2024 was a banner year for poet, author and columnist Ellen Waterston who, that year, received Soapstone’s Bread and Roses Award, Literary Arts’ Stewart H Holbrook Award, and was named to a two-year term as the eleventh Poet Laureate of Oregon. She has dedicated herself to writing and advocating for the literary arts in the high…

Born in Colorado and raised in Southern California, John has been a resident of Oregon for over 35 years. Besides being an artist, he is a writer (nonfiction and poetry), musician, school psychologist, an internationally recognized leader in violence prevention and behavioral threat assessment (John Van Dreal Consulting), and the retired Director of Security, Safety,…