Our Portland Story Volume 1 is part yearbook, part insider’s travel guide, and part collected memoirs, but is all about Portland by Portlanders. We sought submissions of stories from Portlanders of all walks of life and paired those stories with local designers to create artful snapshots of the city and its people at this place in time.

Stories included in the book reveal historically important architecture, a description of a meaningful tattoo, observations from a TriMet bus ride, the story of a scooter-riding mom in pink, and many more.

Book Details

Our Portland Story Volume 1 is the work of 77 authors, 68 designers, one editor and one founder. The stories were collected from local Portlanders following an open call for submissions in September of 2008. It took over a year to edit those stories, pair each story with a designer, and work with the designer and author to create the resulting page. Each page in the book represents a different story told by a different author and designed by a different designer.

This book is by no means a complete look at the City of Portland. Rather, it represents insights by 77 different people. Many locals reading this book may be shocked to see that their favorite places/things/events/people are not mentioned. That is why this book is an ongoing, live, evolving project. Our Portland Story is already seeking story submissions for the next book, Our Portland Story Volume 2, which is planned for release in 2012 – submit your story now!

The Project
Our Portland Story is a project that will continue to produce books on a two-year cycle, so long as the community enjoys and supports the output. Additionally, this website will house all the stories from each book as it is released. If you are interested in selling the book upon launch, placing an ad on the website, or have any questions or comments, please contact melissa@ourportlandstory.com

Thank you, and keep making Portland a beautiful place to live.

The Founder

Our Portland Story is an independent creative venture spearheaded by Portland freelance designer, Melissa Delzio. With this project, Melissa seeks to create a greater sense of community identity and pride in Portland and to capture the spirit of the city.

Melissa Delzio is a freelance graphic designer and creative entrepreneur with over six years of experience producing print and web graphics for international and local consumer brands alike. Professionally, Melissa strives to evolve the greater creative community she is a part of. Through serving on the Board of Directors for AIGA Portland (the professional association for design), she actively works to strengthen the local Portland design scene. To learn more about Melissa, visit www.meldel.com.

The Editor

Sarah Koch, aka Julia Sarah Koch, is a second – (on her father’s side) and third – (on her mother’s) generation Portlander. Not surprisingly, she has a deep affection for — some would say a mild obsession with — all things Portland.

By the age of 12, Sarah had already revealed a tendency towards nit-pickiness that would earn her both friends and enemies. Even so, it took her a couple of decades to recognize and accept her true calling as a proofreader and copyeditor. Once she did, however, the days of riding the rails and living a carefree existence ended. (That last sentence is made up. She never rode the rails, nor has she ever been particularly carefree.)

Her life as a freelance proofreader, copyeditor, researcher, and writer has proved very satisfying. As a writer, she may be most proud of her “A Henry James Filmography,” an ongoing project first published in the Henry James Review (Fall 1998), that melded her love of James with international TV and big screen adaptations of his work. Both the love affair and the resulting project came to life while Sarah was earning an MA in literature at Portland State University.

Currently, besides her regular work and — joyously — volunteering as editor to Our Portland Story, she is working on a series of suspense novels built around a character suspiciously similar to the author, set in Portland and the surrounding area. As anyone reading OPS can tell, this town has a rich history and a remarkable character for any author to draw upon.

Website Credits
This website was designed by Melissa Delzio, and developed by Andrew Barden of Periscope Creative and Ronald Eddy.