Essayist, Biographer & Ethnographer

Joanne B. Mulcahy

author of

Marion Greenwood: Portrait and Self-Portrait

and Remedios

in conversation with series host

Michael N. McGregor

author of The Last Grand Tour

& An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life

6:00 p.m., Thurs., May 14

Cascadia Art Museum, 190 Sunset Ave, Edmonds, WA 98020

(To order tickets through the Cascadia website, click here)

Joanne B. Mulcahy moved west from Philadelphia in her twenties and found a home in two places: Portland, Oregon, and Michoacán, Mexico. While teaching at La Universidad Latina de América in Morelia, she discovered the murals of the extraordinary but largely forgotten American artist Marion Greenwood and spent ten years writing her biography, Marion Greenwood: Portrait and Self-Portrait, published by the University of Alabama Press last year.

Mulcahy holds an MA in anthropology and a PhD in folklore and has done research in the Arctic, Northern Ireland, Australia, and Latin American. Her travels led to the writing of two books focused on traditional healers and one on travel writing. Birth and Rebirth on an Alaskan Island and Remedios: The Healing Life of Eva Castellanoz, explore the cultural frameworks surrounding health and illness in different societies. Writing Abroad: A Guide for Travelers (co-written with Peter Chilson) offers a toolkit for exploring and writing about diverse cultures. Writing Abroad received the Peace Corps Worldwide Best Travel Book award in 2017 and was included in Poets and Writers Magazine’s 2018 List of Best Books for Writers.

Mulcahy’s essays and interviews have appeared in numerous journals, including Hyperallergic, The Writers’ Chronicle, and The Women’s Review of Books. She has also contributed work to several anthologies: The Stories that Shape Us: Contemporary Women Write about the West, Resurrecting Grace: Remembering Catholic Childhoods, Women Writing Women: A Frontiers Reader, and These United States. Among the organizations that have supported her work with grants and fellowships are the Alaska Humanities Forum, the British Council, and Oregon Literary Arts.

For over thirty years, Mulcahy taught creative nonfiction writing in the NW Writing Institute at Lewis and Clark College, as well as anthropology and gender studies to undergraduates. She also co-directed the NW Writing Institute’s Certificate in Documentary Studies and led workshops for The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. The founder of the Writing Culture Summer Institute, she splits her time now between Portland, Oregon, and Pátzcuaro, Mexico.

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Purchase Joanne B. Mulcahy’s books online at the Edmonds Bookshop.

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About the Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation Series

On the second Thursday of each month, host Michael N. McGregor brings one Northwest writer in front of an enthusiastic audience for a brief reading, a discussion of the author’s work, and a question-and-answer session with engaged literature lovers.

The series showcases the wealth of writing talent in the Pacific Northwest by featuring writers from different genres at different stages of their careers who may have been overlooked rather than those readers already know.

Writers who appear in the series are also featured on WritingtheNorthwest.com.

The series offers a unique chance to hear talented writers speak in-depth about what it means to be an author in the Northwest and why and how they create their works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The conversations take place in one of Cascadia’s beautiful galleries, with Northwest art lining the walls.

Cascadia Art Museum is the only museum dedicated to artists and their works from the Pacific Northwest. Focused on visual art and design from 1860 to 1970, it is committed to the belief that recognizing previously neglected artists who made significant contributions to the region’s cultural identity gives us a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of Northwest art history. The Writers-in-Conversation series signals the museum’s desire to highlight underappreciated Northwest artists in literature as well. The series is co-sponsored by the Edmonds Bookshop.

Michael N. McGregor is Seattle-based author whose book Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award. After living his early life in Seattle, he spent 17 years as an award-winning professor of creative writing at Portland State University, where he helped found the MFA in Creative Writing program. A former member of the Advisory Committee for the Oregon Book Awards and Fellowships, he holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in New York. His first novel, The Last Grand Tour, and his first memoir, An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life, were published in 2025.

Note: I’m an affiliate of Bookshop.org, where your purchases support local bookstores. If you buy a book through a click on this website, I’ll earn a small commission that helps defray the costs of maintaining WritingtheNorthwest.com.