Personal Statement

The problems of our time are political, ecological, economic--but the solutions are cultural. How do people speak their truth? How do we listen eloquently? If communication is the fundamental alternative to violence and injustice, what is the work of each voice among us? At the Northwest Writing Institute, we answer word by word.

Professional Biography

Kim Stafford grew up in Oregon, Iowa, Indiana, California, and Alaska, following his parents as they taught and traveled through the West. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, and the director of the Northwest Writing Institute and the William Stafford Center at Lewis & Clark College, where he has taught since 1979. He holds a Ph.D. in medieval literature from the University of Oregon, and has worked as a printer, photographer, oral historian, editor, and visiting writer at a host of colleges and schools. His book, Having Everything Right, won a citation for excellence from the Western States Book Awards in 1986. Stafford has received creative writing fellowships form the National Endowment for the Arts, a Governor's Arts Award for his contributions to Oregon's literary culture, and his work has been featured on National Public Radio. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.

Publications

Every War Has Two Losers (a film on William Stafford's poetry and witness for peace). Kim Stafford, Associate Producer. San Rafael: Zinc Films, 2009.

A Thousand Friends of Rain: New & Selected Poems. Pittsburgh: Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2005.

Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace & War. Edited by Kim Stafford. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2003.

The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2003.

Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2002.

Oregon Pilgrimage in Green. Knight Library Press: Eugene, OR.1998: 

Wheel Made of Wind(with Jan DeWeese): 13 Oregon Songs [CD]. Portland: Little Infinities, 2000.

Having Everything Right: Essays of Place, rpt. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1997.

We Got Here Together. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994.

Wind on the Waves. Portland, OR: Graphic Arts, 1992.

Entering the Grove.  Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1990.

Academic Credentials

Ph.D. 1979,M.A. 1973, B.A.1970 University of Oregon

Samples of creative work.