Maureen Cole is inviting the public to put on their literary hardhats and come to a event combining a celebration of the imminent renovation and expansion of Oregon Citys Carnegie Library with readings of innovative short stories by acclaimed local authors, Trevor Dodge, Hannah Gildea and Margaret Malone.
The free readings start at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 5, at the library, located at 606 John Adams St.
Cole, director of the Oregon City Public Library, said she chose these authors, because they all write in forms that are outside of what most people read short stories or short fiction. When most people think of literature or what is available at the library, they picture shelves filled with traditional-size novels or nonfiction books. But there are a lot of other forms of literature which are created.
Each of these authors brings a talent we have not showcased in the library before, she said.
Why should people attend?
The library is the place to experience something new in a friendly environment with other people who are interested in learning more about their world. Events are free, and all you have to do is show up, Cole said.
The library, she added, Is that third place, neither home nor work, which provides people of all ages a comfortable environment in which to learn and share.
Cole said she is most looking forward to showcasing local talent and providing the authors with a forum to share their work, while providing attendees the opportunity to experience something new in literature.
Finally, Cole said she appreciates all the support the community has shown the library, as the expansion project gets underway.
We are so excited to be days away from breaking ground on our new building. So many people have made this possible. I cant say thank you enough.
Trevor Dodge
Dodge has taught writing, literature and comics studies at Clackamas Community College for more than a decade, and also teaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland.
His most recent work has appeared in a host of publications, including Western Humanities Review, Golden Handcuffs Review, Gargoyle, Notre Dame Review, Natural Bridge and Fiction International.
He is the author of two collections of short fiction, The Laws of Average and Everyone I Know Lives on Roads; and a novella, Yellow #10. He collaborated with Lance Olsen on the writing anti-textbook Architectures of Possibility: After Innovative Writing.
Dodge has lived in Oregon City and noted, Communities like ours are made even richer by libraries and events like this, and I am honored to participate in helping write the next chapter of our collective story.
Hannah Gildea
Gildea returned last weekend from a four-week writing workshop in Prague.
She said she was honored to be chosen for the Oregon City Librarys Groundbreaking Author Event and to be chosen as one of the Prague Summer Program for Writers Vaclav Havel Scholarship winners, enabling her to travel to the Czech Republic to participate in the workshop.
Gildea and her husband, Oregon City News/Clackamas Review News Editor Raymond Rendleman, are OC residents.
When asked about being named a groundbreaking OC author, Gildea said, Im not a writer because Im good at verbal self-expression. If I thought that, thered be too much pressure whenever I face a blank page. Im a writer because I struggle with self-expression, because I grapple with words every day.
This year, her short stories And Still the Sea is Salt, and Waiting for Eliza J. were given Shortlist and Finalist honors for the Bare Fiction Prize and the Arts & Letters Prize. Through Summer Literary Seminars in Vilnius, Lithuania, she also received a scholarship last year to study creative writing in Eastern Europe.
Gildea has actually encountered a snake near a river at a summer camp. Another of her award-winning short stories, Cottonmouth, involves one of those particularly nasty omnicarnivorous venomous snakes that are feared in the South like we do rattlesnakes here.
The story was named the winner of the Big Muddy Mighty River Short Story Contest of 2014, and was published this month in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley. Susan Swartwout, publisher of the Southeast Missouri State University Press, admired how Gildea doesnt give the plot an easy ending.
Margaret Malone
Malones debut collection of stories, People Like You, is forthcoming from Atelier26. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, she has been a volunteer facilitator with the nonprofit Write Around Portland, and is a co-host of the artist and literary gathering SHARE.
She is the recipient of a 2011 Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship, a 2011 Regional Arts & Culture Council Project Grant and a 2009 Oregon Literary Fellowship.
Malone lives with her husband, filmmaker Brian Padian, and two children in Portland.
She has two pieces in mind to read at the event, one funnier and more light, and the other one is kind of weird and dark and funny (hopefully) in a different way.
Two things appealed to her about the author event at the OC Library: that short stories always need a little more attention, and libraries always need better funding.
This event celebrates both of those things; it was an easy decision to want to participate, she said, adding that she has always felt that reading work aloud to an audience is an essential part of the process of writing.
In fact, she noted, she does not consider something finished until it has been read aloud to an audience.
People coming to hear work read, as opposed to only reading it on the page, is pretty magical to me. There is some invisible cohesion that happens when people are in a room sharing an experience while having their own experience at the same time, Malone said. In a room full of five or 20 or 100 people, imagine all the different but similar worlds being created together. Its one of my favorite things to be part of. Readings are also a great way to slow down and try and be present in the moment. Almost like a guided meditation of the authors devising.