The Visiting Artist and Scholar Program presents Sarah Sentilles

Sarah Sentilles is an award-winning author and activist who writes on art, war, violence and the importance of making art in a time of crisis. Her lecture will reference her prize-winning book, Draw Your Weapons. In addition to this public lecture, Sentilles will read at the “Finding a Way” performance event.

Sarah Sentilles is a writer, teacher, critical theorist, scholar of religion, and author of many books, including Draw Your Weapons, which won the 2018 PEN Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her most recent book, Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn’t Ours, was published by Random House in 2021. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Oprah Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Ms., Religion Dispatches, Oregon ArtsWatch, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. She’s had residencies at Hedgebrook and Yaddo. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Yale and master’s and doctoral degrees at Harvard. She is the co-founder of the Alliance of Idaho, which works to protect the human rights of immigrants by engaging in education, outreach, and advocacy at local, state, and national levels.

At the core of her scholarship, writing, and activism is a commitment to investigating the roles language, images, and practices play in oppression, violence, social transformation, and justice movements. She has taught at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University, California State University Channel Islands, and Willamette University, where she was the Mark and Melody Teppola Presidential Distinguished Visiting Professor. She teaches writing workshops and works one-on-one with clients to help support their art, writing, and creativity.

This event is free and open to the public.