All Rights Reserved. This book may not be duplicated in any way—mechanical, photographic, electronic, or by means yet to be devised—
without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of a brief excerpt or quotations for the purpose of review.
Published by Literary Arts, a 503(c)(3) in Portland, OR, First Edition 2024 Printed in the USA
LITERARY ARTS COMMUNITY 23/24
STAFF:
Andrew Proctor,
Executive Director
Alexei Bien
Amanda Bullock
Bethany Byrd-Hill
Lydah DeBin
Rui Dun
Jennifer Gurney
Olivia Jones Hall
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Bob Speltz, Chair
Joan Cirillo
Ginnie Cooper
Gustavo Cruz
Amy Donohue
Lana Finley
Sarah Gibbon
Jonathan Hill
april joseph
Joanna Laird
Brandon Lenzi
Hope Levy
Alexis Lopez
Jessica Meza-Torres
Susan Moore
Jules Ohman
Denver Olmstead
Mary E. Hirsch
Janet Hoffman
Mitchell S. Jackson
Susheela Jayapal
Maurice King
Anis Mojgani
Corrine Oishi
Amy Prosenjak
YOUTH PROGRAMS ADVISORY COUNCIL:
Maurice King, Chair
Sandra J. Childs
Jacque Dixon
Andre Goodlow
Jonathan Hill
ANTHOLOGY STAFF:
Editors: Olivia Jones Hall, april joseph, Meg Ready, Alberto Sveum
Mary E. Hirsch
Briana Linden
André Middleton
Joanna Rose
Karena Salmond
Liz Olufson
Leah O’Sullivan
Allyson Quirico
Meg Ready
Laura Renckens
Juliette Rousseve
Jyoti Roy
Alberto Sveum
Alexa Winik
Dennis Steinman
Geoffrey Tichenor
Chabre Vickers
Kristin Walrod
Renée Watson
Marcia Wood
Nancy Sullivan
Tristan Tarwater
Renée Watson
Tracey Wyatt
Designers: FINN Partners (cover), Olivia Hammerman (interior)
WITS COMMUNITY 2023-24
WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE AND APPRENTICES
Joliene Adams, Brian Benson, Erica Berry, Monika Cassel, Alan Saint Clark, Brennan DeFrisco, Caitlin Delohery, Ed Edmo, Zoë
Gamell Brown, Judy Jiang, Robin Lanehurst, Meaghan Loraas, Amy Minato, Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman, Shilo Niziolek, Jennifer Perrine, Bruce Poinsette, Mark Pomeroy, Emilly Prado, Meg Ready, Dey Rivers, Jen Shin, Paige Thomas, CJ Wiggan, Hannah Withers
VISITING AUTHORS
Mary Beard, David Grann, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Zadie Smith, Charles Yu, Gabrielle Zevin
WITS LIAISONS
Paige Battle, Ilsa Bruer, Zachary Carroll, Ayn Frazee, Amanda Graham, Jamie Incorvia, Cassie Lanzas, Lori Lieberman, Charles Sanderson, Nancy Sullivan
PARTICIPATING PRINCIPALS
Erika Beddoe Whitlock, Peyton Chapman, Ayesha Coning, Aaron Ferguson, Chris Frazier, James McGee, Molly Ouche, KD Parman, Drake Shelton, Adam Skyles, Jo Ann Wadkins, Curtis Wilson Jr.
CONTENTS
Introduction
WITS Community 2023-24
Introduction
Frankie Diller-Beardsley • The Recess
Huong T • My Vietnamese-American Heritage
Noah Larson • Alice
Liam Allister Randy Ballard • Pigeon Coup
Shuyan Chen • Miso Ramen
Rosa Victorino • Music to My Soul
Kya Bolivar • Love is a Weird and Wonderful Thing
Truong Thinh Phan • My Experience in the U.S.
Ava Greiner • The Delicacies of Life
Michelle Ruby Iniguez • How Much More Can She Take
Maggie Greenland • Falsettos: A Genius Take on Storytelling
Writers in Residence 2023-24
Index
Youth Programs Support 2023–24
INTRODUCTION
Everysummer, after the blur of the event season and the school year, after the workshops and the poetry slams and the author visits, we get to sit with student writing. This is the sixth Writers in the Schools Anthology that I’ve had the pleasure of working on, and it’s a bit of a grounding ritual now.
Steppingstone is another collection that captures the remarkable spirit of high school students in Portland, east Multnomah County, and Woodburn. This collection is not just a testament to student resilience, it’s a celebration of the connections and communities created in the 39 residencies that took place during the 2023-24 school year.
The writing in these pages is a mosaic of young artists exploring the landscapes of their identities. It feels important to note that WITS students don’t opt-in to residencies: teachers invite a writer-in-residence into their classroom, and a couple times a week, their class changes from the curriculum standards of Language Arts, Earth Science, or Film Studies into a creative writing intensive. Despite what might be a surprise, students’ willingness to engage with the prompts, to delve into their own narratives, and to share their truths defines their innate curiosity and courage.
