Howard W. Robertson is a poet and fiction writer who lives in Eugene, Oregon. He has published six books of poems: ODES TO THE KI OF THE UNIVERSE (Publication Studio, 2012); TWO ODES OF QUIDDITY AND NIL (Publication Studio, 2010); THE GAIAN ODES (Evening Street Press, 2009); THE BRICOLAGE OF KOTEGAESHI (The Backwaters Press, 2007); ODE TO CERTAIN INTERSTATES AND OTHER POEMS (Clear Cut Press, 2003); and TO THE FIERCE GUARD IN THE ASSYRIAN SALOON (Ahsahta Press, 1987). He was the 2010 Henry Art Gallery Poet-in-Residence and the winner of the 2009 Sinclair Poetry Prize, the 2007 Jack Straw Author Award, the 2006 Elizabeth R. Curry Prize for Poetry, and the 2003 Robinson Jeffers Prize for Poetry. His poems have been published in many literary journals, including most recently in YELLOW MEDICINE REVIEW, SNOW MONKEY, SLAB, SQUARE LAKE, HIPFISH, NEST, LITERAL LATTE, NIMROD, FIREWEED, and ERGO. His poetry has been anthologized in LITERAL LATTE: THE ANTHOLOGY (iUniverse, 2008); WHERE WE LIVE NOW (www.suddenly.org, 2008); the JACK STRAW WRITERS ANTHOLOGY (Jack Straw Productions, 2007); THE CLEAR CUT FUTURE (Clear Cut Press, 2003); THE EMILY DICKINSON AWARDS ANTHOLOGY (Universities West Press, 2002); and the AHSAHTA ANTHOLOGY: POETRY OF THE AMERICAN WEST (Ahsahta Press, 1996). He has been among the winners of various other poetry awards, including the Bumbershoot Award, the Emily Dickinson Award, the Robert Frost Foundation Award, the Intown Award, the Literal Latté Award, the Pablo Neruda Award, and the Pacifica Award. His long ecological ode titled “The clay slide by the Kalapuya” can be seen on the SNOW MONKEY website. Videos of his poems are on YouTube. Texts for each video can be found at the blog Odes to Gaia.

The Oregonian wrote of Matt Briggs’s novel, Shoot the Buffalo (Clear Cut Press), “Not since the emergence of Sherman Alexie has the Northwest produced such a unique narrative voice.” Matt Briggs is the author of eight works of fiction including The Remains of River Names and The Strong Man. His novel, Shoot the Buffalo, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and was awarded an American Book Award by the Before Columbus Foundation in 2006. You can find him online at: suburgian.com

Born amidst the sad cartoon of Nixon’s America and Evel Knievel’s ill-fated jump across the Snake River Canyon, Trevor Dodge spent big chunks of his childhood listening to Jackson 5 and Journey records. Everything was going fine until his next door neighbor brought over Queen’s News of the World album; the cover art depicted a massive robot squishing people between its fingers. Needless to say, twenty years of nightmares started immediately.

Trevor Dodge has taught courses in fiction writing, comics and game studies at Illinois State University, Boise State University, Pacific Northwest College of Art and Clackamas Community College. He hosts the writing and creative arts podcast Possible Architect. His first novella, Yellow #10, was published in 2003; a collection of short fiction, Everyone I Know Lives On Roads, followed in 2006.

Nora Robertson writes fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays, which have appeared in such publications as Plazm, Redactions, Alimentum, Monkeybicycle, Portland Monthly, Citadel of the Spirit: Oregon’s Sesquicentennial Anthology, and the anthology The Frozen Moment. Her recipe poem, “How to Boil an Egg,” was nominated by Redactions for a 2007 Pushcart Prize and adapted with video artist Jason Bahling into a short poetic film exploring a cooking show gone awry, The Body Show. She produces and writes the New Oregon Interview Series, which explores Portland’s evolving creative culture and is currently serialized on plazm.org. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

From Cleopatra's:

The show would consist of two performers. They are Heather Guertin and Sean Joseph Patrick Carney.

 

The show would be a live comedy event. Each act would be roughly 30 minutes. We would request a host to introduce each act. This could be a member of Cleopatra’s or we can find a special someone. The show would begin with the lights dim except for a single spotlight pointing towards a microphone and a stool in the back of the room.

Heather would be the first act. Her performance is structured as a standup monologue. There are elements of joke telling, hilarious spoken word, poetry and storytelling. Usually there are a few simple props that she integrates i.e hang up paintings, read from a book, make Aperol spritzes, etc... The performances are meant to illustrate and embody a comparison between the methods of Heather’s painting, artistic output in general, and comedy. There is preparation and rehearsal, then the creative act, which is immediate, leaving potential for mistakes and improvisation. 

 

We will try to have a smooth and swift transition between the two performances as not to lose the focus of the crowd.

 

Here is a description of Sean’s performance: “RATS OFF TO YA” is an ongoing concrete comedy project that includes stand-up, video, monologue, and original songs. The central focus of the works is a critique of binary logic in the fields of politics, art making, morality, and taste. Sean worked on hours of material that have been remixed and rearranged in various iterations of this performance series. The work is generally executed as a thirty-minute piece, though the nature of the malleable content allows for it to be shorter or longer depending on the requirements of a given performance context.