91传媒

The mission of Oregon East is to publish the best work from student writers at 91传媒 and to serve as a site of literary mentorship and professional skills development. As Oregon鈥檚 designated rural university, 91传媒 plays a vital role in the literary culture of an oft-forgotten part of the state, and Oregon East is central to this endeavor. The journal remains committed to empowering and publishing a diversity of styles and voices, especially those that push against outdated and homogenized notions of rurality.

Oregon East is one of the oldest, continuously running literary journals in Oregon. The publication began in 1950 as The Middle R, conceived in an ENGL 218 class at what was then Eastern Oregon College of Education. The Middle R published continuously through 1970, when the journal changed its name to Underpass. In 1976, the name changed once more and became Oregon East. Today, the journal is primarily funded by student-fee dollars and is run by both on-campus and online student editors overseen by a faculty advisor. Throughout its history, the journal has published hundreds of student writers as well as PNW luminaries such as Richard Hugo, Carolyn Kizer, William Stafford, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Oregon East also helps support the Ars Poetica reading series.

鈥淲hen people ask where I鈥檓 from I still say Eastern Oregon, expecting them to understand my pride. It鈥檚 from such pride that so many of us derive our deep urge to write. It鈥檚 my firm belief that most artists work to celebrate people and places they have loved. Understand that love can work in obscure ways. And that is the over-riding virtue of Oregon East鈥攚riting which comes honestly out of pride and love, attempting to let us know why life in this place, at some particular time or another, was valuable and sacred.鈥�

-William Kittredge, from a 1985 anthology celebrating the first 35 years of Oregon East