Groundswell

Today I was honored to perform my first public reading of an essay I wrote during my time at Portland Community College last fall. The Groundswell Conference has been held since 2017, serving as a venue for PCC students to present their original creative and academic writing to their peers, families, friends, and the greater community.

Being back among my fellow liberal arts students, I was reminded again just what a wonderful environment it is: open, brave and inclusive. The sessions covered a wide range of topics including:

• Breaking Free: Surviving the People Who Were Supposed to Protect Us

• Crossing Borders: The Immigrant Experience

• Under Pressure: When Systems Exploit the People Inside Them

The stories told can sometimes be difficult to hear, because they deal with topics such as mental health, addiction and abuse. But as writers we are involved in a craft that often forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, regardless of whether we’re dwelling in the fictional or non-fictional worlds. After all, if we do not, who will? It was against this backdrop that I read “Payouts and Knockouts: The Allure and the Angst of Mixed Martial Arts”, one of two essays written in my Creative Non-fiction class. If you’d like to read it in full, head on over to Grant’s Work. I’d like to thank Andrew Cohen for his thoughtful and patient approach to teaching, and to my classmates for the group reviews and feedback. Without either, I would not have the confidence to continue heading down this path.