Oregon State University Press

24/06/2024

Oregon is commonly perceived to have little, let alone notable, South Asian history. Yet in the early 1900s Oregon was at the center of two entwined quests for Indian independence and civic belonging that rocked the world. Learn more at tomorrow’s launch event for Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River: The Global Fight for Indian Independence and Citizenship. Author Johanna Ogden will discuss the book in conversation with Katy Barber, professor of history at Portland State University. Join us at the Oregon Historical Society at 6pm; free and open to the public.

18/06/2024

On Thursday we hope you’ll join us at the grand opening of the multimedia exhibition "I Lived to Tell the World." Eliza E. Canty-Jones, Chief Program Officer at the Oregon Historical Society, will lead a conversation with three survivors from Bosnia, Cambodia, and Rwanda, whose stories are shared within the exhibition. Taking place on World Refugee Day, this discussion and exhibition are designed to draw attention to the plight of the more than 100 million people displaced due to numerous conflicts throughout the world. Presented by The Immigrant Story.

31/05/2024

Part of this year’s Vanport Mosaic Festival, the PORTLAND ASSEMBLY CENTER PROJECT explores the lives of Japanese Americans who were subjected to the consequences of Executive Order 9066, including historic, economic loss, forced imprisonment, and cultural reckonings. The event features readings from the OSU Press book They Never Asked: Senryū Poetry from the WWII Portland Assembly Center by Shelley Baker-Gard, Michael Freiling, and Satsuki Takikawa. Tomorrow at 1pm at the Portland Expo Center. Free and open to the public.

The Portland Assembly Center Project explores the lives of Japanese Americans who were subjected to the consequences of Executive Order 9066, including historic, economic loss, forced imprisonment, and cultural reckonings. Through this examination, the Project exposes the racial dynamics that conti

23/05/2024

In her new book, Erica Naito-Campbell shows how Bill Naito's story is also the story of Portland, the city he loved.

A recently published book tells the story of an integral man who helped guide the future of Portland. Chances are you have even seen his name on a major thoroughfare on your commute through downtow…

16/05/2024

Robin Wall Kimmerer—distinguished plant ecologist, best-selling author, renowned educator, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation—is recipient of the 2024 Stone Award for Literary Achievement. The Stone Award recognizes major American authors with bodies of critically acclaimed work that influence multiple generations of writers, readers, and thinkers. Past recipients include writer and cartoonist Lynda Barry, novelist Colson Whitehead, and poet Rita Dove.

Kimmerer will deliver the Stone Award lecture at OSU’s new Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) on Friday at 7 pm. Although the in-person event is sold out, the talk will be livestreamed at live.oregonstate.edu.

10/05/2024

For your weekend reading: an inspiring profile of Sankar Raman, founder of the volunteer-run nonprofit The Immigrant Story and co-publisher of I Lived to Tell the World: Stories from Survivors of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War.

When you meet Sankar Raman, in the lobby of a six-story building in Northwest Portland, he shakes your hand, deflects your compliments, and says, no, the honor is his, he’s been eager to meet you. You’re not sure why. You, after all, didn’t immigrate from a tiny town in India with little Engli...

24/04/2024

Help us publish more dam good books! It’s , OSU’s annual day of giving, and your gift of any amount will help us to carry out our mission of telling Oregon’s many stories.

Thank you for being part of our book community and for your support of OSU Press.

I’m ready to support OSU Press Distinguished Book Fund on April 24, 2024 during Dam Proud Day. Learn more about OSU Press Distinguished Book Fund and all the other projects participating in Dam Proud Day.

23/04/2024

Tomorrow is Dam Proud Day, OSU’s online day of giving and connecting. Your gift of any amount will help us to publish more dam good books—books like Children of the Stars: Indigenous Science Education in a Reservation Classroom. Thank you for being part of our book community and for your support of OSU Press. https://beav.es/press-proud

22/04/2024

On this Earth Day—and every day, really—we encourage you to re{ad}cycle: buy a book from your favorite indie bookseller and once you've read it, pass it along to a friend. 🌍

19/04/2024

Some happy news for National Poetry Month: "They Never Asked: Senryū Poetry from the WWII Portland Assembly Center" by Shelley Baker-Gard, Michael Freiling, Satsuki Takikawa, and Duane Watari received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Awards for Distinguished Books. Congratulations!

The best of the best books of and about haiku published in 2023

15/04/2024

Tomorrow night at Beaverton City Library!

