OPA Conference 2020

What to look forward to!
Virtual OPA Conference!

All Day October 10, 2020

New Low Conference Fee $55


Register Here!

 Workshop Choices!Session OneJust a Bag of Tricks

John Morrison

Since the days when poets worked on typewriters, Morrison has collected tricks to get writing started. Come ready to play, talk about inspiration, and share a few “starts” you can take back to your desk.John C. Morrison lives in Portland, Oregon. His first book, Heaven of the Moment, won the Rhea & Seymour Gorsline poetry competition and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. Monkey Island, his next book, is due this Fall from redbat books. He has published poems in numerous journals, including RHINOBeloit Poetry JournalPoetry Northwest, and the Cimarron Review. He is a poetry co-editor for Phantom Drift, the fabulist journal of literature.Introduction to Documentary Poetry

Willa Schneberg

Explore how non-fiction poetry brings a fresh take on history and documents injustice. Talk about what current or historical events you would like to manifest in poetry. Time permitting; you’ll work on first drafts.Willa Schneberg is a poet, essayist, visual artist, curator and psychotherapist in private practice. She has authored five poetry collections including: Box Poems (Alice James Books); In The Margins of The World, recipient of the Oregon Book Award, Storytelling in Cambodia, (Calyx Books), and her latest volume, Rending the Garment. Willa has read at the Library of Congress, and has been a fellow at Yaddo and MacDowell. Work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals, including: American Poetry ReviewSalmagundi; Poet Lore; Bellevue Literary Review and The Journal of Psychohistory.Poetry 1 – 2 – 3

Sue Fagalde Lick

Look at poems written in first, second, and third person and see how changing the point of view can reveal new possibilities. Sometimes when you change the point of view, the poem suddenly becomes clear.Sue Fagalde Lick, who lives in South Beach, Oregon, has recently published two chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the PianoPoems by a Distracted Catholic. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Willawaw, Cloudbank, New Letters, The American Journal of Poetry, and other publications. She returned to poetry after many years working as a journalist in the Bay Area, earning her MFA in creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles at age 51. When not writing, she leads an alternate life as a music minister.Session TwoPoetry and Prose Have a Border

Bob Sterry

Discuss examples of poetic prose and poetry that resembles prose, including pieces you bring to the workshop. Write short samples that rest on that border or travel back and forth across it.Bob Sterry is a voice over actor, audiobook narrator, writer, singer, occasional stage actor and humorist. 
          It was not until he started writing short articles, essays and poetry whilst patiently waiting for airplanes and customers and doctors and dentists that his creative writing talents found an outlet, and he began reading his poetry at open mics and singing seriously. 
          Bob writes poetry and essays reflecting his cabaret style, with excursions into more serious commentary on life, humor and outright comedy. His first chapbook Wing Nut was published a decade ago and The Bob Sterry School of Burglary was published last September. No one else has yet dared to publish his work and it appears nowhere but here… and… perhaps there. By the way he is passionate about cycle racing, cooking, language and literature. Throw in a Mouse, or Let’s Write a Poem Right Now
Penelope Scambly Schott

Write a new poem, while being interrupted with unexpected instructions or suggestions by the workshop leader, to encourage your reader to adventure rather than rigorously analyze. Bring an open and free-ranging mind to this workshop.Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Recent books include Serpent Love: A Mother-Daughter Epic about a struggle with her adult daughter, with an essay in which the daughter gives her viewpoint, House of the Cardamom Seed, and November Quilt. Penelope lives in the small (population 640) central Oregon town of Dufur where, in any normal year, she leads an annual poetry workshop for experienced poets. Also, as soon as it’s safe, she and her husband look forward to resuming the White Dog Poetry Salon in Portland. Penelope’s newest book (2020) is On Dufur Hill which includes poems about the three fires that surrounded Dufur a few years back. Forthcoming in 2021 is Sophia and Mister Walter Whitman,a chapbook of poems in which her erudite but insecure dog discusses the poetry of Walt Whitman.Mix Tape, or What I Learned from an MFA

