Lidia Yuknavitch wins two state literary awards

Lidia Yuknavitch, part-time writing instructor at MHCC, is a well-known catalyst in the literature scene – and now has gained new honors.

On Monday evening, Yuknavitch was named the winner of two prestigious 2016 Oregon Book Awards, presented by the Literary Arts group in downtown Portland. It what was an emotional scene, she won both the Reader’s Choice Award and the Ken Kesey Award for the best work of fiction published by an Oregon writer, for her book “The Small Backs of Children.”

Kesey was the acclaimed author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Sometimes a Great Notion,” and mentored Lidia at the University of Oregon.

“It was a big deal to me because he was a close friend of mine after I studied with him, so when I saw his name, when they flashed his name on the big screen I just like burst into tears,” she told the Advocate.

The awards continue a streak of success for Yuknavitch, who is very calm and humble in nature.

“Small Backs” follow up on her novel “Dora: A Headcase” – for which she’s sold movie rights – and a memoir, “The Chronology of Water,” which brought high critical praise.

She explained her state of mind this week.

“I know there are some writers out there, who kinda want to become famous or rich, and my feeling about being a writer is you’re not really a complete writer, or living a writerly life until you’re helping other people,” Yuknavitch said. That’s so that “anyone who fells like they have those kinds of dreams can have access to it,” she explained.

She said she never got the affirmation of being the “best writer in the class” or anything like that. She said she doesn’t think of herself as  special, instead, focusing on “Who else can we get in the door?” now, she said.

Yuknavitch elaborated on her comment during the award presentation: “We are pretty f—– up people,” she said, as quoted by the Willamette Week newspaper.

“It’s true. Most of the writers I know have….issues,” she said with a endearing chuckle. “I think you have to have something a little bit wrong with you to choose to be a writer or an artist because it’s crazy making.”

As for heightened media coverage, she said, “ I care about relationships, not so much what media people say, and I care about doing good works.”

Yuknavitch leads several workshops, called Corporeal Writing, during weekends that are outside her academic life at MHCC. These workshops are available to anyone, regardless of age or education and are relatively cheap, she said.

“Even us at community college have a privileged status,” she explained. She also does workshops in jail centers and rehabilitation centers “and then I write my ass off in my ‘spare’ time,” she said.

According to Yuknavitch, literature and art is how we learn empathy.

One of her greatest inspirations is her son, Miles, whom she says brought life back into her. After her daughter had died previously “something in me closed up,” she said, but after Miles’s birth, his development has driven her to “live the life the best she could.”

They have a close relationship and spontaneous deep discussions that she calls “Milesisms” or Miles’s words of wisdom.

Another great inspiration is painters and musicians, such as Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock, she said. Asked if she would ever be willing to combine paintings with her literature, she exclaimed, “I would love it!

“I tried to get these publishers (pointing at her “Small Backs” book) to do that (SPOILER ALERT) because the little girl who’s rescued from war becomes a painter,” she said. Because she did not do the paintings herself, she was told it would be difficult and expensive to do. She said she would love to do an image text thing, if possible.

In regards to the perspective film on her “Dora” novel, the details are unclear. “They pay the writer of the book to auction the film, and then you don’t hear from them again, and the film either gets made or it doesn’t get made, she said. “They just buy the rights.”

Yuknavitch’s TED talk, slated to be titled “A Misfit’s Manifesto: How to Go from Failure to Promise” is scheduled to be released in mid-May. She was asked to write a book on the same topic, and has signed a contract to do so, she said.