Free Public Reading April 7: Jackie Shannon-Hollis, Peter Sears, Brian Christopher and Elizabeth Enslin April 7, 2010

Oregon Literary Review co-hosts First Wednesdays, a series of readings, performances and wine-tasting at the Blackbird Wine Shop, 4323 NE Fremont, 7-9pm. This show is 21 and over. Contact Julie Mae Madsen at [email protected] for more information.

The readers for April 7 are Jackie Shannon-Hollis, Peter Sears, Brian Christopher and Elizabeth Enslin

Peter Sears is the author of The Brink (winner of the 2000 Western States Poetry Prize and 1999 Peregrine Smith Poetry Competition), Tour: New & Selected Poems (1987), and Luge (2008). He received his M.F.A. from the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has taught at Reed College, the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College, and currently teaches in the M.F.A. program at Pacific University. His work has been published in many magazines and literary journals, widely anthologized and included in the radio series The Writer's Almanac. He founded the Oregon Literary Coalition and co-founded non-profit organization Friends of William Stafford. His most recent full-length book is Green Diver (2009).

Brian Christopher teaches at Marylhurst University and the Northwest Academy in Portland, Oregon. His debut collection of stories is So Many Things That Want To Burn (2009, Helicon West) and he has three published collections of poems: Skin, Angels In Exile, and The Detective Poems. His stories, poems and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including Santa Barbara Review, Quarterly West, Global City Review, Exquisite Corpse, Lilliput Review, two girls review, Portland Review, Northwest Edge, The Oregonian, Lynx Eye, and First Intensity.

Jackie Shannon Hollis’s writing has been described as natural and graceful, with an unassuming approach to character. She studied writing for three years with Pinewood Table Writing teachers, Joanna Rose and Stevan Allred. Her fiction and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including: The Sun, The Rambler, Rosebud, South Dakota Review, Inkwell, Flashquake, High Desert Journal, and Oregon Literary Review. Her work has been recognized for several awards. You can learn more about her at www.jackieshannonhollis.com.

Elizabeth Enslin received a 2009 Individual Artist Fellowship award from the Oregon Arts Commission. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Gettysburg Review, Crab Orchard Review, Opium Magazine, Oregon Literary Review, Fringe Magazine, High Desert Journal, Raven Chronicles, The Truth About the Fact, and The Smoking Poet. She earned a Ph.D in Cultural Anthropology from Stanford University in 1990, has taught at The Evergreen State College and the Portland Waldorf High School and now serves as an occasional graduate advisor in Prescott College's Master of Arts Program. She is currently finishing Sacred Threads, an ethnographic memoir on her experiences as anthropologist and mother in Nepal, and divides her time between a house in Portland and a yurt in northeastern Oregon. Learn more at: www.elizabethenslin.com

Up next: The readers for May 5 are Rebecca Harrison, Jean Johnson, Amy Temple Harper, Jillian Starr.
Up Next for June 2nd: Matt Love, Cheryl Strayed and Brian Free.