Jennifer Dorner

There’s a stack of poems on your desk, the book you’ve wanted to write…we will look at your poems as “material” and look at them to rate their emotional order. Discover an order and flow to your poems Bring 20 – 50 poems if you have them. A great class for beginners or those with books ready to be sent to the Fall contests. Jennifer Dorner’s poems have appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Cloudbank, Timberline Review, The Inflectionist Review, and other magazines.  In 2019, Dorner received 1st Place in the Oregon Poetry Association’s spring contest in the Poet’s Choice and Members Only categories, as well as 1st Place in the Willamette Writer’s Kay Snow Award for Poetry.  In September, she was long-listed for Palette Poetry’s 2020 Sappho Prize. She earned her MFA from Pacific University in January.Session ThreePoetry Tech

Lynn Otto
Photo by Dean Davis

Make your computer work for you instead of getting in the way. You’ll learn
            how to override or change default computer functions
            how to insert accents and other special characters
            how to reveal and hide formatting symbols
            what different formatting choices signal to journal editors and readers
            how to format a multi-poem submission, chapbook, or manuscript
            how to organize your files
            how to set up a spreadsheet to track submissions
            how to use some great online poetry resources.Lynn Otto is the author of Real Daughter, winner of a Unicorn Press First Book Award and a finalist in the 2020 Oregon Book Awards. Her poems have also appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Triggerfish Critical Review, Sequestrum, and other journals. She has an MFA from Portland State University, is on the advisory board of Triggerfish Critical Review, and works as a copy editor. Find more at lynnotto.infoBee Meet Pollen: Ekphrastic Poetry

Amy Baskin

In-class prompts (including music as well as pictorial art), dedicated writing time, and an opportunity to share work out loud.Amy Baskin’s work is currently featured in Bear ReviewRiver Heron Review, and is forthcoming in Pirene’s Fountain. She is a 2019 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a 2019 Oregon Literary Arts Fellow, and a 2019 Oregon Poetry Association prize winner. When not writing, she matches international students at Lewis & Clark College with local residents to help them feel welcome and at home during their time in Oregon, which she now arranges online due to the state of the world.Crafting Your Place: Writing Small and Writing Naked

Lorna Rose

How to write small about big things, from a divorce to a social justice issue, and how to show vulnerability in your writing. Lorna quotes Richard Price, “The bigger the issue, the smaller you write…you don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write abut a kid’s burnt socks long on the road.”Lorna Rose is a Pacific Northwest writer and poet. Her work has been recognized by PNWA and the Oregon Poets Association, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Jellyfish ReviewAbout Place Journal34th Parallel Magazine, and elsewhere. A finalist for the Fishtrap Fellowship in 2020, she is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project, and has been a guest blogger at Literary Mama.Session FourIt Happens This Way

Carolyn Martin

“It Happens This Way” is a content-rich class that will take new and emerging poets for a stroll down seven avenues of inspiration. We’ll examine specific poems that exemplify each one, engage in Q&A, and gather a variety of “homework assignments” that will energize your writing for months to come. From associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK and her fourth poetry collection, A Penchant for Masquerades, was released in 2019 by Unsolicited Press. Her first chapbook, Nothing More to Lose, and her fifth poetry collection, The Catalog for Small Contentments, will be published by The Poetry Box in 2021. Currently, Carolyn serves as book review editor for OPA and poetry editor for Kosmos Quarterlyjournal for global transformation. Find out more at www.carolynmartinpoet.com.How to Use Form, How to Dispense with It

