Claudia Castro Luna on Writing Silence
Cascadia Magazine is excited to team up with Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum to offer our debut Writing Cascadia Workshop series. Our first installment happens November 17, and will feature poet Paul Nelson, writer Corinne Manning, and Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna, who will lead a class “Writing Silence:”
Warp speed, rapidly changing, and accelerated—these are three ways in which our everyday existence is described as technology finds a foothold in more and more aspects of our lives. The insistence on the fast turnaround and the quick clip can be useful, but it steers us away from the stillness we need to recalibrate ourselves. In this workshop, we’ll explore ways to infuse our writing with a measure of silence, and ways to enact that silence on the page. How do we make slowing down possible for ourselves as writers so that we may share it with our readers? We’ll explore how silence on the page serves as an antidote to the fury of the electronic age.
Claudia Castro Luna is Washington State Poet Laureate. She served as Seattle’s Civic Poet from 2015-2017 and is the author of the Pushcart-nominated collection Killing Marías, which was shortlisted for a 2018 Washington Book Award.
Sign up for this class and others online at Cascadia Magazine. Classes are $150 general admission, or $125 for members of Cascadia Magazine, with either a one-time donation of $50 or a monthly recurring donation of $5.
Hurry, these classes will fill quickly!
31 Days, 31 writers at Cascadia Magazine: Dao Strom
Dao Strom is a talented poet, musician, and visual artist based in Portland who explores the intersection of personal and collective histories. Cascadia Magazine published Dao’s multimedia piece On an Open Field, a mix of text, photographs and music that explores her reactions to Vietnamese folksinger Pham Duy’s appearance on Pete Seeger’s television program in 1966.
If you appreciate art like this that crosses boundaries of genre and culture, please make a contribution during Cascadia Magazine’s Fall Fund Drive. We can’t continue to publish quality work like this without your help. Thanks!
Seattle changes direction, returns to arresting sex workers
Crosscut reports that Seattle’s strategy of applying the “Nordic model” to prostitution (focusing arrests on johns and pimps rather than sex workers) is on hold, and arrests of women are growing. One reason for the switch: diversion programs are critically underfunded, and the article quotes criminal justice activist Lisa Daugaard (who was recently awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant for her work) saying the program needs more funding.
Vaping ban could crush Oregon cannabis industry
As concern grows about a small number of deaths of lung disease from vaping, Oregon governor Kate Brown is considering an executive order to ban vaping products, Willamette Week reports. Cannabis companies, already reeling from drops in price from oversupply, say a ban would be a disaster for the industry. In other news about companies selling mood-altering substances, Seattle coffee chain Caffe Vita is facing criticism for firing employees who gave out free coffee to homeless people, The Stranger reports.
Measures in ID to boost education, wages + legalize medical pot
Teton Post looks at three initiatives that may end up on the Idaho ballot next year: a measure to raise corporate taxes to boost education spending, an initiative that would raise the state’s minimum wage, and a third that would legalize medical marijuana. Groups such as Reclaim Idaho are riding the momentum of a recent ballot measure that increased Medicaid funding, and the defeat of GOP efforts to limit the initiative process.
WA governor wants wildlife managers to kill fewer wolves
Washington governor Jan Inslee announced today that he wants to revise wildlife managers’ policies to kill fewer wolves as ranchers in northeast WA have demanded action after a few of their cattle have been killed by wolves, the Spokeman-Review reports. This summer, an entire pack of wolves was killed by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife after one calf was attacked in the Kettle Range.
Oregon author investigates a 61-year-old mystery
Oregon ArtsWatch interviews JB Fisher, who’s written a true-crime book Echo of Distant Water, which investigates the 1958 mystery of the Martin family, which after taking a trip to mountains to look for a Christmas tree, vanished. “I would say that becoming obsessed is kind of a prerequisite for this kind of project,” says Fisher.
Poems by Thomas Brush, T. Clear & Teri Cohlene
Over at Raven Chronicles, you’ll find three poems by Seattle poets Thomas Brush & T. Clear, plus one by Olympia’s Teri Cohlene. Here’s a small sampling from Brush’s “In Hiding“:
“So many messages
To consider and try to understand give me stories
To tell, things to do.
Lord, let me do them,
In spite of the cold trail midnight sprays across the night sky,”
Read all three poems here and be sure to support Raven Chronicles by buying a copy of their latest print edition.
That’s today’s assortment of news, arts, & culture from across the Pacific Northwest. If you enjoy Cascadia Daily and Cascadia Magazine, please help us continue by becoming a supporting reader during our Fall Fund Drive. Thanks! –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: Eugene cannabis store by Rick Obst via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0