. Deal also consults with small and mid-sized publishers on program expansion,
publicity, marketing, and developing new publishing programs.
Ms. Deal’s eclectic career included 15 years as chief administrative
officer of CFO International, an inter-religious world-wide spiritual fellowship
whose mission was to bring people together across the barriers that usually
divide them -- barriers of tribe and language in Africa, of caste and religion
in India, of class and the Protestant/Catholic turmoil in Latin America,
and of denomination and race in the United States and Europe, to discover
their essential oneness. She lectured and taught on developing the spiritual
life in more than 30 countries, and lived in those countries training local
leaders in public speaking, leadership skills in creative writing and creative
art, and choral conducting.
Named by the California State Senate a Living Treasure in the Literary
Arts, she mentors students who desire to become professional writers
and editors, as well as presenting writing and editing workshops to schools,
writer’s groups, churches, and community organizations.
Barbara Neighbors Deal received her BA in Philosophy and Religion (magna
cum laude) from California Western University. She completed a master’s
degree and the course work for a Ph.D. in Human Behavior (Counseling),
with highest honors, at United States International University, under the
mentorship of Viktor Frankl, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow. A Ph.D. in
Psychology and Religion was completed in 1983. While in graduate school
she taught sociology, psychology, and religion at Cal Western, and also
taught counseling, and supervised counseling practicum, at U.S.I.U. She
holds lifetime teaching credentials (psychology, philosophy, and religion)
and lifetime counselor credentials in the California Community College
system. Professional memberships include Book Publicists of Southern California,
Publisher’s Marketing Association, and SPAN.
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Derrick Jensen
  Derrick
Jensen’s
writing has been described as “breaking and mending the reader’s
heart” (Publishers Weekly). Author, teacher, activist, small
farmer, and leading voice of uncompromising dissent, he regularly stirs
auditoriums across the country with revolutionary spirit. Jensen holds
a degree in creative writing from Eastern Washington University, a degree
in mineral engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines, and has
taught at Eastern Washington University and Pelican Bay State Prison. He
lives in Crescent City, California. http://www.derrickjensen.org/
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Jay Lake
 Jay
Lake lives and works in Portland, Oregon, within sight of an 11,000 foot
volcano. He is the author of more than one hundred short stories, three
collections, and a chapbook, with an upcoming novel from Fairwood Press.
Jay is also the coeditor with Deborah Layne of the critically-acclaimed
Polyphony anthology series from Wheatland Press, as well as the highly
successful All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories with David Moles. His next
few projects include TEL: Stories, Polyphony 5 and Spicy Slipstream Stories.
In 2004, Jay won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He has
also been a Hugo nominee for his short fiction and a World Fantasy Award
nominee for his editing. Visit his website: http://www.jlake.com.
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Joseph Millar
 Joseph
Millar grew up in Pennsylvania and received his MFA from Johns Hopkins
University where he wrote and taught stories, plays, and poems. He then
spent 25 years in the San Francisco Bay area, working at a variety of
jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. He continued
writing, attending writer's conferences, and taking occasional workshops
in his spare time. He also taught for The California Poets in the Schools
Program. In 1997 he moved to Eugene, Oregon where he began teaching composition,
fiction, and poetry at Mt. Hood Community College. His poems have appeared
in numerous magazines including TriQuarterly Review, Prairie Schooner,
DoubleTake, Ploughshares, New Letters, Manoa, and River Styx, and he
has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry,
the Moncalvo Center for the Arts, and from Oregon Literary Arts. A short
essay on Jazz will be published in the next issue of Poetry Northwest.
He now teaches at Oregon State University, The University of Oregon,
Pacific University’s Low Residency Program, and yearly at Esalen
in Big Sur, California.
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