Rebecca Smolen & John Miller 

Explore the use of form through self-conscious entry at composition, revision, and unconscious surrender of intention: how subject, voice, circumstance and coincidence play in the poem and poet.Rebecca Smolen is a writer based in Portland, Oregon transplanted from New Hampshire in 2014.  She has been trained and is certified to lead writing classes in the Gateless Method which was scientifically created to avoid provoking the fight or flight reaction generating a safe place to produce raw, new writing that will spotlight the strongest talents of that material. Her first chapbook was Womanhood and Other Scars. She has published in Allegory RidgeFeminine CollectiveTiny SeedThe Inflectionist ReviewHip MamaVoiceCatcher, and Poeming Pigeon. Her full-length collection, Excoriation, is forthcoming this December.Rebecca Smolen is a writer based in Portland, Oregon transplanted from New Hampshire in 2014. She has been trained and is certified to lead writing classes in the Gateless Method which was scientifically created to avoid provoking the fight or flight reaction generating a safe place to produce raw, new writing that will spotlight the strongest talents of that material. Her first chapbook was Womanhood and Other Scars. She has published in Allegory RidgeFeminine CollectiveTiny SeedThe Inflectionist ReviewHip MamaVoiceCatcher, and Poeming Pigeon. Her full-length collection, Excoriation, is forthcoming this December.John Miller’s poetry is forthcoming in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and has appeared in Wingless Dreamer, Wax Poetry and Art, Third Wednesday: A Literary & Arts Journal, Not a Pipe Publishing’s anthology Shout, River Heron Review, catheXis northwest press, The Esthetic Apostle, and in the 9Bridges anthology Over Land and Rising.  His short fiction has appeared in Tethered by Letters. John is founder of Portland Ars Poetica, an ongoing literary poetry collective, as well as co-organizer of the Free Range Poetry reading series, and a volunteer board member of Willamette Writers.
John has lived in Portland, OR since 2012.  He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and has a degree in English from Amherst College.
https://www.meetup.com/Portland-Ars-Poetica
https://www.facebook.com/PortlandArsPoetica/The Art of Juxtaposition

Autumn Stephens 

Learn how to heighten tension in your poems through juxtaposition of disparate and unrelated phrases and concepts, with generative and self-exploration exercises, gather material and write first drafts of two different pieces employing juxtaposition. Autumn Stephens is an Oregon-bred writer, poet, editor, and teacher who has published books, poems, essays, and articles. For many years, she created curriculum for and led expressive writing groups for cancer patients. Currently, she teaches Pandora’s Prompt Box, a generative weekly workshop for poets and prose writers, on Zoom. She also publishes an annual quotation calendar titled Wild Words from Wild Women, and agrees with Lily Tomlin that “reality is nothing but a collective hunch.” 

Please contact us with any questions. Conference Committee: Diane Corson [email protected] Dave Mehler, [email protected] and Dale Champlin, [email protected].All our members can receive notifications of postings to our website, such as events, contest winners, book reviews, craft articles, interviews, etc. You can do this by going to the OPA website, Click here and on the right side of the home page it says: Subscribe Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts.Oregon Poetry Association Website: Click here.
Promoting Poets and Poetry in Oregon
What to look forward to!
Virtual OPA Conference!

All Day October 10, 2020

New Low Conference Fee $55


Register Here!

 Workshop Choices!Session OneJust a Bag of Tricks

John Morrison

Since the days when poets worked on typewriters, Morrison has collected tricks to get writing started. Come ready to play, talk about inspiration, and share a few “starts” you can take back to your desk.John C. Morrison lives in Portland, Oregon. His first book, Heaven of the Moment, won the Rhea & Seymour Gorsline poetry competition and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. Monkey Island, his next book, is due this Fall from redbat books. He has published poems in numerous journals, including RHINOBeloit Poetry JournalPoetry Northwest, and the Cimarron Review. He is a poetry co-editor for Phantom Drift, the fabulist journal of literature.Introduction to Documentary Poetry

Willa Schneberg

Explore how non-fiction poetry brings a fresh take on history and documents injustice. Talk about what current or historical events you would like to manifest in poetry. Time permitting; you’ll work on first drafts.Willa Schneberg is a poet, essayist, visual artist, curator and psychotherapist in private practice. She has authored five poetry collections including: Box Poems (Alice James Books); In The Margins of The World, recipient of the Oregon Book Award, Storytelling in Cambodia, (Calyx Books), and her latest volume, Rending the Garment. Willa has read at the Library of Congress, and has been a fellow at Yaddo and MacDowell. Work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals, including: American Poetry ReviewSalmagundi; Poet Lore; Bellevue Literary Review and The Journal of Psychohistory.Poetry 1 – 2 – 3

Sue Fagalde Lick

Look at poems written in first, second, and third person and see how changing the point of view can reveal new possibilities. Sometimes when you change the point of view, the poem suddenly becomes clear.Sue Fagalde Lick, who lives in South Beach, Oregon, has recently published two chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the PianoPoems by a Distracted Catholic. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Willawaw, Cloudbank, New Letters, The American Journal of Poetry, and other publications. She returned to poetry after many years working as a journalist in the Bay Area, earning her MFA in creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles at age 51. When not writing, she leads an alternate life as a music minister.Session TwoPoetry and Prose Have a Border

