Free Public Readings July 7 with Pat Cason, Jan Priddy, Nicholas Karavatos, and Susan DeFreitas July 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] or http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Wednesday-Readings for more information. http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Wednesday-Readings

The readers for July 7 are Pat Cason, Jan Priddy, Nicholas Karavatos, and Susan DeFreitas

Born in Corvallis, Oregon and raised in Seattle, Jan Priddy completed two Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in the visual arts at the University of Washington, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Her metal work and ceramic sculpture was shown in galleries and museums throughout the west. And then there were children. Most recently her writing has earned an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship, Arts & Letters fellowship, Soapstone residency, Pushcart nomination, and publication in CALYX, Raven Chronicles, StringTown, Pacific Magazine, and North American Review. After completing the Pacific University MFA program in fiction, she continues teaching high school English and college classes on the north Oregon coast.

Pat Cason is a native Oregonian who works in the mental health field and believes that art, science and faith are how we probe the cosmos to discover What Is. Her poems have appeared in a motley collection of publications here and abroad. She aspires to write poems irresistible to people who think they hate poetry.

Susan DeFreitas is a writer whose work encompasses multiple genres and mediums. Her nonfiction has been published in Yes! Magazine, Natural Home, E, the Environmental Magazine and The Utne Reader; her poetry has appeared in The Bear Deluxe, Third Wednesday and Southwestern American Literature; her website of hypertext poetry and fiction, www.HypertextMeditations.com, will be online in June, 2010. She is a recent transplant from Northern Arizona, where she served as an associate editor and monthly columnist for The Noise. Currently, she blogs on green technology for www.EarthTechling.com, serves as a freelance editor with Indigo Editing, and is enrolled in the MFA in Writing program at Pacific University.

Nicholas Karavatos lives near Dubai, teaching literature and writing at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates where he’s been an Assistant Professor since 2006. He taught general studies at a small private college in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman from 2001 to 2006. He is a graduate of New College of California where he earned an M.F.A. in Poetics, and Humboldt State University where he earned his B.A. in English with a minor in Art History.
Nicholas Karavatos is included in the anthology Punk Rock Saved My Ass (Ukiah: Medusa’s Muse, 2010) and the latest issue of West Wind Review (University of Southern Oregon, 2010). In December 2009, Amendment Nine published his first book titled No Asylum.
David Meltzer writes on the back cover: “Nicholas Karavatos is a poet of great range and clarity. This book is an amazing collection of smart sharp political poetry in tandem with astute and tender love lyrics. All of it voiced with an impressive singularity.” http://www.nicholaskaravatos.blogspot.com/