This chapbook would not exist without the WITS writers and host teachers whose unwavering commitment to fostering a nurturing environment makes it possible for students to express themselves freely. Youth Programs’ unofficial motto is to help students feel seen and heard, and every one of the writers on our roster exemplifies this goal each time they enter a classroom. The teachers who host these writers are going above and beyond for their students’ education and personal growth. These phenomenal adults meet vulnerability with support and warmth, and encourage young voices to emerge, explore, and thrive. Their belief in the transformative power of writing ignites creativity and instills a sense of belonging among students.
Steppingstone features themes of finding oneself and settling into unfamiliar places. The book invites readers to stand alongside these students, to witness their journeys as they carve out their places in the world. We hope this chapbook inspires you to reflect on your own journey, to embrace the unfamiliar, and to recognize the power of storytelling in connecting us all.
As always, to the students who have shared your work and your stories with us, thank you. Your voices matter. Keep writing.
Olivia Jones Hall Director of Youth Programs
Frankie Diller-Beardsley
Lincoln High School
WITS Writer: Meaghan Loraas
The Recess
They made me. They made me, and in that alone, they were unkind.
I am not flesh and I am not bone. I do not know what love is and have never seen the seasons change.
They made me, escorted me to the Headmaster’s office, and placed me in a red plush chair. My ‘heart’ monitor beeped.
“Welcome. How are you feeling?” the Headmaster asked. I do not feel. I did not know.
“Uncertainty is normal. We do not expect you to articulate yourself right away.” The headmaster made a note on his clipboard. He kept a picture of him smiling next to two little girls on his desk. “But we do want to see how you adjust to the real world.”
The Headmaster handed me a colorful brochure. The people in the brochure carried schoolbooks and showed all their teeth and wore matching plaid skirts. They looked the same. I thought humans did not like to look the same. The brochure confused me. “You’re going to stay here. What do you think about that?
A little boarding school. Nice and isolated.”
I nodded. They did not make me so that I could shake my head “no.”
“Good. Good.” The Headmaster shuffled his papers. He walked around the desk and patted my head. “Maybe they’ll
even make more of you. I don’t know.”
His cold hand brushed my new hair. I did not want them to make more of me. I wanted to be myself and no one else. In that alone, they had made a mistake.
I woke up and I was horizontal. They’d taught me words explaining why I was horizontal, propped up on soft fabric above the ground. Bed. Pillow.
They used to show me images. Of a big person tucking in a little person when they were horizontal on their bed pillow. I was not a little person. Not a big person, either. I was not a person at all.
No one would read me a story.
I rose from horizontal to vertical. I put on my matching plaid skirt. They told me: humans wear clothes to hide the soft bodies they are made of. I did not have a soft body. They’d made me with hinges that creaked.
The Headmaster and a soldier knocked on my door. The soldier had a gun. It was time for school. “Are you ready?”
The Headmaster took me to a room different from the room with the bed and pillow. The room had a blackboard and thirty desks that thirty students sat in. One special desk at the front had an apple on it for a special human. That human’s name was ‘Teacher.’ There was a word for this room. Classroom.
“Good morning, class!” the Headmaster said.
“Good morning, Headmaster!” thirty students repeated. Sixty eyes stared.
The eyes are the windows to the soul. The eyes never lie. The apple of my eye—the human words overwhelmed me. They had uploaded me with too much. I hid my face.
They never let me look in the mirror. They told me my eyes were green.
“As you can see, we have a new student here today.” The Headmaster made me show my face. “She’ll be shadowing you for a few weeks.”
“How lovely,” said the Teacher. The Teacher wore glasses and a not-matching plaid skirt. The Teacher did not know what I really was. “Now, why don’t you introduce yourself?”
One of the thirty students whispered to their friend. The students both laughed at something I could not hear.
“Hello.” I said. “I am—”
My mouth moved. I heard a buzzing sound. I was not allowed to know my own name.
“BZZZZZZ, wonderful,” the Teacher repeated. She got me a chair. Now, there were thirty-one desks. “We’ll make sure to give you a good welcome.”
“You’re weird.”
A student in a circle of other students moved away from me. We were outside of the classroom and outside of the building. I had never been outside before. The students who thought I was weird drew chalk and bounced balls on the playground blacktop. The sun shined.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I am sorry” was what humans said after they did something wrong.
“God, where are you even from? You talk like a robot.”
I was from a place that had machines and blinking blue lights. I did not answer, so the circle left. I wanted to join them, so I followed.
“Don’t look. It’s following us.” The students sped up. I tried to run, too. The students were playing a game, I thought. Like the games I learned about.
But I was not used to my new legs. I tripped and fell. Pain
was a new feeling, a feeling I did not like. “Please help me up,” I asked. I was expressing my wants and needs. The students did not care. The circle surrounded me, my face pressed into the rainbow chalk in the dust, and they laughed at me.
Nobody noticed I could not bleed.
That was my first recess. Recess (noun): A break.
“Are you adjusting well?” he Headmaster asked. He had given me a toy to play with in his office.
I was not. “Yes,” I said. I had learned that humans tell lies. The toy expanded and contracted.
“Good. I’m glad. I’m glad you’re doing well.” The Headmaster sighed. “There’s been talks of shutting the project down. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
“It means you wouldn’t be here anymore.” The Headmaster said long and slow. He made his office chair spin. All the chairs I’d sat in stayed still. “Do you want that?”
“No.” I looked at his spinning chair. I wanted more light and more surprises. This was the truth.
