Find tina at Sisters Movie House - Saturday, September 14th
Reading 12:30 - 1:30pm, Signing 1:30pm - 2:00pm
About rough house
whole lives are lived below the federal poverty line in the rural spaces of the Pacific Northwest. with rough house, Tina Ontiveros shares one of those lives in a memoir that is more than simply a chronicle of hardship.
in rough house we meet Loyd, a logger roaming across the timber-and-mill towns of the Pacific Northwest in the 80’s and 90’s, living in trailers and shelters he builds for his family. Loyd becomes more nomadic as the timber industry dies and as meth spreads across the region. stuck in a lifelong migration between sobriety and chaos, he’s forever starting over. as Loyd moves through his forested territory, he destroys and rebuilds three relationships again and again: with Alcoholics Anonymous, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and his children.
Loyd’s daughter narrates this memoir with a child’s sense of awe. her growing awareness inevitably intersects with the destructive side of her father’s nature. Loyd hurts and abandons her countless times. but he also makes wonder, imagination, and grit into family values. with rough house, Ontiveros holds her father’s life in her hands and observes it with curiosity, considering the landscapes he invited her to explore and the sometimes terrible, but often beautiful, lessons he taught.
tina ontiveros is a writer and teacher based in the Pacific Northwest. She was born in Idaho and raised below the federal poverty line, living mostly with her single mother at the edge of the Oregon desert, but often with her migrating dad in small timber towns across the Northwest. Today, tina lives at the foot of Mount Hood and teaches at Columbia Gorge Community College.
tina is the first person in her family to go to college and she completed her entire college education while raising her children. After community college she earned her BA in Literature at Marylhurst University, then her MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Goddard College.
As a writer and a teacher, tina’s work explores class, generational hardship, and the social constructs that marginalize the poor. Her essay, The Life We Pay For, was a top ten most read of 2019 Oregon Humanities Magazine feature. Her memoir, rough house, was a national Indie Next Great Read, an Oregon Book Award finalist, and winner of the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Award. Tina teaches at Columbia Gorge Community College.