02 August 2006

the writer's edge : part two

Thanks to the inimitable Trevor Dodge, here are some audio and video files documenting the first annual Writer's Edge conference held in Portland, Oregon, last weekend. For those who might be interested, Lidia Yuknavitch and I have already begun planning next year's Second Act.

:: faculty reading : audio : mp3 format ::
Compilation Reading (59.8 MB)
R.M. Berry (15.8 MB)
Michael Martone (11.6 MB)
Lance Olsen (13.6 MB)
Susan Steinberg (15.8 MB)
Lidia Yuknavitch (16.2 MB)

:: faculty reading : video : .mov format ::
R.M. Berry (16.2 MB)
Michael Martone (10.8 MB)
Lance Olsen (14.4 MB)
Susan Steinberg (16.4 MB)
Lidia Yuknavitch (16 MB)


:: small-press panel : audio : .mp3 format ::

Click here to download a recording of the small-press panel that included R. M. Berry (Fiction Collective Two), David Cowsert (Ink and Paper Group), Richard Jensen (Clear Cut), Lidia Yuknavitch (Chiasmus) and Kevin Sampsell (Future Tense). The last four panelists appear in the photo (courtesy to Andi Olsen) above. The audio isn’t the greatest quality, but it is complete (1 hour 44 minutes) and in stereo. Filesize: 92.2 mb.

2 comments:

Ted Pelton said...

Gosh, Lance, this is all great -- what a resource. Don't let this virtual conference experience catch on though or else, for those of us in academia, our employers will stop allowing us to travel to these as "faculty development" and tell us to just go online. Such privilege as I have, I want to protect.

I'm really looking forward to hearing what all went down out west.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Having just finished listening to the entire 104 minutes of the small press panel (there's an example of technology doing "good" things for writers/editors, no?), I'd like to say thank you for sharing this - as well as the wonderful photos and videos. Incredibly generous. I feel slightly better about not having been able to attend the conference this year (while, simultaneously, disappointed that I wasn't there, obviously!), as now at least I've had the opportunity of "eavesdropping" in on some of the conversation[s]. And while the news about independent publishing (and publishing in general) wasn't altogether cheerful - not that I'd expected it to be; I've already made the unfortunate "mistake" of perusing the staid shelves at Borders since returning to the U.S. - you, the editors of the small presses, certainly give us all hope for the future of literature-worth-reading.

As an aside, I was particularly intrigued by a comment someone on the panel made about an experiment to try and produce an American-style "bunko-bon," or Japanese "pocket book," through a contact at Kinokuniya. These would (perhaps) sell like hotcakes if more people in this country were to use public transportation. While living in Japan, I often left the larger, clunkier American books in my collection behind simply because they were too heavy to lug around all day with me. (As an English teacher, my briefcase was always full of textbooks and papers. At any rate, I think that this ties in, albeit obliquely, to the larger conversation about the "fetishization of the object" discussed during the conference. Interesting that no one seemed to be too excited about the advent of "e-books," isn't it?) As for longer books in Japan, they're simply broken into separate volumes. For example, Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore is divided into two volumes of approximately 500 pages each.

Well, before I get too carried away (too late already, I know...), thanks once again for posting this. It was truly delightful to be able to hear and see you all read! Looking forward to attending next year, hopefully.

~m