“I thought not.” The Headmaster reached over and took my hand. “We’ll check back in a week, then, okay? If you’re still making progress, you can stay.”
I looked out the Headmaster’s window at the playground below. The slides and the merry-go-round. I did not take his hand back. Humans only took hands when they were the best of friends.
The Headmaster was not my friend.
The students surrounded me. They had yellow hair and clean white teeth. They were female. I had learned that wearing a
matching plaid skirt instead of a matching plaid shirt meant that you were female. The female students surrounded me in the school hallway. They blocked my way to the classroom.
“You have beautiful eyes.”
“And such a natural look.”
“Thank you,” I said. The female students’ lips were shiny, and they moved their mouths like they were chewing food. I did not have to eat.
“You would be so pretty, BZZZZZZ.”
“So pretty.”
“Gorgeous.”
“If you just fixed your–”
A female student twisted my hair, played with it like the Headmaster did. Hands were everywhere at once. Tilting my chin. Brushing my shirt collar. Pinching my cheeks.
“With some blush, too, wouldn’t that look amazing?”
“Concealer, too, she’s so pale—”
“Come on, guys, stop, you know she can’t speak English.”
The voices got louder and louder. A female student with the shortest skirt and the biggest breasts pulled a shiny pink thing out of her bag. She prodded the pink thing close to my face. Like a needle. I remembered the needles that stitched together my body.
“And maybe just a bit of gloss—”
“NO NEEDLE.” I kicked the female student in her chest. She screamed and jumped away from me, holding her breasts, sobbing. The other female students gasped and clutched their backpacks. Some ran.
“What is your problem?” The female student cried. My foot had left a bruise. The Teacher poked her head out of the classroom. She heard them trying to hurt me.
The female student pointed a finger. “She’s trying to kill me!”
The Teacher grabbed my arms and put them behind my back. I remembered being restrained in the lab. I did not want to be made all over again.
I squirmed and threw the Teacher off me. She stumbled. Teacher’s head cracked onto a locker. There was blood that looked like the first color of the rainbow. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green…
“What the fuck?” The female student cried. More students poured into the hallway now as the blood dripped on the floor. They dialed numbers and pulled the emergency alarm. “Get help, somebody get help!”
I stood, blank. I wanted to tell everyone Teacher would be okay, that I knew she would not die. I knew exactly how much force was lethal.
Loud footsteps. A soldier running up behind me. A bat to my head, and the sound of metal hitting metal. Darkness. They forced me to sleep.
I knew what sleep was, but whoever made me didn’t give me dreams.
The straitjacket was tight. I was bound and chained to a steel chair instead of the red plush one they used to prop me up in. The Headmaster looked at me like I had to be put in time-out. His soldiers kept their rifles close.
“We are very disappointed in you.” The Headmaster glared. I wondered if he talked to his two daughters this way. Maybe when they put their hand in the cookie jar. “We thought you had a chance. That maybe you’d be a role model for the others.”
“I am…” I searched for the right word. “Alone” was not the correct emotion. Neither was “Angry.” “Sorry?”
The Headmaster rubbed his temple between his glasses. “Sorry’s not good enough.” He rummaged through his drawers,
commanding the soldiers, frantic. “Hold her down. She has to be awake for this.”
The soldiers put their hands on my shoulders. The Headmaster complained to himself. He could not find an important paper. “I swear they gave us instructions if we had to deactivate her.”
Images overwhelmed me. A skeleton. A hospital. A grave. Children crying and stale flowers and vague phrases like “passed away.” The question of where humans went after. Was that about to happen to me?
“I don’t want to die,” I whispered. No one heard me.
“Ah, there it is.” The Headmaster found my deactivation instructions, reading out loud to the soldiers. “Step one—”
“I don’t. Want. To die.” I pulled against the straitjacket clips. They began to break. “I want to go to recess again.”
“If you’re really sorry, you’ll stay right there in your chair.” The Headmaster noticed. “Keep her down.” He ordered the soldiers. “We don’t know how strong she is. She might try to—”
The straitjacket clips snapped. My hands flew out and grabbed both soldiers’ wrists. They fired their rifles at me. I ducked. They shot each other. Humans often did.
“No! What did you do to them? What did you do?!” The Headmaster looked at the red on his carpet. I’d left a mess. “You-you monster.”
They’d told me I was perfect. Monsters were not. Monsters were ugly. Monsters were freaks.
Monsters did not have friends.
The Headmaster saw my face darken. He put his hands in the air and stepped backwards. “Wait. I didn’t mean that. Listen, BZZZZ. Listen!”
He grinned, but his eyes weren’t smiling. The Headmaster was a liar. “Get back in your chair. We won’t
deactivate you; we won’t do anything, I’ll tell them to make you a friend just like you, even two or three if you want! Doesn’t that sound nice? Just stay…right…there.”
“No.” I moved towards him. The Headmaster’s hands were shaking, trying to open his second-floor window, trying to jump. I remembered to be polite. “Thank you.”
My hand decided to clutch his neck. This was the movement they’d taught me, a movement that was important to humans, even more than hugs or kisses.
The Headmaster’s lungs decided to stop breathing. His face decided to turn blue. “Please,” he choked, “please.”
His hand was still fumbling for the telephone on his desk. I saw the photograph next to it. The daughters’ smiles. The Headmaster had people he said goodnight to.