Join us on Tuesday, April 16, at 6:00 PM as Mehren describes the process of creating her powerful collection of stories.

12/04/2024

Hats off to Ellen Waterston, who this month received the Stewart Holbrook Literary Legacy Award from Literary Arts and the Soapstone Bread and Roses Award, which honors a woman whose work has sustained the writing community. In recognizing Waterston, Soapstone noted her extensive career “creating a vibrant literary life east of the Cascades” and focusing attention on the literature of the high desert. In 2010, OSU Press published her collection of personal essays, Where the Crooked River Rises: A High Desert Home. Congrats, Ellen!

The founder of the Waterston Desert Writing Prize and the Writing Ranch will receive the Holbrook award during the April 8 Oregon Book Awards ceremony.

09/04/2024

Congratulations to Marina Richie, recipient of the 2024 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing for her book Halcyon Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher. As one award juror commented, “Richie’s writing is fluid, her curiosity infectious, and her pursuit of kingfishers admirable. Many people delight in seeing and hearing kingfishers, and now, with this title, they can enjoy these charismatic birds on a deeper level than ever before.” Ken Lamberton, 2002 Burroughs Medalist, wrote “this is superb nature writing, engaging and illuminating, and Richie is a powerful voice of the genre.”

With thanks to the John Burroughs Association for sponsoring the awards.

06/04/2024

On Monday, you’ll find us at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony, hosted by Literary Arts, cheering on all the finalists and winners—and especially Linda Meanus, whose book My Name is LaMoosh is a finalist for the ELOISE JARVIS MCGRAW AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S LITERATURE. It’s Oregon's literary gathering of the year; we hope you’ll attend.

(My Name is LaMoosh on display at Waucoma Bookstore in Hood River. Photo by Kathleen Colvin.)

05/04/2024

In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan Genocide, The Immigrant Story and OSU Press invite you to a special program hosted by Powell's City of Books celebrating the publication of I Lived to Tell the World: Stories from Survivors of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War. The event will take place at 3pm on Sunday at Powell’s Books in downtown Portland and will feature a screening, author conversation, and testimony from two genocide survivors. Please join us for what promises to be a poignant and powerful gathering.

04/04/2024

Two opportunities this weekend to hear Mitzi Asai Loftus and her son and co-author David Loftus discuss their new book, From Thorns to Blossoms: A Japanese American Family in War and Peace.

On Saturday, Books By The Bay in North Bend will host the authors at 1pm.

On Sunday, Mitzi and David will appear at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland at 4pm.

These promise to be poignant and lively conversations—we hope you’ll join us!

There are few alive left who remember the harrowing actions of the United States government’s Executive Order 9066, which incarcerated roughly 120,000 Japanese-Americans between 1942 to 1945 on the basis

02/04/2024

In 2014 OSU Press published The Brightwood Stillness, the debut novel by Portland writer Mark Pomeroy. Now, ten year later, our friends at the University of Iowa Press are releasing Mark’s long-awaited second novel, The Tigers of Lents. Broadway Books is hosting the launch reading for the book tomorrow, Wednesday April 3rd at 6:00 pm. Don’t miss it!

My parents divorced when I was three, and my mother and I moved into a tiny rental house two doors down from a windowless tavern. Though I had my own room, it was at the back of the house, and just beyond the small backyard was a gravel ...

02/04/2024

On Here & Now today, host Deepa Fernandes speaks with Elizabeth Mehren about I Lived to Tell the World, our co-publication with The Immigrant Story. For her book, Mehren interviewed survivors from Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia, and other acts of inhumanity and shows how these resilient individuals managed to forge new lives in Oregon.

Join us this Sunday at 3pm at Powell's City of Books for Elizabeth Mehren's talk with Saron Khut, a Cambodian survivor, and Emmanuel Turaturanye, a Rwandan survivor, as we commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide.

In her new book, Mehren tells the stories of survivors of Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia, and other acts of inhumanity who managed to make new lives in Oregon.

01/04/2024

Please join us on Sunday at 3pm at Powell’s City of Books as we celebrate the publication of I Lived to Tell the World. The event will feature the screening of a short film about the Rwandan genocide, a conversation with author Elizabeth Mehren, and poignant testimonies from Saron Khut, who survived the Cambodian Killing Fields, and Emmanuel Turaturanye, who survived the Rwandan genocide.

