Meet the new OPA Board members!

We're pleased to announce the results of the elections held earlier this month.  In addition to the appointment of  David Goodrum as President and Steve Slemenda, a new member, as Secretary, OPA has five new board members.

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to the following new members of the OPA Board.

Julia Gaskill
Julia Gaskill
Julia Gaskill (she/her) is a poet and professional daydreamer from Portland, OR. She has competed multiple times on national stages and toured with her poetry across North America. Her work has been published in Moria Magazine, Pine Row PressVagabond City Lit, and more. She was included in the anthologies A Shape Produced by a Curve (great weather for MEDIA, 2023), Excelsior! (FreezeRay Poetry, 2022), and In Absentia (Bicycle Comics Press, 2020). Her debut full length collection, weirdo, was published through Game Over Books in 2022. Julia has run the poetry open mic and poetry slam Slamlandia since 2018, and she co-created the Bigfoot Poetry Festival in 2019 and has helped run it three times. You can find more about her at juliagaskill.com.
Steve Slemenda
Steve Slemenda

Steve Slemenda is a founding member of the Silverton Poetry Association and the Mid-Valley Poetry Society. He was a chief organizer of the Silverton Poetry Festival from 2001-2020. From 2018-2024 he hosted a biweekly radio program on KMUZ in Salem. Retired from a career teaching English and Film Studies at Chemeketa Community College, Steve lives with his wife in Silverton, where he reads, writes, and avoids arithmetic.

Amelia Díaz Ettinger
Amelia Díaz Ettinger

Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a Latinx BIPOC poet and writer. Her books include Learning to Love a Western SkySpeaking at a Time /Hablando a la VezThese, These Hollow Bones, and two chapbooks Fossils in a Red Flag and Self Dissection. Amelia’s poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She has an MS in Biology and an MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage between science and her experience as an immigrant. She currently resides in Eastern Oregon.

Ty Brack
Ty Brack
Ty Brack (he/him/his) is Portland's 2023 Slamlandia Grand Slam champion. That same year, he represented the Oregon Poetry Association in the BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam, where he made finals stage and finished in the top-10. He is an educator and poet living in Tigard with his wife, Kelley, and their three-year-old, Kylo. In addition to various spoken word engagements and Slam accomplishments, Ty's poetry has been featured in WritersResistRagtag MagazineSolstice Literary Magazine and WinningWriters.com.
Isabel Jaén Portillo
Isabel Jaén Portillo
Dr. Isabel Jaén Portillo is Professor of Spanish at Portland State University, where she teaches literature, film, and cognition. She holds PhDs from Purdue University and the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. As a researcher and academic writer, she focuses on early modern literature and psychology,
cognitive literary studies, contemporary literature and film, historical memory, women studies, migration, and transatlantic studies. Her books include Cervantes and the Early Modern Mind (Routledge, 2021), Self, Other, and Context in Early Modern Spain (Juan de la Cuesta, 2017), Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature (Oxford University Press, 2016), Cognitive Literary Studies (University of Texas Press, 2012), and Épocas y Avances (Yale University Press, 2006). Hispanic poetry is among the subjects that she teaches at PSU, focusing on classical and contemporary systems (from medieval structures to the sonnet to present-day manifestations such as audiovisual poems and slam poetry), cultural and historical contexts, and the cognitive aspects involved in the creation and reception of poetry. She recently organized on campus a bilingual miniseries featuring Oregon Hispanic poets, open to the Portland and Oregon community (Spring 2024). As a poet and storyteller, she began her career in the 90s in Madrid (Spain) where she actively participated in the city’s main poetry gatherings, collaborated with visual artists, and was part of several storytelling and theater groups. She was a student of Spanish poet Carlos Bousoño and has published poetry in Spain and the US. Her writing languages are Spanish (native tongue) and English.

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