Portland State Magazine Spring 2013

SPRING 2013 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 9 New Works EINSTEIN’S PHYSICS: ATOMS, QUANTA, AND RELATIVITY – DERIVED, EXPLAINED, AND APPRAISED By Ta-Pei Cheng (Physics adjunct faculty), Oxford University Press, 2013 ALIVE AT THE CENTER: CONTEMPORARY POEMS FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST Edited by Susan Denning MA ’04, Daniela Elza, and Cody Walker; PSU’s Ooligan Press, 2013 WILL THIS BE CHINA’S CENTURY?: A SKEPTIC’S VIEW By Mel Gurtov (Political Science emeritus faculty), Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013 GOOD, CLEAN MURDER: A PLAIN JANE MYSTERY By Traci Tyne Hilton, CreateSpace, 2013 SECOND BEST: THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN VICE PRESIDENCY By James E Hite ’91, MPA ’04, MS ’11; Cognella Academic Publishing, 2013 PRODUCING FOR TV AND NEW MEDIA: A REAL-WORLD APPROACH FOR PRODUCERS By Cathrine Kellison, Dustin Morrow (film faculty), and Kacey Morrow; Focal Press, 2013 UP NIGHTS By Daniel Kine, PSU’s Ooligan Press, 2013 WHITE VESPA By Kevin Oderman MA ’76, Etruscan Press, 2012 Voices of immigration “WHEN YOU SEE a person telling their story, you can’t help but be empathetic,” says Melanie Blesio ’00, MA ’12. Stories are the focus of the new documentary, The Unheard Voices of Our Neighbors , told through heartfelt interviews with immigrants living in Oregon. Blesio produced the documentary as a project for her Conflict Resolution degree, while working as an intern at the Center for Intercultural Organizing in Portland. Her main goal was to raise awareness of the hardships immigrants face. “It gave people a voice to tell their story, and I know it opened up many people’s eyes.” The documentary premiered in December at Portland’s Hollywood Theatre, and the Center for Intercultural Organizing is planning future screenings .  F A N F A R E Screenplay success DOUGLAS SOESBE ’71, MA ’76 has hit the big time in Hollywood. Robin Williams (above) is set to star in a film that he wrote the screenplay for, titled Boulevard . Williams plays an unhappily married man whose life changes after meeting a guarded young man. “It’s really about when we get to the middle of our lives, and realize we’re not living the lives we should,” says Soesbe. Dito Montiel is directing the movie, which is set to start filming this May in Nashville, Tennessee. Soesbe, a proud alumnus of PSU’s playwriting program, has lived in Los Angeles for 35 years. He is currently a story analyst for Universal Pictures as well as a screenwriter.