I helped him sleep.
The headmaster’s body crumpled to the floor. He was wearing a white collared shirt. He would be proud of me. I did not leave any stains.
I stood over the headmaster’s body. The alarm was blaring again. I heard the students playing outside, their games and handshakes. I looked away from the Headmaster’s limp mouth to the door I was now free to walk through, to the window showing the wind rustling in the trees.
And I knew that I was human.
Huong T
Franklin High School
WITS Writer: Jen Shin
My Vietnamese-American Heritage
My story is Vietnamese American because I was born and raised in Vietnam and my family immigrated to America for more than a year. My grandparents were the ones who supported and sponsored our family to come to America. I’m grateful because this is a new opportunity to develop further. I experiment with parallel culture because my family will follow Asian culture (good at science, speaking loudly, using chopsticks professionally, etc.). My friends and people around me will follow American culture (fast food, some memorial holidays, languages, etc.). Adapting to two cultures at once would take a lot of work. But, then you will have many opportunities to improve yourself. I had to develop myself, in both ways of thinking, to adapt to the new living environment. That was made even more difficult by a new language. We can feel lonely when people around us speak many different languages, are pressured by expectations of future success, and have to make new friends to learn about cultures and languages faster. There are many differences between the two cultures that I have to experience. Asian parents often raise their children by protecting them. As for the American way of raising children, they will practice the virtue of independence in their children from a young age. Because I was born with yellow skin, I always feel confident about this difference. I always
feel grateful to my parents for giving birth to me in a healthy body and what I need to do and try is to build a better life and future for myself. I want to learn more, and deeply understand American culture. My lifestyle and mindset will still be similar to Vietnamese people. I still respect and cherish my roots, but I will change to adapt to the new environment.
Noah Larson
Woodburn
High School
WITS Writer: Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman
Alice
Tick tock
Tick tock Alice
The white rabbit is late
Run Alice, run
The cards are trying to get you Alice
Don’t let them get you Alice
Take this pill to feel normal
Take this pill to sleep
Take this pill to stop hearing the voices Alice
Ain’t wonderland so wonderful Alice?
Where the mad hatter is mad
Where the Cheshire Cat can’t be seen
Where the queen has no heart
Do you hear them Alice
The voices screaming at you Alice
Run Alice run
Drink this tea to silence them Alice
Don’t you feel normal Alice?
No more chasing the white rabbit Alice
Nothing is wonderful about real life Alice…
Liam Allister Randy Ballard
Franklin
High School
WITS
Writer: Caitlin Delohery
Pigeon Coup
Shuyan Chen
Franklin High School
WITS
Writer: Jen Shin
Miso Ramen
My favorite food is miso ramen. Many of my friends also like to eat it, so we often eat it out.
The bottom of the soup is golden, with dried bamboo shoots, thin-cut Japanese barbecued pork, egg, and corn. The bottom of the soup is sweet and fragrant, containing a strong taste of soy mixed with the essence of pig bones, chicken bones, fresh fruits, and vegetables. It tastes delicious: the noodles are very fine, the roasted meat is very tender, and then the bottom of the soup is rich. While eating, I hear the sound of chopsticks colliding with bowls, as well as the sound of eating noodles and soup.
I have a story about miso ramen that I want to share. When I first ate miso ramen with my boyfriend, we were not together at that time. We all thought it was delicious after we ate it, and then this seemed to be the first food for us to find a common topic.
Two years later, we’re still eating ramen together, just like we did when we first met—eating noodles and talking about the past. So, for me, miso ramen is not only delicious, but also brings me a good memory, so it is not just a bowl of simple noodles.
Miso ramen also makes me better adapt to life in the United States. When I was in China, I always ate Chinese food. But
when I came to the United States, I often ate white people’s meals at school, which made me very unaccustomed and in a bad mood. I am very happy to come into contact with the delicacy of miso ramen, and I seemed to fall in love with the United States as a multicultural country. Every time I finish eating miso ramen, I feel satisfied and have a very happy feeling.
Rosa Victorino
Franklin High School
WITS Writer: Meg Ready
Music to My Soul
Music affects my life in many ways from morning showers to going through rough times, driving, cleaning, and almost every day-to-day activity in my life. I listen to music artists like J. Cole, Alicia Keys, Coco Jones, Ogeezy, Rihanna and many others. Music is one my favorite and best ways I process and get inspiration on the things I do and the ways I approach people as well as things in my life. There is this song that instantly spoke to me the first time I heard it: “ICU” by Coco Jones. She says, “I try not to, don’t ’cause I can’t forget.” When I first heard these lyrics I admired the creativity of this short message, she tries to not forget because she doesn’t want to but don’t because the thought of it lays effortlessly on her mind she doesn’t even have to try and not forget. “Though we may grow, I don’t know why we don’t grow apart.” This speaks of two people who I feel have been going through a time in their life together and are trying to grow as people but maybe there’s something that’s holding them back. Maybe it’s they themselves whom hold themselves back to the sight or process of maturity due to the fear of abandonment. It’s crazy the ways certain people and words can make such a big effect on a person. People are alike, but as well individually unique one may preserve with these words or these people that pass our mind
and presence in life. Some will be left with a mark from those words who were so dear to their ears and made a difference to them, to a new light, a new perspective. “I breathe you turning my heart blue,” she later explains in these lyrics how when she leaves, she gets this constant reminder of him. The feeling of being lost without him, as well as ending with “maybe you’re worth it all to me.” These lines are a poem that expresses great emotion and triumph, as well as pain she endured while being with this person. Breathing in someone and all they hold, as well as holding their inner-self and counting on that air to survive.
