On an early November morning, I awoke eager to divide my day working for Literary Arts in the morning and Ooligan Press in the afternoon. After a quiet MAX ride, I made my way to the lobby of the Portland Art Museum’s historic Mark Building, where I found two other Wordstock volunteers awaiting instructions. Wordstock began as a small nonprofit in 2005, but it has been on hiatus for the last two years. Later that day the Portland Art Museum would open its doors to Literary Arts’s relaunch of one of the Northwest’s largest festivals of readers, writers, and publishers. At 8 a.m., people were already hiking up to the third floor to unpack their tables, books, banners, and bookmarks for the book fair. I had been to the Portland Art Museum a few weeks prior for the bonsai exhibit, where gnarled bark and carefully guided limbs elicited a kind of quiet awe in the crowd.
But on this rainy Saturday, the Mark Building was already vibrant, filled with a steady hum of words, coffee, and excited book lovers and industry professionals. Nicole and Julie, my fellow volunteers, and I were given the task of “wristband distribution and line management,” which meant we did our best to answer questions and welcome readers, while putting wristbands on a steady stream of rain-drenched patrons. While I had originally hoped for a position near one of the writer events or workshops, I ended up truly enjoying greeting many of the eight-thousand-plus people who attended this year’s Wordstock.
After my shift ended, Julie and I climbed the stairs to the third floor, where we paired our most serious reading faces with wigs, fedoras, and plastic pirate accessories for the photo booth. Picture bookmarks in hand, we headed into the book fair where, after a quick goodbye to my new friend, I joined fellow colleagues and students, commonly referred to as “Oolies,” in representing Ooligan Press. I began working at Ooligan in late September, and the experience has already changed how I think about books. I still have a lot to learn, but where I once only thought about books in terms of reading and writing, I now think about books in terms of reading and writing and the book publishing process: acquisitions, editing, design, sales and marketing, and social media.
Over the course of the next two hours I had the opportunity to share my enthusiasm about what I’ve learned so far in Portland State University’s student-run publishing program with prospective students, “talk shop” with other industry professionals (including an editor at Tin House), discuss craft with A Series of Small Maneuvers author Eliot Treichel, and, best of all, recommend my favorite Ooligan titles to fellow readers. In my opinion, one of the best aspects of working at a publishing house is the required reading. Reading Michael Munk’s The Portland Red Guide, Ruth Tenzer Feldman’s Blue Thread, and Allison Green’s The Ghosts Who Travel With Me and getting to call it “work” makes me giddy.
As Wordstock 2015 came to a close, I realized that I never did make it to hear any of the talks. Instead, I spent the day in a room crowded with people talking animatedly about literature, which, for a bookworm like me, was second only to curling up on Wordstock’s iconic red wingback with a good book, a cup of tea, and the soft drum of the rain.