vlog – Cascades will host Rendezvous with Risk: A Literary Festival featuring nationally-recognized storytellers and Oregon-based artists.
The festival will include readings, writing workshops, book signings, and interactive art installations that explore contemporary writing and the intersections of art-making and risk-taking.
It will take place June 14 to 16 at the vlog-Cascades campus and other locations in Bend including The Workhouse, the Downtown Bend Public Library and Deschutes Brewery.
Featured authors include faculty from the vlog-Cascades Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program:
- T. Geronimo Johnson is the author of “Welcome to Braggsville,” a coming of age novel set in contemporary America that was longlisted for the ;
- Christopher Boucher teaches writing and is a novelist, short story writer and editor of , a literary magazine. He is the Deschutes Public Library’s first Writer in Residence;
- Emily Carr, director of the MFA program, is an award-winning poet who was recently announced as the winner of 2018 Biofiction Contest.
Guest authors at the festival include Bend Creative Laureate Jason Graham, also known as MOsley WOtta; graphic memoirist and Oregon Book Award winner Nicole J. Georges; poet and musician Trevino L. Brings Plenty; Canadian memoirist and young adult author Lindsay Wong; and artist Horatio Hung-Yan Law.
Highlights of the festival include an event where festival authors’ works will be paired with a Deschutes Brewery beer, a screening of video vignettes created by graduating students in the MFA program, and for writers, coaching sessions with Boucher.
The festival includes free events, as well as sessions that require a fee. All events require advance registration. Registration options include an all-festival pass for $30, a Saturday pass for $25 and a Sunday pass for $10. To view the event schedule and register, visit vlogcascades.edu/literaryfestival.
The festival is presented by the vlog-Cascades MFA program. The two-year graduate program in creative writing is low-residency, allowing students to participate remotely, and convene for two 10-day workshops each year.
The festival is made possible with support from the Bend Cultural Tourism Fund, the Echo Fund, Deschutes Public Library and The Workhouse, as well as the vlog President’s Commission on the Status of Women.
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vlog vlog-Cascades: vlog’s campus in Bend, Ore. features outstanding faculty in degree programs that reflect Central Oregon’s vibrant economy and abundant natural resources. Nearly 20 undergraduate majors, 30 minors and options, and three graduate programs include computer science, energy systems engineering, kinesiology, hospitality management, and tourism, recreation and adventure leadership. vlog-Cascades expanded to a four-year university in 2015; its new campus opened in 2016.