The Pleasure of Her Company
by Jan Paeth

When Jane Kirkpatrick discusses her topic, Enduring Stories, May 6th, we will enjoy her high level of accomplishment. This woman of a gentle nature has been heralded as creating her own literary genre.

Publishers Weekly has praised her work with words like "rich and engaging." Kirkpatrick's fifteen novels and two non-fiction works are based on real people, primarily women, and what she's discovered as she researched them. The process revealed five recurring qualities, which she will share with us along with a bibliography/reference handout.

Kirkpatrick speaks internationally about the power of stories in our lives, inspiring writers and others to pursue their dreams. A recent example was a Beachside Writer's Workshop in Yachats with her first writing instructor, also a multi-award winner, Bob Welch. She has consistently drawn from the rich heritage of our ancestors and the Native American culture with a deep love of the land and an abiding faith in God.

Wisconsin born and bred on the family dairy farm, Jane moved to Oregon in 1974 after completing her master's degree in social work. Working in the disabilities field, she became the director of the mental health program in Deschutes County.

She began her writing career once she "retired" as she and husband, Jerry, have carved out a "new life" homesteading on the John Day River land known locally as "Starvation Point." Her book, Homestead, provides a vivid picture of their struggles and triumphs.

A Sweetness to the Soul, her first book, won the prestigious Western Heritage Wrangler Award in 1995. In 2005, Willamette Writers awarded Kirkpatrick our Distinguished Northwest Writer. The Cultural Heritage Commission named this book one of Oregon's 100 Best Books published in the past 200 years. This began her Dream Catcher Series of four books.

Her second series of three books, Kinship and Courage, was inspired by an old diary entry of Ezra Meeker written in 1852. It involves "turnaround women."

The three book series, Tender Ties, draws us into the life and times of Marie Dorion, wife, mother, widow, who is strong and tested. This series is based on the real life of this Ioway Indian woman who crossed the Rockies shortly after Lewis and Clark. A Land of Sheltered Promise is truly an Oregon story where Eastern Oregon geography and history intersect.

Jane Kirkpatrick has continued to grow as a writer, speaker, teacher and mental health professional. Her essays, articles and humor continue to win numerous awards.

She continues to take us on exquisite, tender, joyful, tragic and humorous journeys. Join us as we help launch her fifteenth novel, A Mending at the Edge, the third book in her Change and Cherish Series.

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In celebration of Poetry Month, Judith Massee will join us April 1 for an hour of inspiration and motivation. Whether you write poetry, a novel, memoir or are journaling, Massee will share the fundamentals of poetry that will enliven your prose. As part of her presentation, she will provide a bibliography hand out for us.

We will explore the technique of form and the discipline of writing. We will examine the musicality, movement, texture and shape of poetry.

When discussing her background, which led her to write her exceptional poetry, Massee said poetry is "dancing on a page." This struck me as quite profound when applied to all written endeavors. The dance experience she brings to this motivation is self-explanatory. Massee began with ballet before and during her high school years including being part of a Modern Dance master class under Charles Weidman. During her college years while earning a B.S. in Theatre from Portland State, she choreographed and danced.

In addition, her sophomore and junior years, she earned a scholarship to study dance at the University of Colorado from Pearl Lang who was then Martha Graham's assistant. The approach was "Technique, Discipline, Freedom." As Massee demonstrates, this applies to the art of the written word as much as it does to the other art forms.

After college, Massee worked a year and a half after before going to New York, to study dance at The Martha Graham School. Graham's very disciplined approach to dance has remained a part of Massee's work, be it dance or poetry.

After an injury, Massee developed her singing talent, moved from ballet and modern dance to jazz, becoming a part of the New York theatre scene with its "gypsies" appearing on stage in a number of musicals, including Sound of Music, How to Succeed in Business and The Fantastic's. After nine years working professionally in the theatre, Massee returned to Portland to become Director of the Dance Department at Reed College, where she worked for twenty-eight years.

Poetry and dance have remained an integral part of Massee's life. She quotes from John Wain that "poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking."

She has won numerous poetry prizes among them three 1st, a 2nd and an honorable mention from the Oregon State Poetry Association. Massee has been published in the anthology Blooming in the Shade: Five Oregon Poets, The Oregon Coast Almanac, the Reed College Exile, the Oregon Writers Colony anthology, In Our Own Voices and Quartet, Four Poetic Voices. Massee was Poetry Editor for Writers Northwest Quarterly and frequently writes a poetry column for Oregon Writers Colony Colonygram. She has been a Poetry Judge for Pacific Northwest Writers Association and the Oregon branch of National Pen Women.

Don't miss the opportunity to share knowledge and explore her approach to writing. This lady of grace in all she has created is too special to miss.

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A Writer By Profession

Our speaker for March is a first-time-published-book author-not a first published writer, far from it. As is the case (with rare exception) first-timers have been working at this craft for quite some time. Brian Libby is no exception to that rule.

He is an example of taking a passion, in his case a number of his other interests as well, and making enough income to depend on writing for his livelihood.

Libby is by classification a freelance journalist. Portland based, he has carved a career allowing him the freedom of working for himself and the chance to write about a variety of different topics.

Tales From the Oregon Ducks Sidelines, his first book which came out in August of 2007, is near and dear to his heart. He grew up attending U of O football games from age eight on. As he explores freelance opportunities and how to access them, he will no doubt share the depth of his devotion to the Ducks. Libby was freelance writing by 1998. It became full-time about 2001 when he tried to pitch some stories to the New York Times. He was told that the best way to get a story considered was to assist them on news stories out of Portland.

Between 2001 and 2006, he reported on a host of Oregon based national news stories: the army helicopter crash on Mt. Hood, Christian Longo's murder of his family and the manhunt for him, the DC sniper's roots in Tacoma, and even a murder-suicide in his hometown of McMinnville. His first New York Times story was "A Terrorism Comment In Oregon Prompts a Comedy of Errors."

His writing has also appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, The Oregonian, and magazines including Premiere, Metropolitan Home, Dwell, Architectural Record and Salon. He's been a news stinger for People magazine and Bloomberg News.

For the last two years much of his writing for the Oregonian has been reviewing visual arts. Many know him as an architecture writer with not only an active blog site but also a website called Portland Architecture that attracts an average of 500 to a 1000 hits a day. Through this, Libby has been able to attract sponsors accounting for 25% of his income.

Libby's two biggest passions beyond the Ducks are photography and film making. His first writing was film reviews for the now-defunct Portland weekly Our Town. He was a Willamette Week movie reviewer for seven years. Libby comments that some of his most rewarding contacts came when he profiled David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, Michael Palin and Sofia Coppola.

Though film and photography are mostly hobbies, he had a gallery show of his photos in 2003 and over the last year his films have shown at a few film festivals, including the Portland International Film Festival in 2007. He had a solo-show of his films at the Portland Art Museum in June of 2007.

Libby is an Oregonian born in Eugene and reared from 4-18 in McMinnville. A sidebar is his father's small but popular restaurant, The Sage, that's been there for 31 years. Sight unseen, he enrolled in New York University for his college work. He declared "culture shock" doesn't quite cover it, however in retrospect values the experiences there.

He returned to his roots with girlfriend, Valerie, in 1997. Both are writers with Valerie working for Adidas in their internal communications division while writing fiction.

If you go to Libby's website, http://chatterbox.typepad.com, not only will you find the sidebar of some articles in print, but be sure to scan Interests. They are vast and varied. It is obvious that Brian Libby will never run short of things to write about.