To breathe when the “oxygen” you’re enduring is deteriorating your most vital organ because of a choice to go through certain pains and “processes” to finally reach “true happiness.”
The process of being “happy” by neglecting yourself and your emotions as well and your own peace of mind. Giving your all to someone in hoping to get what you truly desire and hope that’s what they truly desire as well. We are all in control of the things we listen to, endure, and paths we choose. Music is has not only been an inspiration to me, but a key steppingstone in my life. Music truly carries and heals my soul.
Kya Bolivar
Lincoln High School
WITS Writer: Meaghan Loraas
Love is a Weird and Wonderful Thing
Why, how, where, what
You and me was soon to be moved
Why me? I never had a clue
To your brave heart and soul
While your heart starts to side
Could you explain the way to say
Your words are so soft and kind
Your heart is big but why am I here?
Near you I am safe and that is why.
Love is a feeling
Reeling you in and making your heart spin
Keen to what could be
He has that smile that was meant to be
The sky is mine
Find a way to lie to say it’s true
Soon it will become true
Truong Thinh Phan
Franklin High School
WITS
Writer: Jen Shin
My Experience in the U.S.
My story is Vietnamese because I was born and lived in Vietnam for about eleven years, and my first language is Vietnamese. I really enjoy my life in Vietnam. But now, I’m living in the U.S. with my family. My first year in the U.S. was terrible because I didn’t know any English, so I couldn’t make friends with anyone. But everything changed when a guy named Joseph came and talked to me. We asked each other about our names and where we were from, and he was very nice to me. After that day, we became friends, and we talked every day. I got my first friend. It was a big step in my journey. Having someone to talk to in school helped me a lot with my study and my English. After making my first friend in the U.S., I learned that making friends in other countries is easier than I thought. But since I moved to the U.S., I was already in fifth grade, so after a few weeks, summer break came—a boring and empty summer break. I slept, woke up, got food, watched TV, got food, and went to sleep; every day was the same. It was the most boring summer I ever experienced, but I knew all I could do was to wait until the summer break ended. After a couple weeks, the summer break was finally over. I was so excited to make friends with more people in middle school. Things got even better. I met Joseph again in middle school, and knowing more people improved my English a lot, but every year in
middle school is the same still. My journey still continues, and I still make new friends and meet new teachers in a new school.
Ava Greiner
Lincoln High School
WITS Writer: Emily Prado
The Delicacies of Life
You say it’s easy
You say it’s simple
But when I think about it
It’s everything but I walk into school all I’m thinking is Where are you?
Are you coming?
But then I see I see
Your blank face
No emotions
No feeling
Maybe I’m going crazy
I hear it once more Simple
But all I see is confusion
These feelings are anything but simple
These feeling are revealing
These feelings aren’t healing
So you may think this is simple
And maybe it’s all in my head
But I remember I remember the time when you cared
Michelle Ruby Iniguez
Woodburn High School
WITS
Writer: Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman
How Much More Can She Take
A group of white boys say
“Sasquatch”
“Big Foot”
“You’re not a girl, you’re a man!”
“Look at how hairy you are”
A young girl with a destroyed self esteem
Stands in front of the bathroom
Holding one of her mothers hair removing wax strips
Not knowing how it works she opens the strip
Places it on her upper lip
And immediately rips it off
Leaving her with a patchy, sticky, red upper lip
And the same amount of self esteem
The best friend anyone could ask for says
“You’re Mexican?”
“You have 2 half siblings?”
“It all makes sense know”
“All Mexican men are the same”
“They all leave their first family for another”
“You are the second family”
A confused yet heartbroken girl
Stares at her best friend
Not knowing whether to agree or disagree
Knowing that if she disagree she would lose her most valued friendship
Knowing that if she agreed she would betray her values and everything she knows
She decided to disagree
Causing her the loss of the only friend she cared about
An old radio host says
“Hello and welcome back to our radio show”
“Today we have two special guests!”
“Name and…”
“I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”
“Thank you so much Name for telling us about yourself”
“Lets get on with the show”
A girl sits in silence not surprised she was skipped over
It happens all the time, no biggy
She doesn’t know whether to say something or leave it
Knowing that if she said something the host might think she’s rude
Knowing that if she left it she would feel bad about herself
She decides to remain sitting in silence as the host raves about how great Name is
Leaving her feeling unmemorable
how much more can she take…
Maggie Greenland Roosevelt High School
WITS
Writer: Paige Thomas
Falsettos: A Genius Take on Storytelling
One of my favorite musicals, or any piece of theatre, is the musical called Falsettos. I watched it for the first time earlier last year and it kind of blew my mind. I initially heard good things about it, but I didn’t really know what to expect. I listened to a couple songs from the soundtrack before I actually watched it, but I wasn’t really caught. While it was very upbeat and campy, the music didn’t allude to the plot for me. So, I shoved it aside. A bit later, I stumbled upon it again through Christian Borle, who was in a proshot of Legally Blonde: The Musical. I finally decided to watch it and was pleasantly surprised. It was not at all what I expected, with the campy music working as a crutch for an emotional storyline and the characters being incredibly interesting and well fleshed out.
