The Rain or Shine Reading Series completes its 2012-2013 season with Johnny Shaw and Bill Cameron.

Johnny will read his contribution to Feeding Kate, a “delicious selection of short fiction cooked up to benefit the Lupus Foundation of America.” Bill will read his contribution to Lost Children Protectors, an anthology of crime fiction benefiting PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children.

Each anthology features a host of fabulous authors, with stories ranging from the tragic to the comedic, harrowing to heartwarming. Both will be available for purchase.

Note: All proceeds from the sales of Feeding Kate will go to the The Lupus Foundation of America. All proceeds from the sales of Lost Children Protectors will go to PROTECT.
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On May 23rd, we will be joined by writers Stephanie Rawle and Sione Aeschliman.

Stephanie E. Rawle is able to capture the moment of others through her own life experiences. “I reach inside your soul and open the door of feelings, empathy, and compassion.” As she explores, interviews and photographs “The Forgotten Sole” that, within the “soles” of their feet, hold tightly and secretly to their stories. I venture within the depths of the streets, back alleys, abandoned houses, empty lots, and under bridges to bring to life the untold and well guarded pages that need to be heard. I am the voice of many. In honor of our homeless “The Forgotten Sole.”

S. H. Aeschliman is a native Oregonian living in Portland with her adorkable dog, Milton. By day she’s a freelance editor. By night she’s a writer, reader, learner and dreamer. Under her own name, she writes prose and line poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and cross-genre work. Last year she self-published her first book – a vampire romance novella – under a pseudonym, and she’s currently working on the second book in that series.

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On May 23rd, we will be joined by poets Margaret Chula and Donna Prinzmetal.

Margaret Chula is a poet, teacher, and performance artist. She has published seven collections of poetry, including most recently Just This, a full-length collection of tanka. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Kyoto Journal, Poet Lore, America’s Review, Cloudbank, Windfall, Sufi Journal, West Marin Review, and VoiceCatcher as well as in haiku journals around the world. For the past three years, she has served as Poet Laureate for Friends of Chamber Music, writing poems while attending concerts.  She is also President of the Tanka Society of America and is busy organizing a conference aboard the Queen Mary this August. Visit her at www.margaretchula.com

Donna Prinzmetal is a poet, psychotherapist and writing teacher living in Portland. Donna’s publications include Prairie Schooner, The Journal, US1 Worksheets,Comstock Review, Cincinnati Review, Arroyo, and Cider Press Review. Her work has appeared in two anthologies: Chance of a Ghost and A Face To Meet the Faces.  Her book, Snow White, When No One Was Looking is scheduled for publication in May, 2014 with CW Books.

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On May 16th, we will be joined by poets Judith Arcana and Jen Coleman.

Judith Arcana writes poems, stories and essays. Her recent books are poetry collections – The Parachute Jump Effect, 4th Period English, and What if your mother; these all followed her third prose book, Grace Paley’s Life Stories, A Literary Biography. One of her new stories about tattooing and abortion has just come out as a zine (Keesha and Joanie and JANE); two more are online at SERVING HOUSE JOURNAL. She’s working now on a book of her Maude poems. Listen to Judith read on Sound Cloud, and visit juditharcana.com.

Jen Coleman’s manuscript Psalms for Dogs and Sorcerers was selected for the 2013 Bob Kaufman prize and is forthcoming from Trembling Pillow Press. Jen is a member of the Spare Room Collective which hosts readings in Portland. She recently participated in 13 Hats, a group of poets and artists practicing collective inquiry. Previously, Jen lived in New York and was a co-editor of Pom2 journal, and lived in DC where she spent a year co-curating the In Your Ear reading series. She holds an MFA from George Mason University, and currently serves as Outreach Director for Oregon Environmental Council.

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On May 9th, we will be joined by writers from VoiceCatcher, a nonprofit community that connects, inspires and empowers women writers and artists in the greater Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington area.

Barbara Drake is the author of a memoir, Peace at Heart:  An Oregon Country Life, published by Oregon State University Press and a 1999 Oregon Book Award Finalist. Her college textbook, Writing Poetry, has been in print since 1983. Other books and chapbooks of poetry include Driving One Hundred (Windfall Press, 2009), Love at the Egyptian Theatre, What We Say to Strangers, Life in a Gothic Novel, Bees in Wet Weather, and Small Favors. A Linfield College Professor Emeritus, she lives with her husband on a small farm near Portland.

Joanna Rose is the author of the award-winning novel Little Miss Strange. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Bellingham Review, The Oregonian, Windfall Journal, High Desert Journal, Northern Lights and ZYZZYVA, among others. She is a language arts consultant for various arts agencies and school systems. She teaches youth and adults around the northwest and will jump at any chance to go to the beach. She lives in southeast Portland in a small house the color of faded blue jeans.

Nicole Rosevear lives, writes and plays in Portland, Oregon, the only city she has ever called home. She is a part-time English instructor at Clackamas Community College, a sometimes avid bicyclist and spends an embarrassing amount of time being schooled in cribbage by her teenage son. She has been published in The Bennington Review, Lewis and Clark Review, online at intentionalducati.org, and has work forthcoming in the North American Review.

Amy Schutzer lives in Portland, Oregon. Her first novel, Undertow (Calyx Books, 2000), was a Lambda Book Award finalist, Violet Quill Award finalist and Today¹s Librarian Best of 2000 Award winner. The Color of Weather, her second novel, was a finalist in the 2010 Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest. Her third novel, One Ear Turns Towards the River, is forthcoming from ArktoiBooks (2014). She is the recipient of an Astraea Foundation Grant for Fiction and a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Taking the Scarecrows Down, a chapbook of her poetry, was published by Finishing Line Press (July 2011).
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