Hugo Lit Series: David Guterson, Matthew Dickman, and Wendy Call
Three writers will read original pieces commissioned by Hugo House on the theme "Family Ties": David Guterson, author of the PEN/Faulkner award-winning “Snow Falling on Cedars”; Oregon Book Award finalist and poet Matthew Dickman; and Wendy Call, a former Hugo House writer-in-residence and winner of the 2011 Grub Street National Book Prize for Nonfiction. Musician to be announced.
Three writers will read original pieces commissioned by Hugo House on the theme "Family Ties": David Guterson, author of the PEN/Faulkner award-winning “Snow Falling on Cedars”; Oregon Book Award finalist and poet Matthew Dickman; and Wendy Call, a former Hugo House writer-in-residence and winner of the 2011 Grub Street National Book Prize for Nonfiction. Musician to be announced.
Theme: Family Ties
Family Ties
We all have families—parents, siblings, step-whatevers, distant cousins we hear about but rarely see. We are tied to these people, if not through love then through blood, if not through blood then through marriage. But what does that tie mean when some treat it more as a suggestion than a rule? From Casey Anthony to the Menendez Brothers to Woody Allen and Soon-Yi, the news ticker is teeming with stories of family drama gone too far. While most of our families might not be as scandalous, they can be so complicated with conflict that we grit our teeth over turkey dinner, snapping the wish bone hoping next year’s holidays are different. Why are our ties to the people we should love the most often full of knots? And what can we do to unknot them before our families become more like the Corleones than the Cleavers?