Falsettos basically tells a story of a dysfunctional Jewish family living through the early AIDS crisis. It weaves in and out of their hardships and how they work together as an atypical family. At its center is Marvin, a gay man whose family is falling apart around him. He cheated on his wife with a man named Whizzer, and is trying to make up for it by involving him in his family. Marvin works as a catalyst for many other plot points in the story, and ends up making things worse for everyone. There are a lot of different storylines for specific characters happening simultaneously, but the cool thing is how they all
intertwine with one another.
What really stood out to me was the use of minimal set pieces to tell an effective story. The entire set was made up of blocks that could be made into almost anything, and the cast moved everything around. What I found interesting was the way these blocks elevated the campiness of the music and the air of childishness that juxtaposed tough themes. What’s also interesting is that the set didn’t stay as blocks the whole show: it gradually started getting more and more realistic until the end. The music also reflected this, such as when towards the end of act two, Whizzer gets diagnosed with AIDS. The music lost a lot of its campy qualities over time and became more somber.
Overall, I give Falsettos five out of five stars.
WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
2023-24
JOLIENE ADAMS is a born-and-raised Portland writer, educator, and devoted multilingual advocate. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Oregon Humanities, Adventure.com, Fodor’s, and Willamette Week, amongst other publications. Find her educating in the WITS program for Literary Arts, teaching writing to international students at Portland State University come summertime, co-coordinating the Northwest Indian Language Institute’s Summer Institute in support of indigenous language revitalization, freelancing, and wrapping up her children’s book. Over twenty years, she has taught film, writing, literature, and various languages in the USA as well as Bolivia, Cuba, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island).
She leads an awe-based lifestyle that trickles into her writing and pedagogy and believes we all thrive best when deeply connected to place. She holds an MA in Comparative Literature, an MA in Linguistics with a Language Teaching Specialty, and is a 2023-2024 Atheneum Master Writing Program Fellow in the non-fiction track at The Attic in Portland. You can see her most recent work at jolienecarolinaportfolio.com or find her on Instagram as Joliene Carolina.
BRIAN BENSON is the author of Going Somewhere, and co-author, with Richard Brown, of This is Not for You. Originally from the hinterlands of Wisconsin, Brian now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he teaches at the Attic Institute and facilitates free Write Around Portland workshops. His essays have been published or are forthcoming in Hunger Mountain, Sweet, Oregon Humanities, Hippocampus, and Blood Tree Literature, among other publications. He is at work on his third book.
ERICA BERRY is a writer and teacher based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Outside, Catapult, and The Yale Review, among other publications. Winner of the Steinberg Essay Prize and the Kurt Brown Prize in Nonfiction, she is a former Writer-in-Residence at the National Writers Series in Traverse City, Michigan, and has taught with Oxford Academia, the Attic Institute, The New York Times Student Journeys, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Her first book, Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear, was published by Flatiron/Macmillan in February 2023.
MONIKA CASSEL’S poems and her translations from German have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI, Poetry, The Georgia Review, Guesthouse, The Adroit Journal, and Poetry Northwest, among others. Her chapbook Grammar of Passage (flipped eye publishing 2021) won the Venture Poetry Award and she was a finalist for the Black Lawrence Press inaugural Rhine Translation Prize. She was a founding faculty member at New Mexico School for the Arts, where she developed the school’s creative writing program, and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Warren Wilson College.
ALAN SAINT CLARK is a Comic Book Artist, Writer, Futurist, Educator, and the founder of Phantom Electrik Comics. Alan writes and draws comic books that explore structural power dynamics within the United States and globally. In his science fiction graphic novels, he uses his vantage point as a person of Indigenous and Black heritage to envision a complex future.
BRENNAN DEFRISCO is a poet, teaching artist, editor, voice actor, and arts coordinator from the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s been a National Poetry Slam finalist, a Pushcart Prize nominee, Grand Slam Champion of the Oakland Poetry Slam, and program coordinator for California Poets in the Schools, Poetry Out Loud, the Redwood Poetry Festival, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. He’s the author of A Heart with No Scars, published by Nomadic Press and Black Lawrence Press, Honeysuckle & Nightshade, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, and has served as poetry editor on the mastheads of Lunch Ticket and the 2022 California Poets in the Schools State Anthology. Brennan facilitates creative writing and performance workshops, serving K-12 classrooms, incarcerated youth, adults, seniors, and various arts education programs. His work has been published in Red Wheelbarrow, Oracle Fine Arts Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Gemini, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.
CAITLIN DELOHERY is a writer and artist. Their work has been published in the anthology Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings on the Me Too Movement (McSweeney’s, 2019), and they have also been featured in Buckmxn Journal, Weird Sister, Lumina, Storyscape, and other journals. They’re a twotime MacDowell Fellow (’09, ’19).
