Thursday, February 4, 2021 • The buLLeTIN
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 7
LOCAL LITERARY HIGHLIGHTS
bendbulletin.com/goread
Jackson, Coates continue
Author! Author! series
BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin
M
If You Go
itchell S. Jackson, 45, grew up in northeast Portland as the son of a drug-addicted single mother, a life that he
opens up about in his piercing 2019 book, “Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family,” which has been
described as a mix of history, memoir and essay. The book earned a number of accolades, including being
included on no fewer than 15 best-of-2019 lists from news and print organizations, including The Paris Review, National Public
Radio and Buzzfeed.
On Sunday, Jackson will join acclaimed
includes “Survival Math” along with his
and award-winning journalist and novelist
award-winning debut, the 2013 novel “The
Ta-Nehisi Coates in a streaming conversa-
Residue Years.”
tion. The ticketed event is the second of the
“To me, it’s a lifelong mission to kind of
ninth annual Author! Author! series
tell the stories of home,” Jackson said. “I
from Deschutes Public Library
also wanted to write in a differ-
Foundation, which kicked off
ent genre, to show that I can
in January with Atlanta au-
do fiction and something
thor Tayari Jones.
else. And I also thought
The two writers are
that writing essays was
both in their mid-40s
a way for people to en-
and have conversed
gage with the way that
publicly once before,
I think. It’s clearer than
at a similar — albeit
in a novel, where the
in-person — event in
intellectual work that
October 2019 in Boise.
goes into a novel is sup-
They had no contact be-
posed to fall away, right?
fore that event, and have
… With an essay, you
Formerly of Portland,
Mitchell S. Jackson will
had very little contact since.
have to confront the way
join fellow writer Ta-
For Deschutes Public Li-
that this person is thinking.”
Nehesi Coates in a virtual
brary, “He won’t know what
Jackson likes writing non-
conversation Sunday, the
I’ll be asking. I’m sure he can
fiction and journalism more
second installment of
kind of predict, because it
and more. His work for
Deschutes Public Library
may be similar to the stuff
magazines includes a 2020
Foundation’s Author!
Author! series.
that I asked him in Boise,
deep dive into the murder of
Photo: John Ricard
but yeah, there’s no kind of
Ahmaud Arbery, who was
warm-up or preview,” said
gunned down in Georgia
Jackson, who saw him a couple of times in
while running.
New York, where Jackson used to teach.
“More and more I like it because, for ex-
“I’ve read his work. I’ve taught his work,
ample, that Runner’s World piece is some-
so I’m much more familiar with him than
thing that I not have ever wrote, but because
he is with me,” he added, laughing.
I was assigned that, it gave me a place to
Though Jackson left the Rose City back
go. What I like is assignments that push me
in 2002, it’s there that he goes in his mind
into places that I wouldn’t ordinarily go,
Continued on next page
when he writes, he told GO! last week. That
What: Author! Author! featur-
ing Ta-Nehisi Coates in an online
conversation with Mitchell S.
Jackson
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $25
Contact: dplfoundation.org