Timeline of Sharon Wood Wortman's Bridge-by-Bridge Evolution
1984 – Researched and wrote 20,000-word, 11-week series about Portland’s Willamette River bridges, published in the new “Portland” pages of The Oregonian (Editors: Janet Goetz and Linda Monroe). Enrolled as a freshman at Linfield College in the Credit for Prior Learning program; classes held in Northwest Portland. Quit Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks union job at Union Pacific Railroad (Albina Yard) for career as a freelance writer.
1985 – Began writing and editing The Colonygram, the new newsletter of the Oregon Writers Colony (Chairman of the Board: Marlene Howard).
1985-1986 – News intern at KBOO Community Radio and later invited guests, developed series format, and hosted the new series Between the Covers—Interviews with Northwest Authors (Station Managers: Ross Hamilton and Harriet Baskas). Continued freelancing, employed by The Young American Newspaper, Marine Digest Magazine (Seattle), and other periodicals as a “stringer.” Cover story about Jean Auel published in 1986 in Oregon Magazine (Publisher: Win McCormack).
1987 – Created and published “Movin’ On” 18-month calendar as an interdistrict fundraiser for three East County public high schools (Photographer: Charlie Borland). The project won first place in the 1988 National Federation of Press Women competition for the category Public Relations / Promotion / Publicity (Fundraising).
1988 – Hired by Woodland Park Hospital to help promote its Women’s Health & Lifeworks Center, and to create and produce the center’s newsletter. Eventually served as interim marketing director. During this time, created and produced the seminar “Streetwise,” sponsored by Woodland Park. Attended by several hundred, the seminar featured Ann Rule, Portland Police WomenStrength staff, police officer Pierce Brooks, and others (Hilton Hotel: Portland). Led to developing and organizing other events. Reported and wrote for the new advertorial sections of The Oregonian (Editor: Gayle Karol). Essay “I Chose to Die Fighting” published in InUNISON magazine.
1989 – First edition of The Portland Bridge Book published by the Oregon Historical Society Press, with line drawings by Jay Dee Alley (Editor: Bruce Hamilton). The preface won first place in the 1989 Willamette Writers Kay Snow competition for Creative Nonfiction.
1991 – Began bridge walks for Portland Parks & Outdoor Recreation. (The bridge walks led to developing numerous tours, including “Earthquake,” “What’s New in Portland,” “What’s New in Tacoma,” “What’s New in Seattle,” “Chinatown,” “Architecture of Fairmount Boulevard,” “Covered Bridges of the Willamette Valley,” and others for private and public groups. (Co-guides Charlie White and Ed Wortman).
1991 – Writer-in-Residence at the Colonyhouse, Oregon Writers Colony. Other freelance writing workshops led for Oregon Press Women (1990) and Portland Community College, Cascade Campus (1986).
1992 – Produced Freelancing to The Oregonian, a Guide for Writers and Photographers, published by the Oregon Writers Colony. Began leading bridge walks for private and public third grade classes and other school groups (ongoing).
1993 – While researching a story for The Oregonian (Portland pages) about the 20-year anniversary of the Fremont Bridge, climbed to the top of Fremont and walked between its flagpoles. Interviewed Ed Wortman, construction engineer for the erection of Fremont. Developed and began teaching weeklong “Portland Bridges” summer camps for fourth and fifth graders at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (Assistants: Scott Isler, Mona Davis, and others) (ongoing).
1993 – Graduated from Linfield College with B.A. in Liberal Studies. Expanded educational program as bridge tour guide and classroom curriculum resource specialist for public and private schools. Also contracted with Saturday Academy, Clark College (SSI), Vancouver, WA; Multnomah County Education Services District, Gifted and Talented program, East County; Advocates for Women in Science, Engineering and Mathematics (AWSEM), and others.
1993-96 – For the University of Portland School of Education, developed and taught Summer Session class “Bridges Across the Curriculum—Using Bridges as a Theme to Teach” (Director: Lee Golden). Format and taught “Lego Physics for the Elementary Classroom” course (1995), with Dr. Karl Wetzel, Dean of the Graduate School.
1995 – The Portland Bridge Book went out of print. Took photographs and produced “Pacific Northwest Bridges,” a scripted slide show presented at the Society of Industrial Archeology’s 12th Annual Bridge Symposium, Baltimore, Md. (Coordinator: Eric DeLony). Consulted with Multnomah County, producing three scripted slide public information slide shows (1995-1996). Research led to “BridgeStories—A Storytelling Slide Show,” a multimedia introduction to Portland and bridges, used as prep for school bridge walks and as a stand-alone performance (without a walk) for other groups.
1996 – River guide and historian for Special Expedition Cruises, NYC, aboard M/V Sea Lion, from Portland to Astoria to Clarkston, WA, narrating about about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the bridges and dams of the Willamette and Columbia Snake River system. Enrolled in graduate school (Education) at the University of Portland. Poem “The Angle of My Surrender” published in Portland Magazine Spring 1996 (Editor: Brian Doyle).
1998 – Married to Edward Wortman in a ceremony by the Vista Springs pedestrian bridge in Southwest Portland. Graduated from the University of Portland with a Masters of Education.
1999 – Curated and edited “Bridge Stories, a Memory Book,” a collection of essays by 30 authors about their “bridge” experiences for an open-book display featured in Bridging the City exhibit. It opened in the Oregon Historical Society’s new “Portland Square.”
1999 – 2001 – One of two full-time historians and writers hired to document the lower Willamette River bridges for the Library of Congress. The study was funded by the Oregon Department of Transportation (Region One), and the Historic American Engineering Record, a branch of the National Parks Service (Chief of HAER: Eric DeLony).
