Together, we are two creative professionals who have been friends for over fifteen years.
Annika’s father is from Australia, Selina’s father is from Switzerland, and yet both sets of parents happened to settle down the street from each other in Eugene, Oregon. We grew up in international, literary, creative households where reading was constant and television rare. Still, we did not meet until high school, when Annika cast Selina in a school play.
We parted ways for college and remained intermittently in touch over the following years as we zigzagged across the country for our careers. Over a decade later, we were delighted to discover we had moved back to Oregon with our respective fiancés within months of each other. Grateful for connection in a new city, we began discussing our desires to participate in and contribute to the local literary community. We were struck by the fact that as eighteen-year-old artists, both of us felt we had to leave Oregon in order to accomplish our creative ambitions. Our imaginations and literary tastes were developed here; why, then, had it felt so necessary to take those dreams elsewhere?
We began to ideate on an Oregon-based organization that would connect us to the larger literary world and the global struggle for free speech, while simultaneously fostering artistic industry within Portland. We wanted to combine our politics with our craft in our home state where our earliest creative impulses began. We are so grateful to call Oregon home. Especially now, as so many places are robbing themselves of life, art, and community by shutting their doors against anyone unfamiliar–we can be a refuge that invites people in, starts discussions, opens minds, and deepens roots.
