Production

Editor: Phoebe Boche Publication date: November 2016 Press: Raven Chronicles Press Format: Paperback Language: English Buy Synopsis The work that Jack Straw Cultural Center did and does with community groups like the Seattle World School; their work with arts and heritage organizations; their commitment to educational programs for youth and adults of all ages: this is why Raven was committed to publishing this special edition of the Raven Chronicles Journal. Vol. 23 is a departure of sorts: The theme is the twentieth year of the Jack Straw Writers Program, and we did not have an open submissions period for the first time in Raven’s history. Instead, Jack Straw curators and staff chose two writers from each year of the program: 1997-2016. ...

Name: PowerPoint Off Date: November 18th 2008 Produced by: Final State Press Location: Jewel Box Theater / Rendezvous Link: powerpointoff.blogspot.com Description: On November 18th, 2008 at 7:30 PM at the Jewel Box Theater in Belltown (free of charge), Matt Briggs and Doug Nufer presented their “roadmap” for the future of the community writing organization Richard Hugo House. Neither is affiliated with the organization. And neither are you. Present your own vision of the future at powerpointoff.blogspot.com or come to the party to heckle, cheer, and consider: is a community writing center a halfway house or school? ...

Name: Rendezvous Reading Series Date: 1991 - 2004 Produced by: Matthew Stadler, Frances McCue, Rebecca Meredith, Novella Carpenter, Paula Gilovich, Rachel Kessler, Matt Briggs Location: Presented by discounted space at The Jewel Box, the Northwest Film Forum, and Richard Hugo House, among others over the years Link: “The Bratty, Catty Reading Series” in The Stranger by Traci Vogel Description: The Rendezvous Reading Series was founded in the early 1990s by Frances McCue and Jan Wallace to create a bridge between the grassroots poetry scene at venues such as the Red Sky Poetry Theater and the University of Washington’s academic circuit. Novelist Matthew Stadler joined as a curator in 1992. For most of the life of the series, The Rendezvous Reading took place in the Rendezvous Tavern’s Jewelbox Theater. A well-known writer would read with an emerging local writer. Readers included James Purdy, Robert Gluck, Lynn Emanuel, Tom Spanbauer, and Mark Doty. In 1998, the series passed to Novella Carpenter, Paula Gilovich, and Rachel Kessler and moved for a time to Northwest Film Forum’s Little Theater. There readings moved to thematic readings including a reading of JT Leroy’s first collection of stories. In 2001, when Paula left for Chicago, Novella for Oakland, and Rachel for The Typing Explosion, the series passed to me where I presented authors such as Charles d’Ambrosio, Rebecca Brown, Cynthia Hartwig, Michael Byers, and Gary Lutz. The series ended in the 2004 when I began working on Writers-on-Work at Richard Hugo House. ...

Name: Resuscitating Utopia: Contemporary Music, Literature, and Art from the Oregon Territory Date: Spring 2005 Produced by: Richard Hugo House, 4 Culture, and Allen Charitable Foundation For The Arts. Location: Richard Hugo House Link: Summary Sheet (PDF) Description: In the spring of 2005, I presented a series of performances addressing the idea of utopia as reflected in Northwest Art. In March, writer Rebecca Brown collaborated with visual artist Nancy Kiefer to look at the Northwest Mystic Painters. In April, the series looked at the communal experiments of the 1960s with a utopian demonstration and reading by former Seattleites Novella Carpenter (a survivor of an Idaho hippie childhood) and Raymond Mungo, whose memoir, Total Loss Farm was described recently in The New York Times as “the best, and surely the woolliest, book written about that era’s communal living and back-to-the-land movements.” In May, Rich Jensen a writer and musician who has been involved in a number of utopian enterprises, collaborated with Phil Elverum, a musician from Anacortes who has recorded music as The Microphones and Mount Eerie.

Name: Unassociated Writers Conference Date: April 2, 2005 Produced by: Matt Briggs, Clear Cut Press, and Western Front Society Location: Western Front Society, Vancouver BC Link: Summary Sheet (PDF) Description: On April 2nd, more than 300 writers, readers and producers of independent literature gathered in the space of unassociation during the day to read, listen, talk, bounce on the inflatable bouncy, drink and eat yummy toasties. The organizers of the dance party had no idea how many people would arrive to experience the pleasures of unassociation. The event was not addressed by the regional media. In fact, Terminal City, the alternative weekly in Vancouver running opposite the older and more staid weekly, The George Straight, was going to run some preview manifestos/articles (to be posted here shortly) on the conference. But rather than run them, the overseers of Terminal City axed the entire book section and replaced it with a two-page spread about strap-ons. Perhaps not a bad thing, but still, an indication of the difficulty of classifying the work and play that would take place on April 2nd. ...

Name: Writers on Work Date: Spring 2004 Produced by: Matt Briggs / Richard Hugo House Location: Richard Hugo House Link: Summary Sheet (PDF) Description: Writers on Work celebrated labor vital to the life of Seattle. Poet Lyn Coffin translated the voices YMCA case reports, performance artist Stokley Towles road in a North Precinct squad car & fabulist Bret Fetzer listened to an ambulance siren. Three jobs: Social Work, Police Work, Emergency Medical Response. Three nights. Writers on Work reading teamed professional writers with community members whose jobs are integral to the operation and function of our city. The series provided a connection between practicing writers and professionals and looked to ways that Hugo House, as a community resource center, could be used and be of use to anyone. Each writer-worker pair created a reflective nonfiction piece about work performed in the Hugo House Cabaret.