Washington State University Vancouver will host a series of free workshops with professional writers over the next few months. Each workshop will include writing exercises and a lecture. Each event will be 7 to 9 p.m. in the WSU Vancouver Library, room 264.
• Wednesday: Lidia Yuknavitch — “Moving Outside the Margins.”
Yuknavitch is the author of a well-reviewed memoir and several works of fiction. She teaches writing, literature, film and women’s studies in Oregon.
• Feb. 1: Jelly Helm — “Hey, Mister, That’s Me on that Billboard (and on TV, in Print, on the Web, etc.)”
Helm was the executive creative director at Wieden+Kennedy in Portland and Amsterdam, and now heads Jelly Helm Studio. He has been featured in The New York Times, Mavericks at Work, and Adbusters.
• Feb. 15: Brian Doyle — “Noticing What Goes Unnoticed.”
Doyle is an award-winning novelist, essayist and editor of the University of Portland’s Portland Magazine. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, American Scholar, Orion and in the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003 and 2005.
• Feb. 29: Cai Emmons — “Weaving the Well-Woven Story.”
Emmons’s debut novel, “His Mother’s Son,” won the Ken Kesey Award for the Novel in 2003. Also a noted playwright, editor, director and screenwriter, she is a graduate of Yale University, received an MFA in cinema from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon where she now teaches.
• March 21: Randy Gragg — “Making Your Pitch.”
Gragg is editor-in-chief of Portland Monthly. He is a recipient of fellowships from the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University and Harvard University’s Graduate Program in design. He will talk about the current market for freelance articles.
