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AWP Offsite Event: Literary Masquerade

Flyer for Literary Masquerade eventWe’re hosting multiple events in Portland, OR for AWP. It’s our home base, so why not? This will be an AWP to remember. Books & Brass kicks things off on March 28th, and we’re excited for our Literary Masquerade on Friday, March 29th at 7:00pm.

This event takes place at the Beech Street Parlor, located at 412 NE Beech St. This restored Victorian is decked out with vintage furniture, decorative wallpaper, and antique fixtures, it’s the perfect place for a masquerade party. Costumery encouraged, masks provided, all are welcome. There will be some free Conium Press swag, many of the authors will be selling and signing books, and “DJ No Requests” will be spinning records later in the evening.

Readings from Rita Bullwinkel, Charlie Brown, John Englehardt, Ashley Farmer, James R. Gapinski, Chelsea Harris, Liz Kellebrew, and Christine Texeira.

Learn more about the event on Facebook (and invite your friends!)

AWP Offsite Event: Books & Brass

Flyer for Books & Brass event

AWP is finally coming to The Conium Review‘s home-city of Portland, and we’re excited. We’ll be doing several on-site and off-site activities. Over the coming weeks, expect to hear about more upcoming gatherings, readings, and author signings.

To kick off AWP, we’re hosting a reading on Thursday, March 28th at the 1905 Jazz Club (830 N. Shaver St., Portland, OR). The readings begin at 6:00 and feature Theodora Bishop, TJ Fuller, Rachel Lyon, Simone Person, Caitlin Scarano, Rebecca Schiff, and Eliza Tudor. The featured live band is the Michael Raynor Quartet.

The readings are completely free, but if you stay for the music at 8:00, there is a $5 cover for that portion of the evening.

Throughout the event, we’ll have free swag available from Conium Press, and authors will have their books for sale. Find this event on Facebook for more information.

About the Readers

Theodora Bishop is the author of the novella, On the Rocks (Texas Review Press), winner of a 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Award, and the short story chapbook Mother Tongues, winner of The Cupboard’s 2015 contest. Theodora Bishop’s poetry and short stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, and Short Fiction (England), among other journals, anthologies, and exhibits. A Best New Poets and four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Theodora Bishop holds an MFA from the University of Alabama and is pursuing her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. She serves as Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast, Fiction Editor for Big Fiction, and occasionally subs as a life care specialist at a memory care center in Houston.

TJ Fuller writes and teaches in Portland, Oregon. His fiction has appeared in Hobart, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Jellyfish Review, and elsewhere. He won the 2017 Flash Fiction Contest at The Conium Review.

Rachel Lyon is the author of the debut novel Self-Portrait With Boy (Scribner 2018), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her shorter work has appeared in Joyland, Iowa Review, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, McSweeney’s, and other publications. A cofounder of the reading series Ditmas Lit in her native Brooklyn NY, Rachel has taught creative writing for the Sackett Street Writers Workshop, Catapult, the Fine Arts Work Center, Slice Literary, and elsewhere. Subscribe to Rachel’s Writing/Thinking Prompts newsletter at tinyletter.com/rachellyon, and visit her at www.rachellyon.work.

Simone Person is the author of Dislocate, the winner of the 2017 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest in Prose, and Smoke Girl, the winner of the 2018 Diode Editions Chapbook Contest in Poetry. She grew up in small Michigan towns and Toledo, Ohio and is a dual MFA/MA student at Indiana University in Fiction and African American and African Diaspora Studies. In 2018, Simone became the Prose Editor for Honeysuckle Press. She sporadically, and to varying degrees of success, uses Twitter and Instagram at @princxporkchop.

Caitlin Scarano is a writer based in Washington state. She holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She was selected as a participant in the NSF’s Antarctic Artists & Writers Program and spent November 2018 in McMurdo Station in Antarctica.  Her debut collection of poems, Do Not Bring Him Water, was released in Fall 2017 by Write Bloody Publishing. She has two poetry chapbooks: The White Dog Year (dancing girl press, 2015) and The Salt and Shadow Coiled (Zoo Cake Press, 2015).

