As part of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program, faculty da Carter, Sara Jaffe, and Jay Ponteri read from their latest works at 7:30 pm in the Design Corridor.

Portland, OR — June 10, 2019 – The Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is pleased to announce the launch of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing with its first residential intensive. In the low-residency model, students will attend two 14-day campus residencies then, beyond residencies, work one-on-one with mentors. Most of the programming during this residency is free and open to the public.

From July 28 through August 3, PNCA offers talks, discussions, and readings by acclaimed writers as part of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program. Every event is free and open to the public.

This innovative creative writing program is distinguished by its being situated within a school of art and design as well as its focus on experimentation and a focus on voices typically excluded from more traditional programs. 2019 Summer Residency Visiting Faculty include Vi Khi Nao, Brandon Shimoda, and Rachel Jamison Webster. da Carter and Reema Zaman are this summer’s visiting guest artists.

511 Building - Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design

Annie Bloom's welcomes Brooklyn, New York, author Heidi Diehl to read from her novel Lifelines. She'll be joined in conversation with Portland author Sara Jaffe.

For fans of Meg Wolitzer and Maggie Shipstead: a sweeping debut novel following an American artist who returns to Germany—where she fell in love and had a child decades earlier—to confront her past at her former mother-in-law’s funeral.

It’s 1971 when Louise leaves Oregon for Düsseldorf, a city grappling with its nation’s horrific recent history, to study art. Soon she’s embroiled in a scene dramatically different from the one at home, thanks in large part to Dieter, a mercurial musician. Their romance ignites quickly, but life gets in the way: an unplanned pregnancy, hasty marriage, the tense balance of their creative ambitions, and—finally, fatally—a family secret that shatters Dieter, and drives Louise home.

But in 2008 she’s headed to Dieter’s mother’s funeral. She never returned to Germany, and has since remarried, had another daughter, and built a life in Oregon. As she flies into the heart of her past, she reckons with the choices she made, and the ones she didn’t, just as her family—current and former—must consider how Louise’s life has shaped their own, for better and for worse.

Exquisitely balanced, expansive yet wonderfully intimate, Lifelines explores the indelible ties of family; the shape art, history, and nationality give  to our lives; and the ways in which we are forever evolving, with each step we take, with each turn of the Earth.