Thursday, August 20, 2020
GO! magazine — A&E in Northeast Oregon
Local poet releases second book
By Lisa Britton
For EO Media Group
SUMMERVILLE — Amelia Díaz
Ettinger will release a new book of
poetry this fall titled “Learning to
Love a Western Sky.”
She will launch the book on Sept.
10 with a virtual reading hosted by
Annie Bloom’s bookstore in Portland.
To reserve a spot at the virtual
event, go to www.annieblooms.com
and click on Events. The calendar
includes a link to register.
She is planning a book launch
party through Art Center East on
Oct. 21. It also will most likely be a
virtual event.
“It’s a heck of a time to have a book
coming out,” Ettinger said with a
laugh.
“Learning to Love a Western Sky”
will be released by Airlie Press, an Or-
egon poetry publishing collective, and
is available at www.airliepress.org.
Born in Mexico, Ettinger moved to
Puerto Rico at the age of 4. She said
she began writing poetry before that,
dictating poems out loud to the adults
in her life, who wrote them down for
her.
Ettinger grew up Puerto Rico,
graduating from high school at 15
and college at 18. A book by a profes-
sor at Washington State University
brought her to the United States.
She earned
a master’s in
science from
WSU and
ended up in
Summerville
because her
husband was
a psychol-
ogy professor
Amelia Díaz Ettinger
at Eastern
Oregon University.
She taught Spanish and science at
La Grande High School before retiring
in 2013 and picking up writing again.
The author’s fi rst book of poetry,
“Speaking at a Time” (2015, Redbat
Books) takes a nostalgic view of leav-
ing Puerto Rico.
This second collection is more
transitional, she said — it’s about
immigrants assimilating into a new
landscape but also about aging in a
place far from her homeland.
“It talks about the island, but not as
strongly,” Ettinger said.
“You start connecting to the
nature surrounding you, and it
becomes part of your own nature.”
She continues to write and is
working toward a master’s of fi ne
arts in creative writing. It’s been a
good project during the pandemic.
“Being accountable has kept me
producing,” she said.
3
BROWN BAG: ‘Forests can live with fi re’
Using the then-and-now photos, the Brown Bag
JOSEPH — In a virtual Brown Bag presenta-
program will be partly about comparing the land-
tion at noon Tuesday, Aug. 25, photographer John
Marshall will introduce his work that is the subject scapes, and partly about exploring the why and the
of a traveling exhibit scheduled for an April show-
signifi cance of the differences.
ing at the Josephy Center.
The Zoom link for the Aug. 25 talk is https://us-
Bringing together art, history and science, “For-
02web.zoom.us/j/86123655126. For more informa-
ests Can Live with Fire! The Photography of John
tion go to www.josephy.org.
Marshall and the Osborne
Panoramas” features
historical photographs
taken with a unique
camera (only 10 were
made) called the “Osborne
Photo Recording Transit.”
The cameras were used
by the U.S. Forest Service
in the 1930s to capture
panoramic images from
fi re lookout sites in Oregon
and Washington.
Marshall has trekked
the Wallowa and Blue
mountains to fi nd the
Osborne photo locations
and take pictures from
This panorama from Red Mountain in the high Wallowas compares the 1936
the same spots today.
landscape (top, USFS Osborne photo) to that of 2018 (John Marshall photo).