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