ED EDMO is a Shoshone-Bannock poet, playwright, performer, traditional storyteller, tour guide, and lecturer on Northwest tribal culture. In 2022, Ed performed with the Portland Chamber Orchestra for the production of Celilo Falls: We Were There. Ed offers guided tours to the She Who Watches petroglyphs on the Columbia Gorge, as well as to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon’s high desert country. He conducts workshops, traditional storytelling performances, dramatic monologues and lectures on issues such as cultural understanding and awareness, drug and alcohol abuse, and mental health. Ed is a published short-story writer, poet, and playwright, and serves as a consultant to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.
ZOË GAMELL BROWN is a queer Boviander Guyanese American integrative artist, educator, and storyteller based in Kalapuya Ilihi. Their work explores multiplicity within Guyanese relationality, extending from and beyond South American shores to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf Coast through ceramics, culinary catharsis, creative nonfiction, experimental video, restorative cartography, and photopoetry.
Brown is a doctoral student in the University of Oregon Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies’ inaugural cohort and a New Media Culture Certificate recipient. They are a teaching apprentice with Literary Art’s Writers in the Schools, a Seeding Justice Lila Jewel Award winner, and a Charles A. Reed Graduate Fellow through the UO College of Arts and Sciences. She founded Fernland Studios in 2020 to reimagine environmentalism through artist residencies, educational retreats, and writing workshops for and with communities of color: fernlandstudios.org
They received a Digital Evolution/Artist Retention Fellowship through the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute and a Louise Westling Distinguished Environmental Justice Fellowship through the UO Pacific Northwest Racial and Climate Justice Futures Institute and the Holden Center for Leadership in 2022. Brown was a part of the inaugural Women Innovation Network cohort and a member of the National Education for Women’s Leadership of Oregon through PSU in 2021. Learn more about their work: zoegamell.com
JUDY JIANG is a writer and artist from Oregon. She was raised in a home with her parents, grandfather, and three siblings. She enjoys playing and working across multiple forms including playwriting and filmmaking. Her current work is focused on family, daughterhood, and loss. She is a 2023 Periplus Finalist, and her writing can be found in Oregon Humanities and Neon Door.
ROBIN LANEHURST grew up in St. Louis, spent a decade in Texas as a public-school teacher and counselor, and currently lives in North Portland with their wife and toddler. Her writing has been published in Psychology Today, PDX Parent, Motherwell, and Rooted in Rights, and she has collaborated on curriculum projects with non-profit clients like the One Love Foundation and Wellness Together. Robin was a finalist for the 2023 Summer Fishtrap Fellowship and long listed for the 2021 Pen Parentis Writing Fellowship for new parents, and they are also an alumna of The Attic Institute’s Creative Nonfiction Studio. She enjoys writing at the intersection of parenthood, queerness, neurodivergence, and life in late-stage capitalism, and is committed to cultivating anti-racist practices in her personal and professional life.
MEAGHAN LORAAS is a queer writer based in Portland, OR. They hold a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Texas State University, and their work has appeared in publications such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New South Online, and others. When they’re not working on their novel, teaching, or reading, they work as a content manager for several websites.
AMY MINATO is author of a memoir Siesta Lane, (Skyhorse Press, 2009) and two poetry collections: Hermit Thrush, (Inkwater Press, 2016) and The Wider Lens, (Ice River Press, 2004). Amy has been a recipient of both a Literary Arts Fellowship for her poetry and a Walden Residency for her prose. She teaches writing through Literary Arts, Multnomah Art Center, Fishtrap, and at Breitenbush Retreat Center. Amy holds both an MFA in Creative Writing and an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon. She teaches sustainable living education at Portland State University and lives with her husband and two children in Portland, Oregon. In summers they migrate to their old haunts in the Wallowa Mountains of Eastern Oregon to skip rocks on the lake, float innertubes down the creek behind their house and sleep beneath skies crazy with stars.
NICKY NICHOLSON-KLINGERMAN’S stories appeared in Black Girl Magic Magazine, Sixfold Magazine, and Buckmxn Journal. Her play, Girl in the Leather, debuted at the Fertile Ground Festival. She featured as a poet at Literary Arts’ Portland Book Festival. Nicky’s work focuses on life as a queer, Black artist navigating unjust systems.
SHILO NIZIOLEK has written Fever (2022), A Thousand Winters in Me (2022), I Am Not an Erosion: Poems Against Decay (2022), Dirt Eaters (2023) and Atrophy (2023). Her work has
appeared or is forthcoming in Juked, Honey Literary, West Trade Review, Entropy, Pork Belly Press, and Phoebe Journal, among others. Shilo is a writing instructor at Clackamas Community College and is the editor and co-founder of the literary magazine, Scavengers. She is a queer disabled writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner and their pit bull. Find her on Instagram @shiloniziolek.
JENNIFER (JP) PERRINE is the author of four books of poetry: Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. JP’s current writing projects include Beautiful Outlaw, a book of poetry composed through elaborate constraints; In the Interest of Time, a collection of short science fiction; Missing/Wanted, a speculative memoir -in-essays; and Nature Is All of Us, a play based on stories of Black, Indigenous, Asian American, and Latine Oregonians’ experiences with nature and wilderness. Their recent work has been recognized through the Arts and Culture Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Asian American Journalists Association, an Oregon Humanities Community Storytelling Fellowship, a Make | Learn | Build grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, and residencies at Caldera Arts Center and the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Perrine co-hosts Portland’s Incite: Queer Writers Read series, teaches writing to youth and adults, and guides nature-based mindfulness experiences.