Rebecca Schiff is the author of The Bed Moved, a finalist for an LA Times Book Prize. Her fiction has appeared in n+1, Electric Literature, The Guardian, Guernica, BuzzFeed, The American Reader, Fence, Washington Square, Lenny Letter, and in The Best Small Fictions 2017. She lives in Oregon.

Eliza Tudor grew up in Indiana and holds an MA in English and an MFA in Writing from Butler University. Her stories have appeared in The Conium Review, PANK, TLR, Hobart, Annalemma, and Paper Darts, among others, as well as in the anthologies, Mythic Indy, and Dark Ink Press’s Fall. Her novella,Wish You Were Here, won the 2017 Minerva Rising Press Novella Prize and was published by that press. After spending the last few years living in places as varied as Silicon Valley, the south coast of England, and Austin, Texas, she is currently in the process of moving to the Pacific Northwest.

Editor Update: James R. Gapinski’s 2018 Book Tour

Join The Conium Review‘s managing editor, James R. Gapinski, as he celebrates the release of Edge of the Known Bus Line (Etchings Press, University of Indianapolis). Later this month, James embarks on a five-state reading tour, with stops in Seattle, Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Portland.

The tour kicks off on August 29th with a featured reading at the Two Hour Transport series in Seattle. Next stop is Boswell Books in Milwaukee. Then James visits Chicago for a conversation with former contributor and recent contest judge Maryse Meijer, author of Heartbreaker (FSG) and Northwood (Black Balloon Publishing). In Minneapolis, James reads with local and visiting authors Maya Beck, Madeline Reding, Kathryn Savage, and Erin Sharkey. Finally, James returns home for a reading in Portland. Full book tour details, Facebook links, and other information is available on James R. Gapinski’s author page.

EOTKBL Book Tour flyer (compressed)

Upcoming Event: “Adventures in Literary Readings”

Adventures Reading header

Join several of The Conium Review‘s editors/writers on Friday, April 14th to celebrate the release of Chelsea Werner-Jatzke‘s chapbook, Adventures in Property Management, out now from Sibling Rivalry Press.

Chelsea is outreach coordinator at The Conium Review, and we’re excited to see her come through Portland on her West Coast reading tour. The reading will also feature our James R. Gapinski (our managing editor), Rebecca Schiff (2017 flash contest judge), and Kate Garklavs (2016 flash contest winner). Also featuring readings from Robert Lashley and Dena Rash Guzman.

The reading starts at 7:00pm at Likewise, located at 3564 SE Hawthorne Blvd in Portland, Oregon. Hope to see some Conium Press readers, writers, and friends there! Find this event on Facebook.

ACLU donations at our AWP table

The 2017 AWP Conference is just a couple days away. We’ll be exhibiting at table 548-T, and we’re co-hosting an off-site event on Thursday, February 9th.

This year’s conference is in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, a few blocks from the convention center, a misygonistic xenophone sits in the white house. Consequently, this year’s AWP must be about more than schmoozing and afterparties.

We’re a socially responsible publisher, and we typically donate copies of our print-runs to charities like Housing Works Bookstore Cafe and Open Books. At this year’s AWP Conference, we’re going a step further. We are donating 10% of all AWP sales to the American Civil Liberties Union. Just a couple weeks into the Trump presidency, and the ACLU has already challenged the Trump administration’s actions in court. The ACLU has along history of demanding equal rights and fighting for our basic feedoms, and we’re proud to offer whatever support we can.

On a related note, we hope you’ll consider attending Saturday’s Candlelight Vigil for Free Speech. The vigil will take place at Lafayette Park, directly across from the White House. It is just a short walk from the convention center. The vigil starts at 6:15pm. Hand-held signs only and no large bags allowed (leave that AWP tote bag in your hotel room). Speakers include Kazim Ali, Gabrielle Bellot, Melissa Febos, Carolyn Forché, Ross Gay, Luis J. Rodriguez, and Eric Sasson.

If you know of any other vigils, protests, or other political events taking place during the AWP Conference, please e-mail us with the details.