The Clatskanie Raymond Carver Writing Festival is less than a month away! The majority of events are free and open to the public (schedule of events here), just show up and we’ll be happy to see you. However, the finale event has limited space and requires reservations. Reserve your dinner before April 25th.

Festival Finale: Poetry and Pie!
at the Clatskanie Food Hub

6:30-8:30pm 


This Saturday evening event is an opportunity to gather in a final festival appreciation of regional talent, good locally-grown food, and the sharing of poetry.

6:30pm Catered dinner ($20 per person)

Seasonal Farm-to-table food featuring locally grown savory “pie” delights, prepared by the Clatskanie Farmer Collective. Non-alcoholic beverages supplied. Beer, cider and wine will also be available for purchase. Purchase ticket

7-8:30pm Poetry Jam (free)

The Open Mic Poetry Jam returns again this year, hosted by Nanami Fetter. A chance to share a poem new or old in supportive company. Sign-ups to read will be available during festival activities.
There will be a community dessert pie potluck as part of the Poetry Jam, so bring one to share if you are so inclined. We’ll have forks, plates and whipped cream.

The Raymond Carver Writing Festival will be offering a free writing workshop with Marj Hogan, held at the Clatskanie Cultural Center from 2:30-3:30pm. Registration is appreciated, but not required.

At the workshop Marj will lead a warm-up exercise and then approach writing poetry about work using two different strategies. To prepare you might: (a) create or find a transcript of you or someone else describing their daily work (paid or unpaid), (b) do nothing at all.

Some questions it might be fun to think about in advance:
What have your various jobs given you?
What have they taken from you?
How has your body changed because of your labor?
What language and skills do you have that someone outside of your work does not have?

About the workshop leader:
Marj Hogan lives in Portland, OR, and teaches Spanish at Union High School. She received the 2025 Astoria Writers’ Guild Writer-in-Residence to begin a series of poems about labor: what we do for work, how it shapes us, how it consumes and fails to define us. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Voicecatcher; 3Elements; Pretty Owl; High Shelf; Paperbark; Cold Mountain; and A Lantern, Radical Light/Linterna, Luz Radical, among others.

Today is the last day to submit your poetry on the theme of “work.” The contest is open to young people, ages 8-18, who live in the Clatskanie School District and adults from the Lower Columbia region. Awards will be presented to winners at the Festival’s opening reception.

A panel of regional writers and community members have been assembled to read and score contest submissions, so send in those poems! Contest guidelines are available from the .pdf links on the website, or in person from Clatskanie Library.

Alice Derry will be the featured reader at the Festival’s opening reception at the Clatskanie Cultural Center’s Birkenfeld Theatre. Alice was born in Oregon and raised in Washington and Montana. Derry received her M.F.A. from Goddard College (now Warren Wilson College) as well as an M.A. in English from The American University in Washington, D.C.   Alice’s debut poetry collection, Stages of Twilight (1986), was selected for the King County Arts Publication Award by Raymond Carver. A long time resident of Port Angeles, Washington, Alice also has a family connection to Clatskanie—her parents met while teaching at Clatskanie Middle High School!   Alice Derry has published six volumes of poetry and three chapbooks, most recently, Asking (MoonPath Press 2022).  Her new manuscript is titled Embraces.  During thirty years teaching at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, WA, she curated the Foothills Writers Series and helped initiate and host a writer-in-residence program. With artist Fred Sharpe, she has produced three volumes on native plants of the Olympic Peninsula. She and colleague Kate Reavey currently facilitate a workshop for Native writers on Zoom.

The 2026 Festival line up also includes: Craig Brandis, Jon Broderick, Gary Copeland Lilley, Janet Ebert, Tess Gallagher, Marj Hogan, Robert Michael Pyle, and Florence Sage. Read their biographies

The 2026 Raymond Carver Writing Festival Poetry Contest is now open and accepting submissions until March 31! 

Awards will be publicly presented to winners on May 9, 2026 as part of the Raymond Carver Writing Festival’s opening reception.