Irene Cooper
“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.”
—Virginia Woolf “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” —Annie Dillard “The answer to life is ‘Yes.’” —Ann Richards Beginning a work with a single quote is a well-supported go-to for writers; three is ridiculous. So are semi-colons. But I’ll refer you to Quote #1. And this is not a work: this is THE WORK. If you are joining us at the table, you have tacitly or otherwise self-identified as a writer. So enough of this, “I don’t really write, I’m not really a writer,” business. Because I am a writer. I write. I am interested in getting better at it, and I believe one of the ways to do that is to practice it in the company of other writers. Let’s do this. To Whom It May Concern: Credentials: MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry, Oregon State University Street Cred: Publications in The Feminist Wire, Indolent Books Projects Poems in the Aftermath & What Rough Beast, phoebe, Denver Quarterly, Manifest-Station, others. Author: COMMITTAL, a poet-friendly speculative spy-fy novel about family from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press; spare change: poems, from Finishing Line Press Professional Writing: Co-Founder of Frank, a Creative Agency, with the magnificent Laura Winberry & B Von Hoene. Co-editor of The Stay Project. Copywriter at large. Teaching: Writing workshop co-facilitator, Blank Pages Workshops, with the handsome and talented Michael Cooper; workshop facilitator for special programs at Deschutes Library, MUSE, COCC Continuing Education. "The classes that I have taken in poetry and writing from COCC have been better and more helpful than the extension courses I have taken at UCLA." ~Happy Writer Hear Irene read from her novel Committal (starts at 14:15) www.frankmouth.com www.thestayproject.us irenecooperwrites.com |
Mike Cooper“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.” ~Ray Bradbury “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” ~Frank Herbert “The mind that perceives the limitation is the limitation.” ~Buddha “With enough butter, anything is good.” ~Julia Child People want to hear stories and poems. They want their emotions jangled and their minds bent, their perception of existence questioned, their reality suspended, their world taken apart and put back together again. And for that, they need you to write. Mike is a graduate of the OSU MFA Writing Program. He writes short and long fiction, and teaches writing at COCC and and OSU Cascades and Creative Writing Workshops in Central Oregon with his beautiful and gifted wife. A couple of Mike's Classes: Link to The Hero's Journey Link to Beginnings, Middles, and Endings |