PNCA's Low-Residency Creative Writing welcomes Portland writers Allison Cobb and Jacqueline Keeler
March 25, 2021
In their new books, Jacqueline Keeler (Diné/Ihanktonwan Dakota) and Allison Cobb use personal narrative, historical research, and journalism to probe current conflicts and crises around racism, relations to the land, and pollution. Join them on Friday, April 30, 2021, 6:30 to 8:00 pm PST for a reading and conversation with Low-Residency MFA Creative Writing Program Director Jay Ponteri.
And it's also being live-streamed on PNCA's Youtube Channel.
In STANDOFF: Standing Rock, the Bundy Movement, and the American Story of Sacred Lands, Jacqueline Keeler examines the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s protest against an oil pipeline in North Dakota and the armed takeover of Oregon’s Malheur Wildlife Refuge as two sides of the same story that created America and its deep-rooted cultural conflicts.
In Plastic: An Autobiography, Allison Cobbʻs obsession with a large plastic car part leads her to explore the violence of our consume-and-dispose culture, including her own life as a child of Los Alamos, where the first atomic bombs were made. The journey exposes the interconnections among plastic waste, climate change, nuclear technologies, and racism.
Jacqueline Keeler is a Diné/Ihanktonwan Dakota writer living in Portland, Oregon. She is editor of the anthology Edge of Morning: Native Voices Speak for the Bears Ears and has contributed to many publications including The Nation, Yes!, and Salon.
Cobb’s books include Plastic: an Autobiography, After We All Died, and Green-Wood. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and many other journals. She was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and National Poetry Series; has been a resident artist at Djerassi and Playa; and received fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.