BRUCE POINSETTE is a writer and community organizer whose work is primarily based in the Portland Metro Area. He hosts the YouTube series “The Blacktastic Adventure: A Virtual Exploration of Oregon’s Black Diaspora” and “The Bruce
Poinsette Show” on The Numberz FM. A former reporter for the Skanner News Group, his writing has also appeared in the Oregonian, Street Roots, Oregon Humanities, and Eater PDX, as well as projects such as the Mercatus Collective and the Urban League of Portland’s State of Black Oregon 2015. In addition to his professional writing work, Poinsette also volunteers with Respond to Racism LO, a grassroots anti-racism organization in his hometown of Lake Oswego, Oregon.
MARK POMEROY lives with his family in Northeast Portland, where he was born and raised. Oregon State University Press published his first novel, The Brightwood Stillness, which The Oregonian called “absorbing and humane.” He has received an Oregon Literary Fellowship for fiction and holds an MA in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, where he was a Fellow in Teaching. In 2024, University of Iowa Press will publish his second novel, The Tigers of Lents.
EMILLY PRADO is an award-winning author and journalist, educator, and DJ living in Portland, Oregon. Her debut essay collection, Funeral for Flaca, was a winner of a 2022 Pacific Northwest Book Award and a 2021 bronze winner of the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in Essays, amongst other honors. Her multimedia journalism and essays have appeared in 30+ publications including NPR, Marie Claire, and Eater. She has earned fellowships in nonfiction from the 2023 Sewanee Writers Conference, journalism from the 2018 Emerging Journalists, Community Stories fellowship (awarded in partnership with Oregon Humanities, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Pulitzer Prizes), and a Blackburn Fellowship from Randolph College where she received her MFA. Emilly has worked with students of all ages in settings
such as public high schools, universities, MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility, and literary organizations including Tin House, Lighthouse, Corporeal Writing, Literary Arts, and the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She teaches creative writing at the Pacific Northwest College of Arts’ MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Critical. When not writing, teaching, or organizing, Emilly moonlights as DJ Mami Miami with Noche Libre, the Latiné DJ collective she co-founded in 2017. Learn more at emillyprado.com or on social media @emillygprado.
MEG READY (she/they) is a poet, teaching artist, and author of Hallucinating a Homestead, which won the 2020 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize. They live in Portland on Grand Ronde land where they tend to their garden and five animals. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Black Warrior Review, pioneertown, and many others.
DEY RIVERS is a non-binary Black american navigating mental health challenges, writing, painting, playing in fictional worlds, and poetry through collective dreaming. Their work is in conversation with the past and present to imagine futures where they live on stolen land. Dey has an educational background in Fine Arts and mental health advocacy. They are currently revising a queer historical novel. Recent shorter works can be read at: Khôra Issue 22, 23, 24, and 25.
JEN SHIN is a Korean American writer and mental health advocate with more than a decade in recovery from alcoholism and bulimia. She is currently at work on Disappearing Acts, a coming-of-age addiction memoir which examines how we return to our true selves after reality and illusion become one. She is a 2023 Periplus Fellow and has received support from
Anaphora Arts, Fishtrap, Stove Works, and Regional Arts & Culture Council. In 2021, she published Have You Received Previous Psychotherapy or Counseling? through zines + things, and her essays can be found in The Rumpus, Memoir Magazine, Oregon Humanities, and elsewhere. When she’s not writing (which is often), Jen is cuddling her two dogs Yoshi and Tito, baking dairy-free milk bread, or leading camping trips through Wild Diversity.
PAIGE THOMAS (she/her/hers) is a writer, visual artist, and arts educator in Portland, OR. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Oregon State University and was the recipient of the Provost’s Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. She has been awarded the Hogue Family Centennial Literary Scholarship, the Leishman Reid English Award, and residencies through Spring Creek Project and Hypatia-in-the-Woods for her writing. Her work appears in New Delta Review, Diode, Columbia Journal, Playground Gallery’s Little Things, Big Thoughts Exhibition, and elsewhere. Currently, she is a teaching fellow at The Attic Institute for Arts & Letters. Find her online at www.paigethomaswriting.com.
CJ WIGGAN is a shy Jamaican-American writer and illustrator who creates quiet stories about nature, emotions, relationships, dreams, and hair. CJ’s work is inspired by fairytales, cultural folklore, fashion, and Gothic novels, and they specialize in writing character -based magical realism and prose poetry. CJ has been featured in four literary journals and anthologies—most recently Portland’s Buckman Journal—and they are recently curating a portfolio of their illustrations @ chaantheart on Tumblr.
HANNAH WITHERS is a fiction writer living in Portland, OR with her dog and husband. She received her MFA in fiction from the University of Montana, and her writing has been published in The Kenyon Review, Santa Clara Review, Barely South Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, NPR, The Believer Logger, and The Daily Dot. She was the recipient of the 2019 Gulf Coast Fiction Prize and has been a fellow at Idyllwild Writers’ Week (2016), a Tin House Summer Workshop Scholar (2017), and a Tin House Summer Workshop participant (2022), as well as a 2019 Sou’Wester Arts Writer in Residence.
