The Unwin-Dunraven Literary Ecclesia

There's a new quarterly "convergence" in town: The Unwin-Dunraven Literary Ecclesia. The "ecclesia" comes from the venue, a former church that exactly one in three Portlanders under 30 has apparently lived in at one time. The "literary" was provided by Joshua Marie Wilkinson and Noah Eli Gordon, who succeeded in reading among the arched beams and stained glass without evoking that icky sermon-like feeling you sometimes get in those literary ecclesias made of former churches.

The crowd was younger, more bearded and be-scarfed than the ones I usually see at readings here, with friends like Ashley Edwards (an Ecclesia co-organizer), Jesse Lichtenstein, Sam Lohmann, Matt Marble, Chris Piuma, Kaia Sand, and Bethany Wright in attendance for the launch. Music afterward, while some of the audience shot up the ladder to smoke on top of the belfry. You pay $5-$12 bucks, get a handmade chap, all the beer and wine you can drink, plus music, plus a belfry to smoke on. Not sure what's in the works for June, but I'm looking forward to the next Gnostic installment.