The fourth annual Northwest Women Writers Symposium, “Our Daily Bread: Women’s Stories of Food and Resilience,” is coming to Eugene May 7-9, both on the University of Oregon campus and at the Eugene Public Library.
The series boasts authors from around the world, coming to speak on topics that range from the sensuality of food, to health and eating disorders. All symposium events are free and open to the public.
Keynote author Diana Abu-Jaber begins the three-day event with a reading and talk at the Eugene Public Library on May 7 at 6 p.m. Abu-Jaber has written several books influenced by her Arab-American upbringing, each of them heavily influenced by the distinctive tastes of her Jordanian father’s Middle Eastern recipes.
Writer, blogger and second keynote author Novella Carpenter, who penned “Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer” and “Gone Feral: Tracking My Dad through the Wild,” will hold a public discussion about her works on Friday, May 8 from 1 p.m. to 2:20 p.m. in the Knight Library Browsing Room. The discussion will be narrated by Jennifer Burns Bright, a professor in the UO Department of English.
Following Carpenter’s public conversation, a large panel focusing on one of Abu-Jaber’s books, “The Language of Baklava,” will begin in the Browsing Room at 2:30 p.m. Several UO scholars from various departments are scheduled to participate in the discussion.
Rounding out Friday’s long list of events are a reception and lecture featuring the third keynote author, Breeze Harper. She will discuss her work on the Sistah Vegan Project and her novel, “Scars: A Black Lesbian Experience in Rural White New England.”
Harper’s reception will take place in the Papé Reception Hall in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., followed by her lecture and Q&A, titled, “Scars of Suffering and Healing: A Black Feminist Vegan Perspective on Writing, Race, and Neoliberal Whiteness” in the Gerlinger Hall Alumni Lounge at 7:30 p.m.
“She is an extraordinary speaker on the rise in popularity and notoriety,” said Alice Evans, symposium coordinator and CSWS research dissemination specialist. “Harper leads the way on the connections between veganism, hip-hop” and social justice movements, she said.
On Saturday, May 9, a morning panel and four afternoon workshops will mark the final day of the symposium. The panel, held in the Bascom/Tykeson rooms of the Eugene Public Library, will include all three keynote authors — Abu-Jaber, Carpenter and Harper — moderated by writer Cecelia Hagen.
The four workshops will focus on a variety of topics related to the food theme. The first workshop will be led by Burns Bright, the second by Carpenter, the third by Harper and the fourth by poet, publisher and singer Donna Henderson. Each workshop is limited to only 20 participants; to preregister, call the Eugene Public Library at 541-682-5450. The final event in the series will be a book reading by Carpenter at the library at 4 p.m.
“There's something for everyone,” Evans said.
The events are sponsored by the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society, the Eugene Public Library, Oregon Humanities Center, UO Division of Equity and Inclusion, the UO departments of Women’s and Gender Studies, English and Ethnic Studies, UO School of Journalism and Communication, University Health Center, UO Libraries, the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics and the ASUO Women’s Center.
—By Nathaniel Brown, Public Affairs Communications intern