Our Writers
Don DuPay is the author of one nonfiction book, Behind the Badge in River City: A Portland Police Memoir, which details his seventeen years working for the Portland Police Bureau. Click on the active link above to buy your copy.
Behind the Badge in River City: A Portland Police Memoir is an electrifying true account of the corrupt Portland Police Bureau in the 1960s and 1970s.
Description..."Pimps, prostitutes, safe crackers, murderers, drug addicts, thieves and thugs—and of course, the Portland Police Bureau—Don DuPay introduces them all in this candid, entertaining and brutal look at the stark realities of police work. DuPay, a 17 year veteran of the force, has written an intimate memoir that will take the reader on an unforgettable journey, pulling back the curtain to reveal the true and shocking machinations that fueled police culture, during his time. It’s a world of danger and contradictions, where officers are torn between their duties and the demands of survival. Police officers get dressed, strap on a gun and go to war. It’s a different war every day but it’s still a war. In this unforgettable story, the reader is never left to choose between the good guys or the bad guys. DuPay keeps it real as he wrestles with a vocation that nearly destroyed him. DuPay provides, startling revelations about the corruption, burn-out and heartache that he experienced during his time on the force—dynamics which remain a common pattern in long-term law enforcement careers."
Don worked as a Portland Police officer from April 1961 to April 1978, working the last eleven years of his service with PPB as a Detective. This included working the homicide detail during some of the most violent periods in Portland's history. In 1978 DuPay chose to leave the police force for health reasons, which included high blood pressure, recurring bouts of serious depression and a bleeding ulcer requiring hospitalization and surgery.
While employed with PPB, Don worked the burglary and vice units, along with the Safe Detail. The Safe Detail was a high prestige department at that time. Don was handpicked by Detective Lieutenant Myron Warren to join the Safe Detail and was the youngest detective to be included. The safe detail dissolved during the early 1970s when safe crimes became virtually obsolete. In the middle 1970s Don worked in the homicide detail for almost two years. During this time he also worked as an instructor for the PPB police academy, teaching young recruits the finer points of burglary investigation and also search and seizure law.
Don DuPay is currently a husband and Grandfather of five beautiful granddaughters. He is also a retired activist formerly involved in the Medical Marijuana movement. He has had numerous articles and editorials published in local media outlets and continues to write, submit his writing and be published. He lives in Portland with his wife, Theresa Griffin Kennedy, a writer, poet, editor, creative writing instructor and painter of abstract art. Don completed a bachelor degree in Arts and Letters, with a minor in English, from Portland State University and graduated as the oldest graduate, age 80, at PSU in June of 2017. Don is living proof that if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything at any age.
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Burnside Field Lizard and Selected Stories, 2018, was chosen as a finalist for the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Award for the Regional Division. Theresa has an extensive writing website, with her published articles, essays and even political commentaries.
Theresa Griffin Kennedy is the author of three books, including Blue Reverie in Smoke: Poems 2001-2016, and a book of short fiction.
Theresa's second book is a book of poetry, entitled Blue Reverie in Smoke: Poems 2001-2016. This book is a book of confessional poetry, with an introduction by renowned Portland poet, Dan Raphael and provides excellent examples of poetry that is confessional but also formalist in nature with insights into what it means to be human.
Theresa Griffin Kennedy is a writer, poet, social activist and painter of abstract mixed media art. In 2013, she completed a masters degree at Portland State University in adult education, leadership and policy, with a masters certificate in teaching adult learners. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, retired police detective and longtime writer Don DuPay.
With these stories Theresa Griffin Kennedy has shown herself to be a writer of exceptional talent, clarity and literary maturity~Tom Hansen
In this collection of five short stories Theresa Griffin Kennedy's assortment of unusual characters are sharply insightful and as damaged as they are intriguingly complex. Jolting the reader into regular double takes, "Burnside Field Lizard and Selected Stories," gives an authentic, place-based portrayal of some of Portland's less privileged inhabitants. Gender, class and sexual based consciousness seep into the grain of each story but most importantly Kennedy examines a universal question from the perspective of the Portland neighborhoods she knows intimately: What are people willing to take from others in order to survive and what does it mean to be human in such a landscape?
Blurbed by renowned author Tom Hansen, author of American Junkie.
Oregon Greystone Press
Phone # (503) 328-9211
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Online since 2015
Bethany Umbarger; We are working with a local Portland writer and poet, Ms. Bethany Umbarger and will be publishing her first book of poetry and short narrative fiction in the coming year, 2021, a book called Broken Bottle Beautiful: Poetry and Prose.
BIO: Bethany, born in 1992, grew up in rural Oregon. She moved to the "big city" as soon as she could, where she quickly adopted a more colorful and alternative lifestyle.
She works at the Portland Farmers Markets and spends her time writing, making art, scheming, and lounging about with her partner and their cat. They definitely don't discuss global domination. Bethany attended Portland State University for several years and is a vivid and emotive writer of immense talent and skill. She has been published in the PSU Pathos Literary Review on multiple occasions, with poetry and short narrative nonfiction essays.
