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Garrett Christensen
Home means something different to everyone. Amelia Ettinger, a 2021 MFA graduate, expresses home, or rather how to find home, through poetry in her 2020 collection 鈥淟earning to Love a Western Sky.鈥�
鈥淚t really is looking for home in many ways,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think that a lot of the collection is a narrator’s voice of looking how to find home when you have been displaced from your original place of birth. It鈥檚 about maturing in a foreign land and how nature becomes a place of solace and renewal for the speaker.鈥�
Ettinger has a master鈥檚 degree in biology and taught Spanish and science at La Grande High School for 26 years. She worked on the collection, 50 poems in total, through 2019, and it was quickly picked up by Arlie Press.
鈥淟earning to Love a Western Sky鈥� tackles themes of belonging and identity in an unfamiliar land along with human relationship to nature. Ettinger explained that the book carries on themes from her first collection, 鈥淪peaking Out of Time,鈥� with a more mature voice and view of the world.
鈥淚 wanted to start with Puerto Rico and then from there move into the internal angst that the displacement makes and into the mature woman,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are a lot of poems that have to do with life in Eastern Oregon, but throughout all the themes, one thread that you can find is nature. Nature is where the voice in the poems finds redemption from whatever, whether it鈥檚 stress, melancholia, whatever it might be. Nature is the bond that brings the beauty into the voice,鈥� she said.
A notable piece from the collection is 鈥淰ulgarization,鈥� a commentary on the general harshness and divisiveness of modern political discourse. The idea struck while she was mountain biking.
鈥淚 really like what it says. Even though it鈥檚 talking about something so negative, the narrator has hope,鈥� she said.
Arlie Press sent the collection to the 2021 Portland Book Festival, and Ettinger was invited to speak about her work.
鈥淭hey treat you like a celebrity,鈥� she said.
She was interviewed by Erika Stevens alongside another author, Teresa K. Miller, in a block called 鈥淗omelands and Inheritance.鈥�
鈥淸Erika] noticed some particular vocabulary where my science background shows through the poems. She asked me about the diaspora in Puerto Rico, so we discussed that and how does that feel to be gone from the island, particularly now that the island has been going through difficult times. So, that was the thread of home,鈥� Ettinger said.
The festival includes readings and books from other authors, including Louise Erdrich and Rita Dove and concluded with book signings at Powell鈥檚 Books, which was completely packed.
鈥淚t was just very heartwarming to do a book signing with that many people, because the Portland Book Festival brings a lot of readers, not only writers,鈥� she said.
Even as a seasoned author, hearing the experiences and works of other professional writers left an impact on Ettinger.
鈥淵ou get so inspired by the amazing work that so many people are doing. You just don鈥檛 want it to end. You just want to sit there like, 鈥楰eep reading! Keep enlightening me,鈥欌�� she said.
The festival is not just for published authors, though. Ettinger believes that event could be both a learning experience and career opportunity for upcoming student authors.
鈥淓astern Oregon students not only should participate in it hopefully one day, but they should start going and see what it is about and get to hear some amazing presentations,鈥� she said.
Currently, Ettinger has a new poetry collection, 鈥淏etween the eyes of the lizard and the moon,鈥� releasing in fall 2022 along with a new chapter book, 鈥淭hese Hollowed Bones,鈥� though she is still searching for a publisher.
Second-year MFA student Alexander Ortega, who attends 91传媒 while based in Salt Lake City, recently had his short story 鈥淎 Real Man鈥� published in the collection 鈥淓vergreen: Grim Tales & Verses from the Gloomy Northwest.鈥�
Q: What is your piece in the 鈥淓vergreen鈥� anthology about?
A: The folkloric Coco Man (his anglicized New Mexican name; El Coco/El Cucuy in Mexico) has kidnapped the narrator, a 10-year-old boy. Yet this is the child abduction that has finally broken the Coco Man, and a boy makes him a deal to get back home. Shifting power dynamics complicate the matter more than either expect.
Q: What inspired you to write the piece?
A: I grew up with my gramita and great-uncles warning me, my brothers, mom, and aunts about the Coco Man. He’s a rhetorical tool to get children to behave or to play/prolong pranks on the entire family when you drive up in the middle of the night, in the tiny, rural town of El Rito! But once, according to my gramita, my great-grandparents got someone鈥攎aybe a neighbor or one of her uncles or something鈥攖o come to their house on or around Christmas, make her and her siblings say Catholic prayers, and insinuate that he鈥檇 take them away in a sack if they misbehaved.
Q: How does it feel to submit your work for publication?
A: As far as the emotional end of the process, it鈥檚 really intimidating at first. You need a cover letter, often a bio, and to follow all the directions of submitting. But I promise, once you do your first one, it gets easier. There鈥檚 a lot of research involved, too. It behooves us to research the publication and the kind of work it publishes, its editorial staff, and the other aesthetic elements that may make work a good match for any given publication. Then, once you submit, you start again.
Q: What was significant about the first work you ever published?
A: The first work I published may best be described as a flash fiction triptych, called 鈥淣ubes,鈥� that was published in 鈥淢oss,鈥� a literary journal of the Pacific Northwest. For me, what鈥檚 significant about this triptych鈥檚 publication is the amalgamation of absurdist fabulism and my Chicano, Hispanic, and Mexican-American roots. Since my maternal grandparents are from Northern New Mexico and my paternal grandparents are from Northern Mexico, my cultural position as, functionally, a third-generation Chicano and third-generation Salt Laker infuses my harebrained premises, but allows me also to navigate what I hope is original imaginary territory.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I鈥檓 working on the short story/flash collection that will be my thesis! Herein, I鈥檒l continue with my affinity for fabulism. One of the stories that will appear in this collection will be 鈥淕ramita鈥檚 House,鈥� which 鈥淨uarterly West鈥� published last year. You can read it at .
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