EVENTS & CLASSES
Photo: Micky Ryan
EVENTS
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CLASSES
My 34-year teaching career ended in June, 2023, at a week-long workshop on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, with writers attending from Oregon, Washington and California. After twenty years of taking writers abroad, it was wonderful to be welcomed to a nation so close to home. There we met with elder Antone Minthorn, toured the amazing Tamástslikt museum with founder-director Bobbie Conner, and heard a stunning lecture on First Foods by Wenix Red Elk, meanwhile writing in the mornings and gathering for discussions in the late afternoons.
Having never expected to be a teacher, Jon Sinclair’s 1989 phone call inviting me to develop a creative writing class for Marylhurst College came as a surprise. I began as a part-timer, teaching short fiction and stayed for twenty years. Eventually, my classes ranged across three graduate writing programs, a writing certificate program that I designed for Portland State’s extension division (as we called it then), and lots of workshops, including Haystack and Sitka on the Oregon coast and, finally, Traveler’s Mind, my annual ten-day immersion in observation and a disciplined daily writing practice.
Although I appreciate the extra writing time, I do miss the classes that gave me such joy. I continue to stay in touch with my most committed students, almost all of whom are now publishing work of their own.
Photo: Smita Patel
Sunset on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation