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A Cascadia Magazine Interview: Portland author Leni Zumas
The launch of Cascadia Magazine continues with an interview with Portland author Leni Zumas, whose new novel Red Clocks is getting a lot of buzz this publishing season. The book is told in a variety of female voices in different historical eras, but centers on a dystopian future where abortion is illegal and witches are persecuted. In this original interview with Sarah Marshall, Zumas talks about writing in the Trump era, #MeToo, why witches are feared, and Arctic exploration.
It’s worth a read!
Seattle Review of Books profiles Cascadia Magazine
Paul Constant, one of creators and editors of The Seattle Review of Books, was kind enough to interview me about why I’m creating an online magazine for journalism and quality writing from and about the Pacific Northwest. Among other things, he found me admitting to being optimistic about the future of publishing in the Northwest, and even got me to confess how I missed getting a job at Amazon when it only had a dozen employees…
Oh, and one more thing…
If you enjoy these original articles at Cascadia Magazine, or this newsletter, please send a little financial appreciation our way…
Oregon voters overwhelmingly pass health measure
Yesterday, Oregon voters passed a measure guaranteeing funding for the state’s Medicaid program by a 60 percent margin, OPB reports. If it had failed, nearly 350,000 people could have lost insurance. Now the OR legislature turns its attention to an ambitious climate bill, affordable housing, and tenant protections.
Seattle and Portland debate adding more housing
The fight over housing continues in Cascadia’s cities. Willamette Week reports on a brewing battle between wealthy condo owners and housing advocates hoping to increase height limits on apartment towers. Meanwhile, in Seattle, battle lines are forming over Talaris, a project to add 63 new homes in a city where land is at premium. And Erica C. Barnett at the South Seattle Emerald wonders how effectively a proposed limit on rent increases in Seattle will be enforced.
Tsunami warning sparks concern if Cascadia is ready
CBC reports on the recent earthquake in the North Pacific that prompted a late-night tsunami warning across the coast of Cascadia. Though phone alerts went out and sirens sounded, many slept through the warning in Victoria and on Vancouver Island.
Seattle researcher calls out misogyny in the sciences
Sarah Myhre, a paleoceanographer at the University of Washington, writes for Newsweek on how the #MeToo movement exposing sexual assault and harassment needs to make itself heard in the scientific community. “There is a direct line between the sexualization and abuse of young women and the entrenched narcissism and misogyny of scientific institutions.”
Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin
After the death of adored Portland fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin, the tributes and remembrances have started pouring on to the interwebs. At Literary Hub, John Freeman remembers a long conversation with Le Guin: “Its funny how there’s a kind of freedom in being shut out,” she tells him. “You are outside the gates, okay, well then, you do what you plenty well want to do.” The New Yorker ran a survey of Le Guin’s life and career in 2016, and if you’re looking her work available online, there’s a comprehensive list here. (many broken links, however)
Creating a simpler life by saving a creek
Washington state writer Scott Freeman, author of Saving Tarboo Creek, ponders what we can do to reclaim a simpler life– in an original essay at Powell’s Books. By describing how he helped restore a salmon stream on the Olympic peninsula, Freeman writes, “I wish to push the world in the direction of conserving resources, of treating land with the respect that good people accord each other.”
That’s all for now. Have a lovely, damp day in Cascadia. –Andrew Engelson
Photo credits: Leni Zumas courtesy of the author