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On a warm day in April, when the COVID-19 public health authorities are advising Oregonians to stay home and enjoy the effulgence of spring from “balconies or open windows,” I have been thinking about the poet Hazel Hall (1886–1924), whose life and work are admirably detailed in John Witte’s introduction to OSU Press’s centenary edition of The Collected Poems of Hazel Hall (2020).

Welcome to the Hazel Hall Mini Museum of SoundPortland poet Hazel Hall knew a thing or two about isolation and social distance. Reliant on a wheelchair since childhood, Hall viewed life from the window of an upper room in her family’s house in Portland, Oregon. To better observe passersby on the sidewalk, she positioned a small mirror on her windowsill. Hall was an accomplished seamstress; her fine needlework helped to support the family and provided a vivid body of imagery for her precisely crafted, often gorgeously embellished poems.In celebration of Hall's legacy, Portland artist Laura Glazer created this Mini Museum of Sound, which was originally slated to debut May 1 at a book launch celebration for the new paperback edition of The Collected Poems of Hazel Hall, edited by John Witte, with a new afterword by Anita Helle. That exhibit has been postponed, but we're delighted to be able to bring you this collection of regional voices reading poetry by Hazel Hall. Each contributor was familiar with her work and selected a poem to read.                                   request a postcard for National Poem in Your Pocket Day!

Meet Ada Hastings Hedges

In the interview below, Chris Foss, author of Facing the World: Defense Spending and International Trade in the Pacific Northwest Since World War II, discusses his motivation for writing the book, the coronavirus crisis, and his hopes for the future of US politics.

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Chilson: Your book starts off with your friend Connie’s disappearance. Can you talk about that? 

To start off Citizen Science Month, Sharman Apt Russell takes us into the arroyos of southwestern New Mexico where she has been helping monitor wildlife. The tracks of mountain lions are common and easy to identify, but the tracks of the endangered meadow jumping mouse are rare. Would she recognize them if she saw them? How would she know for certain?

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The meadow jumping mouse has a saltatorial superpower: it’s able to leap ten times the length of its body, up to three feet. These animals are also good swimmers. And diggers. And sleepers. In some areas, they hibernate ten months of the year. In 2014, a New Mexican subspecies was listed as federally endangered, and that’s how I got to know these mice, study their footprints, and learn the word “saltatorial” (adapted for leaping).

The OSU Press remains open, although our office in Valley Library is closed until further notice. Staff members are working remotely and can be reached by email. At this time, we’re working hard to keep projects on schedule and to support our authors, readers, and publishing partners.

Please note that our distributor, the Chicago Distribution Center (CDC), will be unable to pack and ship books from its warehouse until further notice due to an Illinois state order. We have shifted many of our books to a remote manufacturing and delivery model to keep them available for purchase and delivery. We are also working to make more of our books available as e-books for immediate download through our website. However, many of our print books will be backordered and will not ship until after CDC reopens. We encourage you to order our print books from your local independent bookseller’s website or other online retailers. We are sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Recently, OSU Press interns Ashley Hay and Isaiah Holbrook attended PubWest’s annual conference. Both on the cusp of entering the publishing industry, they reflect on their experience at this publishing association’s conference below

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Ashley:

Last week, I was lucky enough to attend PubWest in Portland as an intern at OSU Press. Despite my youthful status and relative inexperience in the industry, I encountered friendly conference-goers, thoughtful conversations, and colorful debates over the course of the day. While at times I found myself overwhelmed at the depth and community of the industry I’m planning to enter, I think this was a useful step in immersing myself into this strange new culture.

In Black Woman in Green, Gloria Brown and Donna Sinclair share Gloria’s journey as the first African American woman to become a forest supervisor with the US Forest Service. In this blog post, they describe their process and present an excerpt from the book.