David Biespiel and the Art of Building Literary Community from an Attic
How one poet's editorial vision transformed Portland's Attic Institute and Poetry Northwest into vital literary institutions, one writer at a time.
There's a room above a business on Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, where something unusual has been happening for nearly three decades. Writers arrive. They sit. They write. Some leave with books published. Others leave with something harder to name a clearer sense of what they want to say, and why it matters. The room is an attic. David Biespiel found it in 1995, shortly after moving to Portland, when he needed a place outside his house to write. He leased the space. To help cover the cost, he started...
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