LRCW Reading: Sara Jaffe, Emilly Prado, Jay Ponteri, & Sara Vetiver

Readers:

Sara Jaffe is a Portland, OR-based writer, educator, and musician. Her collection of short stories, Hurricane Envy, came out from Rescue Press in October 2025. She's also the author of Dryland (Tin House, 2015), a novel, as well as short stories, essays, and criticism that have appeared in publications including NOON, Fence, BOMB, The Offing, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Though mostly a writer of fiction, Sara is also interested in the generative crossings between fiction and other prose genres. www.sarajaffewriter.com

Dryland (Tin House)

Hurricane Envy (Rescue Press)

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Emilly Prado is an award-winning writer, educator, and cultural worker living in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of Funeral for Flaca (Future Tense Books, 2021), a Pacific Northwest Book Award–winning essay collection praised by Ms. Magazine as “utterly vulnerable, bold, and unique,” and Examining Assimilation (Enslow, 2019), a nonfiction interdisciplinary book at the intersections of culture, history, and identity for youth readers. As an educator, Emilly has taught in public high schools, correctional facilities, MFA programs, and through organizations such as Tin House, Literary Arts, Corporeal Writing, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Her writing has appeared in 30+ outlets including NPR, Marie Claire, and Eater, and has been supported by fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Oregon Humanities, and Randolph College, amongst others. She is a co-founder of BIPOC arts non-profit, Portland in Color, and the Latiné DJ collective, Noche Libre. Currently at work on her debut memoir, Emilly also teaches creative writing at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Learn more at emillyprado.com or @emillygprado.

Funeral for Flaca (essay collection) (+ FFF excerpt links)

“More Than Words” (longform multimedia journalism)

“How ‘To the Bone’ Contributes to the Whitewashing of Eating Disorders” (cultural criticism + personal essay)

Bitch Media archive (cultural criticism, reviews, music journalism, etc)

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Jay Ponteri directed the creative writing program at Marylhurst University from 2008-2018 and is now the program head of PNCA’s Low-Residency Creative Writing program. His book of creative nonfiction Someone Told Me has just been published by Widow+Orphan House. He’s also the author of Darkmouth Inside Me (Future Tense Books, 2014) and Wedlocked (Hawthorne Books, 2013), which received an Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. Two of Ponteri’s essays, “Listen to this” and “On Navel Gazing” have earned “Notable Mentions” in Best American Essay Anthologies. His work has also appeared in many literary journals: Gaze, Ghost Proposal, Eye-Rhyme, Seattle Review, Forklift, Ohio, Knee-Jerk, Cimarron Review, Tin House, Clackamas Literary Review, While teaching at Marylhurst, Ponteri was twice awarded the Excellence in Teaching & Service Award. In 2007, Ponteri founded Show:Tell, The Workshop for Teen Artist and Writers, now part of summer programming at Portland's Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC.org) on whose Resource Council he serves. He teaches memoir classes at Literary Arts. He lives with his son Oscar and Oscar's pug MO.

Wedlocked (Hawthorne Books)

Someone Told Me (Widow+Orphan House)

“Making an Echo: The Essay Writer as Transmitter/Receiver in the works of Nathalie Léger” Essay Daily

Someone Told Me (Widow+Orphan House)

On Richard Linklaker’s Boyhood in Portland Review

What Jay Ponteri Told Me by Kynna Lovin in Portland Review

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Sara Vetiver is a writer, educator, and therapist based in Portland, OR. Sara holds an MFA in Poetry & Creative Nonfiction and an M.S. in Integral Psychology. Sara teaches literature and creative writing at PNCA and at Harrisburg Area Community College. Sara’s writing appears in Fence, the Seattle Review, Nailed Magazine, and her two collections, O to Be a Dragon and Sirenomelia. Her writing practice explores themes of presence, inner child reclamation, trauma, ancestral healing, nature, sacredness, rebellion, and the grotesque.

In Order to Form A Sea Cave (Essay - Nailed Magazine)

Golden Cowrie (Poem - The Awl)

The Day My Father Died (Poem - The Awl)

O to Be a Dragon (Chapbook -Finishing Line Press)

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Event Details

Monday, June 22 - Reading at 6:30PM

Off Campus at Word Virus (203 SW 9th Ave) .3 miles away from PNCA Campus, 8 Min walk.

In person only. This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome!