Tin House Magazine has a 10 year celebration on Thursday evening in one the best theaters in Portland. We asked Cheston Knapp what this anniversary means to the people involved with the production of Tin House.
From Cheston Knapp
Director, Tin House Summer Writers Workshop
After ten years, Tin House continues to thrive. The vision for the magazine, namely that it be more exciting and accessible than other literary magazines publishing the best literature being made nowadays, hasn’t changed. I’d say it’s shaped and sculpted, though, with each passing issue, both editorially and visually in the design component. We routinely have stories reprinted in Best American Short Stories and O. Henry and Pushcart, and we hope to keep up those successes.
The anniversary party is an easy excuse for us to throw a fun event that helps out a very good cause. WITS is picking up the slack where budget cuts and other administrative crap leaves arty kids in the dark. It’s an easy fit for us. But everyone here knows that in the scheme of things, 10 years isn’t all that impressive or long or noble-sounding. We hope this is the first of many anniversary parties and to continue to help support really important local causes like WITS.
Press Release after the break…
Literary Arts Presents
A Benefit Event for Writers in the Schools
Tin House Magazine’s Tenth Anniversary Celebration!
“Tin House is offering a roof — despite the toxins of commerce — shelter meant to keep our language alive. While New York publishers star-search for this year’s single lollipop best-seller, Tin House recalls what literature can give one honest reader.” – Allan Gurganus
Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 7:30pm.
Newmark Theatre – 1111 SW Broadway, Portland
Emcee – Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is the author, most recently, of Sag Harbor, his first “autobiographical” novel. Whitehead is also the author of three previous novels The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, which was a finalist for the National Book Critic Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and Apex Hides the Hurt, as well as a collection of essays, The Colossus of New York. He received a 2002 MacArthur “genius grant,” and the judges called him “a bold experimental writer whose social and philosophical themes speak to the heart of American society.” Whitehead’s articles about music and television have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Spin and Village Voice.”
Readers/Presenters
Aimee Bender
Matthew Dickman
Michael Dickman
Jim Shepard
Dorothy Allison
Steve Almond
Charles D’Ambrosio
Peter Rock
Ron Hansen
Lee Montgomery
Rob Spillman
Elissa Schappell
Win McCormack.
Individual Tickets:
-Prices: $12-$14
-Order Online at www.ticketmaster.com, call Ticketmaster at 503-224-4400, or at any Ticketmaster location
-Portland Center for the Performing Arts Box Office, SW Broadway and Main Street
Founded in 1999 by longtime Oregon publisher, Win McCormack, Tin House has for the past decade been a quiet force in the literary world, with its headquarters in the distinctive zinc-sided house in NW Portland. In its 40 issues it has been privileged to print some of our nation’s finest fiction writers and poets, such as Richard Ford, Denis Johnson, Deborah Eisenberg, Billy Collins, Frank Bidart and Matthea Harvey. From its conception, too, it has been devoted to discovering the next generation of talent, like Portland’s own darling poets, Michael and Matthew Dickman.
This event will celebrate Tin House’s 10th Anniversary by gathering some of this country’s most exciting established and emerging writers who’ve been published by the magazine in the past decade. With readings, personal anecdotes and short interviews, the night promises to be a snapshot of what the magazine offers in each of its issues, quality fiction and poetry with, most importantly, personality to spare.
Proceeds from this event will benefit WITS (Writers in the Schools), a program of Literary Arts.
About WITS (Writers in the Schools)
Established in 1996, WITS is a comprehensive program that cultivates young writers and supports Oregon authors through semester-long writing residencies in the Portland public high schools. WITS employs poets, fiction writers, essayists and playwrights to engage students in reading and writing across the curriculum.