The Portland author’s new book about 16 Oregonians who survived atrocities ranging from the Holocaust to Rwandan genocide launches March 29 with an event at Mekong Bistro.

29/03/2024

Weekend listening: Gretchen Newberry, author of The Nighthawk's Evening: Notes of a Field Biologist, is guest on the always lively Bird Nerd Book Club.

‎Show Bird Nerd Book Club, Ep Gretchen Newberry - The Nighthawk's Evening - Mar 28, 2024

26/03/2024

It’s publication day for I Lived to Tell the World: Stories from Survivors of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War by Elizabeth Mehren, a co-publication with The Immigrant Story. As we reflect on a challenging year marked by the escalation of major conflicts around the globe, I Lived to Tell the World presents thirteen inspiring profiles of war and genocide survivors. They come from Rwanda, Myanmar, Syria, and more—and they have all made new homes in Oregon after enduring unthinkable cruelties.

We hope you’ll join us this Friday at 4:00 PM at the Mekong Bistro (8200 NE Siskiyou St, Portland) for an unforgettable book launch party celebrating resilience, hope, and the enduring power of the human spirit. See details in the comment below.

21/03/2024

Tonight at the Corvallis Community Center, the Audubon Society of Corvallis hosts Alan L. Contreras for "an unboring program based on his recent book, A History of Oregon Ornithology: From Territorial Days to the Rise of Birding (2022). The program will cover the development of knowledge of Oregon birds from the Lewis and Clark expedition through the 1950s, then will focus on the development of birding as a hobby, pelagic trips, eBird, and other modern delights."

Alan L. Contreras will present an unboring program based on his recent book, A History of Oregon Ornithology: From Territorial Days to the Rise of Birding (2022), and will bring copies to sell. The program will cover the development of knowledge of Oregon birds from the Lewis and Clark expedition th...

15/03/2024

“What I hope people would learn from the story of my life is what I tell almost every audience I speak to,” Mitzi Loftus says. “It is not the prejudice or mean words and acts that hurt me nor any of you, but the good people who see someone do unkind or mean things and do not step forward to say or do something to speak to the situation. See a bully? Speak up.”

While nearly every nonagenarian could sit down and share interesting stories from his or her life, Mitzi Asai Loftus’ tales from her 91 years have an unusual level of national historical significance.Born on a fruit orchard in Hood River in 1932, Loftus is one of the last remaining Hood River Nise...

14/03/2024

Two opportunities this weekend to hear Mitzi Asai Loftus and her son and co-author David Loftus discuss their new book, From Thorns to Blossoms.

On Friday, Waucoma Bookstore and the Hood River County Library District host the authors at 6pm at the Hood River Library.

On Sunday, Mitzi and David will appear at Powell's City of Books in Portland at 3pm.

These promise to be lively conversations—we hope you'll join us!

12/03/2024

William “Bill” Sumio Naito was a remarkable and visionary individual — the Portland-born son of Japanese immigrants who became one of the city’s most influential leaders. Today is the pub date for the first book on Naito’s life and times—Portland's Audacious Champion: How Bill Naito Overcame Anti-Japanese Hate. Join author Erica Naito-Campbell, Bill’s granddaughter, tomorrow at the Oregon Historical Society for the official book launch. Doors will open at 6pm with a presentation at 6:30. Copies of the book will be available for sale, and light refreshments will be served.

05/03/2024

A Japanese American girl born and raised in Oregon—and unjustly imprisoned by her own country during World War II—eventually overcomes the self-hatred fostered by the post-war racism of her hometown. It’s publication day for FROM THORNS TO BLOSSOMS by Mitzi Asai Loftus. Mitzi and her son and co-author, David J. Loftus, will discuss her memoir at upcoming appearances at Waucoma Bookstore (3/15), Powell's City of Books (3/17), Tsunami Books (3/23), Books By The Bay (4/6), and Bloomsbury Books (4/7).

01/03/2024

Andrea Carlisle, author of “There Was an Old Woman,” recommends novels featuring realistic older women as leading characters.

Happy Women’s History Month!

Stories from around the world that take older women seriously

23/02/2024

Celebrate Leap Day in the company of three outstanding Northwest authors. We hope you’ll join us on Thursday at 6:30 pm for a reading and conversation with Ann Stinson, Jessica Gigot, and Kim Stafford at the fabulous Bishop & Wilde bookstore in NW Portland.

Join us for a reading and conversation with writers Kim Stafford, Ann Stinson, and Jessica Gigot.