Bob Sterry

Discuss examples of poetic prose and poetry that resembles prose, including pieces you bring to the workshop. Write short samples that rest on that border or travel back and forth across it.Bob Sterry is a voice over actor, audiobook narrator, writer, singer, occasional stage actor and humorist. 
          It was not until he started writing short articles, essays and poetry whilst patiently waiting for airplanes and customers and doctors and dentists that his creative writing talents found an outlet, and he began reading his poetry at open mics and singing seriously. 
          Bob writes poetry and essays reflecting his cabaret style, with excursions into more serious commentary on life, humor and outright comedy. His first chapbook Wing Nut was published a decade ago and The Bob Sterry School of Burglary was published last September. No one else has yet dared to publish his work and it appears nowhere but here… and… perhaps there. By the way he is passionate about cycle racing, cooking, language and literature. Throw in a Mouse, or Let’s Write a Poem Right Now
Penelope Scambly Schott

Write a new poem, while being interrupted with unexpected instructions or suggestions by the workshop leader, to encourage your reader to adventure rather than rigorously analyze. Bring an open and free-ranging mind to this workshop.Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Recent books include Serpent Love: A Mother-Daughter Epic about a struggle with her adult daughter, with an essay in which the daughter gives her viewpoint, House of the Cardamom Seed, and November Quilt. Penelope lives in the small (population 640) central Oregon town of Dufur where, in any normal year, she leads an annual poetry workshop for experienced poets. Also, as soon as it’s safe, she and her husband look forward to resuming the White Dog Poetry Salon in Portland. Penelope’s newest book (2020) is On Dufur Hill which includes poems about the three fires that surrounded Dufur a few years back. Forthcoming in 2021 is Sophia and Mister Walter Whitman,a chapbook of poems in which her erudite but insecure dog discusses the poetry of Walt Whitman.Mix Tape, or What I Learned from an MFA

Jennifer Dorner

There’s a stack of poems on your desk, the book you’ve wanted to write…we will look at your poems as “material” and look at them to rate their emotional order. Discover an order and flow to your poems Bring 20 – 50 poems if you have them. A great class for beginners or those with books ready to be sent to the Fall contests. Jennifer Dorner’s poems have appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Cloudbank, Timberline Review, The Inflectionist Review, and other magazines.  In 2019, Dorner received 1st Place in the Oregon Poetry Association’s spring contest in the Poet’s Choice and Members Only categories, as well as 1st Place in the Willamette Writer’s Kay Snow Award for Poetry.  In September, she was long-listed for Palette Poetry’s 2020 Sappho Prize. She earned her MFA from Pacific University in January.Session ThreePoetry Tech

Lynn Otto
Photo by Dean Davis

Make your computer work for you instead of getting in the way. You’ll learn
            how to override or change default computer functions
            how to insert accents and other special characters
            how to reveal and hide formatting symbols
            what different formatting choices signal to journal editors and readers
            how to format a multi-poem submission, chapbook, or manuscript
            how to organize your files
            how to set up a spreadsheet to track submissions
            how to use some great online poetry resources.Lynn Otto is the author of Real Daughter, winner of a Unicorn Press First Book Award and a finalist in the 2020 Oregon Book Awards. Her poems have also appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Triggerfish Critical Review, Sequestrum, and other journals. She has an MFA from Portland State University, is on the advisory board of Triggerfish Critical Review, and works as a copy editor. Find more at lynnotto.infoBee Meet Pollen: Ekphrastic Poetry

Amy Baskin

In-class prompts (including music as well as pictorial art), dedicated writing time, and an opportunity to share work out loud.Amy Baskin’s work is currently featured in Bear ReviewRiver Heron Review, and is forthcoming in Pirene’s Fountain. She is a 2019 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a 2019 Oregon Literary Arts Fellow, and a 2019 Oregon Poetry Association prize winner. When not writing, she matches international students at Lewis & Clark College with local residents to help them feel welcome and at home during their time in Oregon, which she now arranges online due to the state of the world.Crafting Your Place: Writing Small and Writing Naked

