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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 30, 2017)
541-997-1994 | www.EventCenter.org | Florence Events Center | Center Stage | Page 3 Special exhibit Spirit of the Northwest 2017 ‘Clay Mask Challenge’ Open to artists of all ages, the Spirit of the Northwest 2017 “Clay Mask Challenge” gets underway Saturday, Sept. 9, and continues Sunday, Sept. 17 and again Saturday, Sept. 23. Participating artists will be creating their own clay masks during classes at the Florence Senior/Community Center, 1570 Kingwood St., each day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The end result will be a special exhibit of the clay mask creations at the Florence Events Center on Wednesday, Sept. 27. Masks will be judged by residents in Florence and the surrounding area, with prizes award for first, second and third place. Cost for the classes will be on a sliding scale. Seniors, family and group dis- counts will be considered and will not exceed $100 per participant. The cost of the class included all materials and firing of the masks. Participants will engage in making clay masks that explore the imagination and forms of self-expression. Clay masks created by artists of all ages during the ‘Clay Mask Challenge’ will be on display at the Florence Events Center on Sept. 27, from noon to 7 p.m. There will also be a silent auction at the FEC during the mask show for any participant who would like to sell their work. Class sizes will be limited and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call the Senior/Community Center at 541-991- 3760. Keynote speaker John Daniels From page 1 Daniel is the author of 10 books of essays, memoir, poetry and fiction. Born in South Carolina and raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Daniel has lived in the West since 1966. After attending and dropping out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, he worked as a logger, rail- road inspector, rock climbing instruc- tor, hod carrier and poet-in-the- schools. He began to write poetry and prose in the 1970s while living on a ranch in south-central Oregon. In 1982 he received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University, where he then took an M.A. in English/Creative Writing and taught five years as a Jones Lecturer in Poetry and a lecturer in Freshman English. He now makes his living as a writer and itinerant teacher in workshops and writer-in- residence positions around the coun- try. Daniel’s latest book, “Gifted” (Counterpoint Press 2017) is a first novel set during the 1990s in the Oregon Coast Range foothills where he lives. Gifted tells the story of a young man with a spiritual imagination and a rare affinity for wild creatures who comes of age under harsh circum- stances, negotiating the wildness of his home country, his human relation- ships, and the emerging complexities of his own being. The novel has been described as “bold and generous,” “a lyrical, soar- ing tale,” “a transformative novel,” and “a powerful story of family, place, and identity, part Catcher in the Rye, part Sometimes a Great Notion.” Daniel has contributed essays and articles to magazines and literary jour- nals such as Audubon, Outside, Southwest Review, Western American Literature, Portland Magazine, Open Spaces, Oregon Humanities, Orion, and to more than twenty textbooks and anthologies, including The Norton Book of Nature Writing, Writing the Journey, Facing the Lion, The Geography of Hope, Literature and the Environment, Natural State, and The Sacred Earth. Daniel is the author of three poetry collections, Common Ground (Confluence Press, 1988), All Things Touched by Wind (Salmon Run Press, 1994), and Of Earth: New and Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2012). His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, North American Review, Sierra, Poetry of the American West, The Pushcart Prize VIII, and other magazines and antholo- gies. Daniel compiled and edited Wild Song: Poems of the Natural World (University of Georgia Press, 1998), a collection of verse first published in Wilderness Magazine, of which he was poetry editor from 1988 to 2011. A commissioned poem (untitled) appears as a 270-foot frieze in the inte- rior of Fern Ridge Library in Veneta, Ore. Daniel teaches regularly at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers summer workshops and the Fishtrap gathering in northeast Oregon. He has been the James T. Thurber Writer-in- Residence at Ohio State University, the Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in the MFA program of St. Mary’s College of California, and the Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at St. Lawrence University in northern New York State. He has also taught briefly at Sweet Briar College, Austin Peay State University, Lewis & Clark College, Portland State University, Oregon State University, the University of Montana, and elsewhere. Daniel’s work in poetry and prose has won a Pushcart Prize, the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award, three Oregon Book Awards, a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, a Research and Writing Fellowship from Oregon State University’s Center for the Humanities, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is chair of PEN Northwest, a regional branch of the writers’ organi- zation PEN America, and in that role administers the annual Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency in the Rogue River canyon. He also serves on the judging panel for the John Burroughs Association’s annual Nature Essay Award and has served on the board of directors of Literary Arts, a private nonprofit that seeks to enrich the lives of Oregonians through language and literature. He lives with his wife, Marilyn Daniel, in the Coast Range foothills west of Eugene. His keynote speaking event on Sept. 29 begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 in advance, or $10 at the door. Festival of Books From page 1 beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 in advance, or $10 at the door. There will also be a meet-and-greet and special author’s panel that evening from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday’s book festival will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and admission is free. The event will feature large and small publishers, as well as fiction, non-fic- tion, children’s book authors as well as young authors. While most participants will be from western Oregon, authors and publish- ers from farther away are welcome. For more information, contact Florence Events Center at 541-997- 1994. The Festival of Books is being held in conjunction with the Words on the Coast writers conference. “Making Your Writing the Best it can Be” is the theme of a new conference, which is being held Sept. 29 and 30. Sponsored by Florence Regional Arts Alliance, Florence Festival of Books, Port Hole Publishing and Lane Arts Council, the conference will fea- ture several regional authors who will be offering workshops on the theme during both days. Bob Keefer, arts editor for Eugene Weekly and longtime arts reporter for the Eugene Register-Guard, will teach “Making Your Writing Sing,” on polish- ing your work. Bestselling author and publisher Ellen Traylor will teach “How to be Your Own Editor,” perfecting your prose and following modern style. Ned Hickson, Siuslaw News editor and an award-winning syndicated columnist writer, will teach “Getting organized: 8 steps to mapping out your novel or memoir.” Karen Nichols, novelist and leader of a local writing group, will teach “Jump Starting Your Writing,” generating ideas and motivation to tackle writing projects. Patricia Marshall, publisher at Luminaire Press, will teach the “Who, What, When, Where and Why” approach to receiving and giving writ- ing feedback. In addition, Barbara Giles, writing instructor at Lane Community College, will teach on developing characters In your writing. “We appreciate the support from local arts groups in getting this confer- ence off the ground,” said Traylor. “If this event is a success, we hope to make in an annual event.” For details on workshop prices and scheduling, contact Ellen Traylor at 541-999-5725 or email her at port hole@centurytel.net. Come Join the Friends! Volunteer – Event Planning – Fundraising 715 Quince Street | www.eventcenter.org 541-997-1994 | 888-968-4086
