Staff and Board

Pollyanne Birge

Executive Director

Seasoned Nonprofit Professional and Arts Advocate

Pollyanne has a long and remarkable history with the Center, as a volunteer, Board member, Board Chairperson, Development and Community Resource Coordinator, Managing Director, and, beginning mid-2014, as the Director.

Ms. Birge holds a Master’s Degree in Non Profit Management from Portland State University. Previous to IPRC, she worked for five years as the Arts and Culture Outreach and Policy Coordinator for Commissioner, then Mayor, Sam Adams. In that role she helped initiate the Creative Advocacy Network, RACC’s Art Spark outreach program and the RACC Public Murals process and several other policy related initiatives. Another major component to her work was curating and managing monthly art shows and seasonal music concerts at City Hall. These events were unique and completely community driven, and acted as both a place to highlight the regional art community, as well as educate on matters of local government and public policy. An avid supporter of Oregon’s nonprofit creative community, she also serves on the board of Oregon Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Know Your City, and has formerly served for Stumptown Comics, Inc., and the PDX Bridge Festival.

A.M. O’Malley

Program Director & Certificate Program Dir.

Program Director A.M. O’Malley has been writing and publishing since 1994.

She has been published in Ploughshares, New Moon Magazine, Ontologica, The Newer York, Poor Claudia, Phenome, UnShod Quills, The Burnside Review and The Portland Review. She recently completed a book of Memoir-Prose Poems entitled “A Winnowing”.

Ms. O’Malley teaches creative writing at the Columbia River Correctional Institution and at Portland Community College. She is a co-founder, with Justin Hocking, of the IPRC’s Certificate Program, and also teaches in the Fiction/Nonfiction section of the Program.

Justin Hocking

Certificate Program Chairperson

Writer and Co-founder of the IPRC’s Certificate Program in Creative Writing and Independent Publishing.

Justin holds an MFA in creative writing from Colorado State University, where he also taught as an instructor of writing and literature. Before joining the IPRC staff, he worked in the New York City publishing industry.

He is the author of numerous zines and thirteen books, including Life and Limb (Editor, Soft Skull Press 2004) and Beach 90th (Swift Season Press 2009). His writing has also appeared in The Rumpus, Thrasher, Open City, the Portland Noir Anthology, Concrete Wave, Travel Oregon, The Normal School, Foulweather and others. His memoir,The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld, was published by Graywolf Press in early 2014. He is a recipient of the Willamette Writers’ Humanitarian Award for his work in publishing, writing and teaching, and was also named one of the “Ten Writers Who Made Portland” by Willamette Week.

Jeff Alessandrelli

Development and Community Resource Coordinator

Jeff holds a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska, an M.A. from Portland State University and a B.A. from the University of Nevada. He loves gummy worms.

Jeff Alessandrelli’s first full-length collection of poetry is the recently published THIS LAST TIME WILL BE THE FIRST (Burnside Review Press, 2014). He is also the author of the little book Erik Satie Watusies His Way Into Sound (Ravenna Press) and three chapbooks, including Don’t Let Me Forget To Feed The Sharks (Poor Claudia). His poetry, short fiction and critical essays have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, DIAGRAM, Salt Hill, Gulf Coast and Boston Review, amongothers. The name of Jeff’s dog is Beckett Long Snout. The name of Jeff’s chapbook press is Dikembe Press. In addition to being the IPRC’s Development and Community Resource Coordinator, he also co-coordinates LitHop, Portland’s first and best literary pub crawl. He previouslyalso worked as an Author Team Coordinator at Wordstock, the Pacific Northwest’s largest literary festival.

Lillian Karabaic

Zine Librarian

Lillian Karabaic had her life saved by zines in high school, and still publishes Nebulous Zine when the mood strikes.

She’s been volunteering as open hours staff member and outreach volunteer since 2008, and has taken over the zine library, focusing on creating new technology to move the zine library into the future. Prior to moving to Portland to live out her dream of volunteering for the IPRC, she helped found the now-defunct Queen City Zine Library. She’s been working on a zine about federal transportation funding for four years. She swears it will be done soon.

Her day job is working on bicycle and pedestrian policy. You can find her at anomalily.net and tweeting @anomalily.

Mary Higgins

Zine of the Month Coordinator

Born and raised in Houston, Texas. Educated in Bennington, Vermont. Currently residing in Portland, Oregon.

Mary writes freelance poetry, short-stories, and editorial articles. She also copy-edits on the side. In her free time she likes to read cheesy young adult novels, watch anime, play PC games, and chill out with her caliby cat named Baby.