Lorna Rose

How to write small about big things, from a divorce to a social justice issue, and how to show vulnerability in your writing. Lorna quotes Richard Price, “The bigger the issue, the smaller you write…you don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write abut a kid’s burnt socks long on the road.”Lorna Rose is a Pacific Northwest writer and poet. Her work has been recognized by PNWA and the Oregon Poets Association, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Jellyfish ReviewAbout Place Journal34th Parallel Magazine, and elsewhere. A finalist for the Fishtrap Fellowship in 2020, she is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project, and has been a guest blogger at Literary Mama.Session FourIt Happens This Way

Carolyn Martin

“It Happens This Way” is a content-rich class that will take new and emerging poets for a stroll down seven avenues of inspiration. We’ll examine specific poems that exemplify each one, engage in Q&A, and gather a variety of “homework assignments” that will energize your writing for months to come. From associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK and her fourth poetry collection, A Penchant for Masquerades, was released in 2019 by Unsolicited Press. Her first chapbook, Nothing More to Lose, and her fifth poetry collection, The Catalog for Small Contentments, will be published by The Poetry Box in 2021. Currently, Carolyn serves as book review editor for OPA and poetry editor for Kosmos Quarterlyjournal for global transformation. Find out more at www.carolynmartinpoet.com.How to Use Form, How to Dispense with It

Rebecca Smolen & John Miller 

Explore the use of form through self-conscious entry at composition, revision, and unconscious surrender of intention: how subject, voice, circumstance and coincidence play in the poem and poet.Rebecca Smolen is a writer based in Portland, Oregon transplanted from New Hampshire in 2014.  She has been trained and is certified to lead writing classes in the Gateless Method which was scientifically created to avoid provoking the fight or flight reaction generating a safe place to produce raw, new writing that will spotlight the strongest talents of that material. Her first chapbook was Womanhood and Other Scars. She has published in Allegory RidgeFeminine CollectiveTiny SeedThe Inflectionist ReviewHip MamaVoiceCatcher, and Poeming Pigeon. Her full-length collection, Excoriation, is forthcoming this December.Rebecca Smolen is a writer based in Portland, Oregon transplanted from New Hampshire in 2014. She has been trained and is certified to lead writing classes in the Gateless Method which was scientifically created to avoid provoking the fight or flight reaction generating a safe place to produce raw, new writing that will spotlight the strongest talents of that material. Her first chapbook was Womanhood and Other Scars. She has published in Allegory RidgeFeminine CollectiveTiny SeedThe Inflectionist ReviewHip MamaVoiceCatcher, and Poeming Pigeon. Her full-length collection, Excoriation, is forthcoming this December.John Miller’s poetry is forthcoming in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and has appeared in Wingless Dreamer, Wax Poetry and Art, Third Wednesday: A Literary & Arts Journal, Not a Pipe Publishing’s anthology Shout, River Heron Review, catheXis northwest press, The Esthetic Apostle, and in the 9Bridges anthology Over Land and Rising.  His short fiction has appeared in Tethered by Letters. John is founder of Portland Ars Poetica, an ongoing literary poetry collective, as well as co-organizer of the Free Range Poetry reading series, and a volunteer board member of Willamette Writers.
John has lived in Portland, OR since 2012.  He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and has a degree in English from Amherst College.
https://www.meetup.com/Portland-Ars-Poetica
https://www.facebook.com/PortlandArsPoetica/The Art of Juxtaposition

Autumn Stephens 

Learn how to heighten tension in your poems through juxtaposition of disparate and unrelated phrases and concepts, with generative and self-exploration exercises, gather material and write first drafts of two different pieces employing juxtaposition. Autumn Stephens is an Oregon-bred writer, poet, editor, and teacher who has published books, poems, essays, and articles. For many years, she created curriculum for and led expressive writing groups for cancer patients. Currently, she teaches Pandora’s Prompt Box, a generative weekly workshop for poets and prose writers, on Zoom. She also publishes an annual quotation calendar titled Wild Words from Wild Women, and agrees with Lily Tomlin that “reality is nothing but a collective hunch.” 

Please contact us with any questions. Conference Committee: Diane Corson [email protected] Dave Mehler, [email protected] and Dale Champlin, [email protected].All our members can receive notifications of postings to our website, such as events, contest winners, book reviews, craft articles, interviews, etc. You can do this by going to the OPA website, Click here and on the right side of the home page it says: Subscribe Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts.Oregon Poetry Association Website: Click here.

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