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The Importance of Innovation:

The FC2 Writer’s Edge and The Portland Review Award for Innovative Writing emerged while attending a reading by Lance Olsen and Lidia Yuknavitch at Portland State . As Lance and Lidia discussed the FC2 Writer’s Edge workshop, [See "Notes from the Edge"] and how it would provide that moment where participants would not only pursue the question of what role literature plays in our culture, but would also create an environment where participants would provide a slightly different approach to this question—thus forming a cell of activity, a thriving creative web that acknowledges that we are all products of our culture, our media, our genetic makeup, our friends, our communities—as well as promoting a constant critique of our culture by challenging the marketplace, testing the limits of what equates competent writing by exploring the dimensions of experimentalism, and addressing how we bend the aesthetic conventions, how we push the boundaries of the written page, how we begin to reshape the literary landscape.

It’s an honor that Lance and Lidia agreed to select the two pieces from the workshop that appear in this issue, [See Recent Work] the two pieces that stood apart from the others and earned the FC2 Writer’s Edge and The Portland Review Award for Innovative Writing.

Also, Thanks to Garrett Strickland for filling the nights of the conference with his Phase One/Two gatherings, for organizing the interdisciplinary literary events around town, for keeping the party going, and pushing the limits in that regard. To the remarkable staff that not only innovatively swarmed Portland with but altered the perspectives of those that attended their workshops. To the alternative presses who took part in the panel discussion –FC2, Chiasmus, Soft Skull, Future Tense, Ink and Sofa—and to Lance and Lidia for making good on an idea, for setting the tone by creating a happening which has spiraled into an experimental movement, and for guiding us all into the murky area of possibility space by nurturing us into the indescribable area of creativity. To next year's events, to the happenings, to the questions, to the FC2 Writer’s Edge at Portland State, to the award for Innovative Writing that encompasses this spirit.

Jeff Brewer
Editor, Portland Review