First Wednesday

Oregon Literary Review co-hosts First Wednesdays, a series of readings, performances and wine-tasting at the Blackbird Wine Shop, 3519 NE 44th off Fremont, 7-9pm. Readers and performers interested in participating should contact Julie Mae Madsen at maemadsen@gmail.com with an expression of interest and sample work.

The readers/performers for May 6 are Sean Hill, Claire Rudy Foster, Paul Martone, and Charles Deemer

Sean Patrick Hill is a writer and teacher living in Portland, Oregon. He earned his MA in Writing from Portland State University, where he won the Burnam Graduate Award. He received a grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council and residencies from Montana Artists Refuge, Fishtrap, and the Oregon State University Trillium Project. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, elimae, diode, In Posse Review, Willow Springs, RealPoetik, New York Quarterly, and Quarter After Eight. He freelance writes for the Oregonian, Rain Taxi, and Fringe Magazine. His blog is theimaginedfield.blogspot.com.

Claire Rudy Foster was born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line. She came to Portland in 2001 to earn her BA from Reed College, and will begin in the MFA program at Pacific University this summer. Her stories have appeared in the Ink-Filled Page, The Benefactor, and other publications. She is at currently at work on her second novel. Claire lives with her husband and son in Southwest, within sight of a cemetery, the highway, and a red-tail hawk's nest.

Paul Martone holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon and a Master of Arts degree from the State University of New York at Albany. His short fiction appears in recent issues of the Saranac Review, the Stickman Review, and Fiddlehead. A core faculty member at The Northwest Academy, a progressive arts school in downtown Portland, Martone is currently at work on his first novel, The Last to Leave, and a graphic novel, Sacred Ink.

Charles Deemer is the editor of Oregon Literary Review. His book SEVEN PLAYS was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. He teaches screenwriting at Portland State University.

Yep, I'm giving a rare reading.