Gold Beach, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College will host Authors’ Night as part of the South Coast Writers Conference. Join the Gold Beach community for this exciting and uplifting evening. Jamie Duclos-Yourdon will give the keynote address, “Defining Success; or, How Not to Beat Yourself Up.”

Following his talk there will be readings by the other conference workshop presenters, as well as a chance for book sales and signing. A freelance editor and technical expert, Duclos-Yourdon received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His short fiction has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Underneath the Juniper Tree, and Chicago Literati, and he has contributed essays and interviews to Booktrib. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Froelich’s Ladder (Forest Avenue, 2016) is his debut novel.

Authors’ Night is scheduled from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Friday, February 17, 2017 at the Curry Showcase Building on the Curry County Fairground. The event is free and open to the public. Space is still available for the conference workshops. For those interested in songwriting, there will be a workshop, “The Art of Song Craft” taught by Rita Hosking. Rita will be performing at the Pistol River Concert on Saturday evening. The fee for the songwriting workshop for those not registered for the conference is $20.00. Read more about Authors’ Night in Gold Beach featuring Keynote Speaker Jamie Duclos-Yourdon

CONTACT: Karim Shumaker   
PHONE: 541-247-2741  
E-MAIL: kshumaker@socc.edu

PORT ORFORD, OR
 
Oregonians love the wild beauty of our 363 miles of coastline, but finding truly local seafood can be hard, even on the coast. The US imports approximately 90 percent of its seafood and ships out nearly as much to the global market. Why aren’t we eating more local seafood, now that preserving and distribution technologies are the most sophisticated they have ever been? Why do we consider seafood more a delicacy now than it has been in the past?

This is the focus of “Fish Tales: Traditions and Challenges of Seafood in Oregon,” a free conversation with Jennifer Burns Bright on Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 6:00 PM at the OSU Port Orford Field Station, 444 Jackson St. This program is hosted by Southwestern Oregon Community College in partnership with OSU Port Orford Field Station and sponsored by Oregon Humanities.

Bright is a food and travel writer based in Port Orford, Oregon. She recently retired from teaching at the University of Oregon, where she researched desire in twentieth-century literature, led a faculty research group in the emerging discipline of food studies, and won a national pedagogy award for a team-taught, interdisciplinary class on bread. She holds a PhD from the University of California at Irvine and a Master Food Preserver certification. As a community organizer linking local producers and consumers, Bright often speaks and teaches at events. Her writing appears in Gastronomica, Oregon Quarterly, NPR’s The Salt, AAA’s Via, and Eugene Magazine, among others.

Through the Conversation Project, Oregon Humanities offers free programs that engage community members in thoughtful, challenging conversations about ideas critical to our daily lives and our state's future. For more information about this free community discussion, please contact Karim Shumaker at 541-247-2741 or kshumaker@socc.edu.

Oregon Humanities (921 SW Washington, Suite 150; Portland, OR 97205) connects Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities. More information about Oregon Humanities’ programs and publications, which include the Conversation Project, Think & Drink, Humanity in Perspective, Idea Lab, Public Program Grants, and Oregon Humanities magazine, can be found at oregonhumanities.org. Oregon Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a partner of the Oregon Cultural Trust.