20 June 2012

Write About Food

Interest in food has never been higher. People want to know where their veg, salmon and berriescame from, if it was raised sustainably and most it importantly, how to cook it best. While this could be an affliction of people so separated from food chain that they seek to introduce themselves to food, there is a deeper current to this phenomenon…people understand when you talk about food, you’re talking about everything: The meals you were raised on, the choices you make as an adult, how you share food with your family, neighbors and community. How we eat is nothing short of how we live and interact in society.

We are looking for people to share their stories about food. PFM’s blog features posts about food in the Pacific NW from award winning local authors, to first time contributors to the

One of My Muses

farmers, ranchers and growers who feed us. Along with stories about Oregonians who grow our food, our blog has recipes, information on what is in season and my favorite genre of post, the Esscipe – part cooking instruction, part essay, writing aimed at delving into the heart of how food makes us feel and think.

You think you’d like to give food writing a try but aren’t ready to email off a submission? Next week, our friends at Write Around Portland are having a food writing workshop with Portland Author and Mix founding editor, Martha Holmberg. If you don’t know about Write Around Portland, you can learn more about them at their website or Facebook page, where you can like them and it’s easy to for they are dedicated individuals who believe in “Transforming lives and our communities through the power of writing”. They lead creative writing workshops for 500 people each year, in hospitals, schools, homeless youth shelters, senior centers, low income housing buildings, prisons, social service agencies and treatment facilities. They’re able to run these workshops thanks in part toPrompt at Powell’s City of Books and twice monthly workshops at HOTLIPS Pizza, both are for new and experienced writers who, “want to participate in a Write Around Portland workshop and support the communities [Write Around Portland] traditionally serve.”

On Thursday, June, 28th at 6:30 Write Around Portland is hosting a foodcentric event with Martha Holmberg. The $50 fee includes a light meal of crepes, a conversation about food writing with Martha Holmberg and Kim Carlson, the Editorial Director of Culinate and a copy of Martha’s newest cookbook Crepes: 50 Savory and Sweet Recipes. Tickets available by calling Beth White of Write Around Portland at 503-796-9224.

Over the next month or so PFM will be adding new contributors to our stable of writers and we’d like to invite you to submit your ideas about food, both local and personal. While any online or print publication can use professional writers, we want to share our platform with people who have a story to tell about food in Oregon, but aren’t necessarily WRITERS! Stories should be cogent, readable, but contributors don’t need a MFA in food writing to post on our blog.

Please email your ideas, pitches and articles to me, dave@portlandfarmersmarket.org. We have the capacity to walk rookie writers and first time contributors through an editing process to get ready for submission, plus this is a great way to get clips together, advertise your own blog to all the PFM readers or give yourself a chance periodically write about food for than no other reason than you have a story to tell. We look forward to your stories.