2000 – Consultant to Mayer/Reed Landscape Architects to create and gather visual and written documents for five of the interpretive panels (bridges and harbor wall) along the Eastbank Esplanade (Portland), opened in 2001. Consultant to Multnomah County and Sverdrup Civil Engineering to interpret historic sites. Bridge walks featured in electronic and print media, including The Tourist, a Discovery Channel program, American Scientist Magazine and Sunset Magazine.
2001 – Second (revised and expanded) edition of The Portland Bridge Book published in August by the Oregon Historical Society Press, with line drawings by Jay Dee Alley (Editor: Adair Law). The book went out of print in four months.
1999-2002 – Adapted “BridgeStories—A Storytelling Slide Show” for the Oregon Chautauqua, a program of the Oregon Council for the Humanities. Performed at Port Orford, Gold Beach, Astoria, and 20 other Oregon libraries and town halls (Guest contributor: Ed Wortman)
2002 – Awarded a State Public Affairs Grant from the American Society of Civil Engineers (Portland chapter) to fund school bridge walks, and a community grant from David Evans & Associates Inc. to fund “Portland Bridge & Poetry Walks,” and “BridgeStories—A Storytelling Slide Show” for schools and groups unable to otherwise afford them (ongoing).
2000-2003 – Paid reviewer for three nonfiction book manuscripts for Oregon State University Press.
2003 – Published “Bridge Appreciation in a Box” kit (Consultant: Kohel Haver). With Darla Cole-Bowen (The Graphics Doctor), developed and created “Truss Bridge Span Patterns,” for use with Bridge In A Box, a model-making activity for elementary school students (published by Urban Adventure Press in 2004).
Began writing and reading poetry to begin bridge walks and other public tours. Awarded the Frances Shaw Fellowship from the Ragdale Artist Colony (Lake Forest, IL), given annually to an emerging woman writer older than the age of fifty-five who is working in fiction, poetry, or literary nonfiction.
Read at Annie Bloom’s Books with other members of Wildheart Writers Group from Wildheart Chapbook (Portland: Take & Eat Books). Workshop leader: Annie Callan.
2004 – Took 2,500 adults, students, teachers, convention groups and other groups bridge walking this year, most between March and October. Began and hosted the William Stafford Birthday celebration (one of 49 across the country sponsored by the Friends of William Stafford) in Welches, OR (ongoing). Founded Urban Adventure Press. Published Oh, Gravity!, a chapbook about bridges featuring the poetry of Lawson Inada and the poetry and art work of elementary students from Lincoln City and Portland-area schools. (Facilitated by Scott Bronson and Leanna Garrison). Poem “Bridges that Open Like Oysters” published in Windfall—a Journal of Poetry of Place, spring 2004 (Editors: Bill Siverly and Michael McDowell).
2005 – Developed website (Consultant: Scott Bronson). Urban Adventure Press published and offers Bridge In A Box.
2006 – With Ed Wortman (photographs by James Norman), produced 3rd edition (revised and expanded) of The Portland Bridge Book, published by Urban Adventure Press; published First Voice—Poems & Field Notes; produced China Gate postcard.
2007 – Created and produced, with much help and a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council, Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass: Poems about Bridges Real and Imagined by 70 Poets, with Directions for Five Self-Guided Explorations. Ed Wortman contributed 37 illustrations. More than 250 people attended three "release" readings at Powell's Bookstore on Burnside, Proper Eats Restaurant in St. Johns, and Looking Glass Bookstore in Sellwood.
The Oregon chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers named Sharon its Journalist of the Year for 2007.
2008 - Formed Friends of Multnomah County's Willamette River Bridges to create, with Witham & Dickey Printing, the 2009 Portland-Vancouver Bridges & Rivers Calendar. A fundraiser for the one-hundred-year-birthday celebration of the Hawthorne Bridge in 2010, it features bridges, river personalities, poetry, and dates of historical and contemporary interest. Calendar writing notwithstanding, Sharon is invited to join the 29th Street Writers, a Portland-based group that has been meeting for two decades.
2009 - Sharon is awarded a project grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council to create and perform BridgeStories, a one-woman show. She is also awarded one of seven 2009 Guest Artist residencies from the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center to produce and perform BridgeStories.
2009 – Sharon is awarded one of seven 2009 Guest Artist residencies from the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Theatre, as well as a project grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council, to write and perform The Bridge Lady, a one-woman show, with guests artists. Directed by Kate Hawkes and co-produced with the Northwest Classical Theatre Co., The Bridge Lady runs October 13-18, 2009 at The Shoebox Theatre in Southeast Portland.
The CD Bridges! Bridges! Bridges! is released at the same time. The CD features a poem by Sharon sung with Stephen Cohen and a full-color booklet that takes the reader through the arch ribs of the Fremont Bridge to flagpole level. The CD is carried at Powells and other retail outlets.
The Hawthorne Bridge 2010 Centennial Calendar is printed by Witham & Dickey Printing Co. of Northeast Portland. A fundraiser for PDX Bridge Festival 2010, the calendar features the artwork of 48 local artists, including a centerfold poem by poet Paulann Petersen.
2010 – Sharon performs a monologue with the poem “Engineered” for the 2010 Fertile Ground Festival sponsored by the Portland Area Theatre Alliance. Produced by Bump in the Road, consists of six ten-minute plays by six playwrights.
2010 – The Wilsonville-West Linn School District begin publishing and distributing its “Bridges of Portland and Vancouver” series, written by third graders and edited by Sharon and Ed.