Janice Lee & Lidia Yuknavitch

Janice Lee (she/they) is a Korean American writer, teacher, spiritual scholar, and shamanic healer. She is the author of 8 books of fiction, creative nonfiction, & poetry, most recently Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021), Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Oregon Book Award, and A roundtable, unanimous dreamers chime in, a collaborative novel co-authored with Brenda Iijima (Meekling Press, 2023). An essay (co-authored with Jared Woodland) is featured in the recently released 4K restoration of Sátántangó (dir. Béla Tarr) from Arbelos Films. Her next book seeks to explore ties between the Korean cultural concept of han, narratives of inherited trauma in the West, the Korean folk traditions and shamanic practices of her ancestors (especially rituals around death), the history and creation of Korean script (Hangul), and revisions of the Korean myth of Princess Bari. Lee teaches workshops on inherited trauma, healing and writing, and facilitates guided meditations, especially as a practitioner of Engaged Buddhism (in the tradition of Plum Village and Thich Nhat Hanh) and an aspirant for the Order of Interbeing, incorporating Korean shamanic ritual, plant medicine & flower essence work, and interspecies communication. She is the Operational Creative Director at Corporeal Writing and an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University.

Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the award-winning novels Thrust, The Small Backs of Children, and The Book of Joan, as well as the anti-memoirs Reading the Waves, The Misfit's Manifesto, and The Chronology of Water, a finalist for the PEN Center nonfiction award. She is the recipient of two Oregon Book Awards, a PNBA Award, and grants from Poets and Writers and Literary Arts. Her TED Talk, which nearly killed her, has over 4 million views. She is the founder of Corporeal Writing. She is a very good swimmer.