I’m coping and finding hope by focusing on home, time with my family, looking forward to some downtime during the holidays. And by supporting organizations that are going to help get us through the next several years by envisioning and building a better future.

Our family gives monthly to national organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, and we give to Oregon Food Bank, Raphael House, NAYA, Harper’s Playground and PICA locally.

I know many of you are well if not intimately aware of the work PICA does, but wanted to highlight them for a moment. 

The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art

I’ve been on the board of PICA for the past five years and have been involved as an artist and audience member for over two decades. I can honestly say it has changed my life in both material and immaterial ways.

I truly believe art and artists are vital to this time, and I think PICA is programming, supporting artists and creating community in essential and urgently necessary ways. 

If you’d like to see PICA in action this Saturday, December 7th, we are hosting our Precipice Fund Celebration - where we’ll hear from artists and collectives who have received grants from PICA via the Andy Warhol Foundation. It’s a great event and kind of doubles as our holiday party. (Although I’m going to miss it this year to attend a celebration of life.)

If you already know how amazing PICA is, I’d encourage you to join me in making a year-end gift to support their work.

The Oregon Cultural Trust

For those of you in Oregon I’d also strongly encourage you to give to the Oregon Cultural Trust.

It allows Oregonians who support arts and culture to make a matching gift of up to $500 a person, $1000 a couple who file jointly, or $2500 if you are a C corp and already giving to PICA or one of the 1600 of other arts and cultural non-profits in the state. 

Here’s the thing. It’s a tax CREDIT (not a deduction) which means you get it all back and then some come April. 

So lets say you give $250 to PICA, and have a zoo and a OMSI membership, and make a few other gifts and realize you’re up to $500 in eligible organizational gifts. Give a matching $500 to the Oregon Cultural Trust. 

You’ll get a $500 credit on your state taxes (from OCT), plus a $500 deduction (from PICA, zoo, OMSI), which means you might pay $550 or so LESS in state taxes. 

And then you’ll get a $1000 federal tax deduction, which means you might pay $250 LESS (depending on your tax rate)  in federal taxes. Half of that because of the OCT gift! 

So you’ll get $800 of that $1000 back! And the federal government will have less of your money. 

Me and My Family and Me

As many of you know I wrote a book a little over a year ago! 

It’s called Me and My Family and Me: stories for Pearl and Everett, and very much inspired by my decade of telling stories for and hosting The Moth. Here’s a little bit about it courtesy of OPB and Jason Sauls!

I have been getting a lot of really great feedback, specifically from folks who are working on or who want to start working on stores about their own lives.

The format is pretty unique (if I don’t say so myself) and it’s also pretty easy to adapt as your own. Instead of trying to tell my whole life story, I tell smaller stories about multiple family members around different themes — like music, baseball, game shows and ice cream. 

So if you need a good holiday gift for someone who loves storytelling, it’s at Powell’s and the usual places. Or if you’d like a signed copy (or three), hit reply and you can order from me directly - and of course I’m happy to inscribe it to you or a loved one!

More Books

After a dry spell I’ve been on a huge reading kick - largely due slowing down during a recent family trip to New Mexico. Here are a few recent reads I heartily recommend.

Willy Vautin’s latest The Horse is like a good country song. Sad and mournful but also impossible not to sway along to. I was really transported by it. I haven’t read him since his first novel and wow has he evolved as a storyteller.

I’ve been working for MasterClass for the past year and I have always enjoyed Walter Mosley’s insights about writing, so I grabbed Fearless Jones from a great used bookstore in Albuquerque. A wonderful ride. Great dialogue, descriptions and plot.

And most recently I found The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade at the library under staff picks. I checked it out as it’s set in New Mexico but am absolutely hooked 100 pages in. It’s about an intergenerational family each going through a huge transition in their lives, and a really great read.

That’s what I got for now!

Thanks for reading and hang in there, 

Andrew