About Us

 The Harpies are a Cottage Grove based creative writing group. 

We generally meet twice monthly, 

providing critiques, conversation, and comradery with our members. 

Our goal is to produce a forum for local authors to showcase some of their short stories, essays, and poems. In addition, the Harpies hope to encourage these writers to come together and create a little bit of a writing community for our unique area. Writing tends to be a solitary endeavor, and writing groups in many regions are typically splintered and isolated from one another. The Harpies look forward to hearing new voices and developing an author network where we can offer encouragement, writing tips, and resources for us all.

The core members of The Harpies are:

Sara Blakey

Moved to Cottage Grove from Sonoma County, California in 2016. Having survived the move encased in a small SUV with one husband, one cat and three dogs, she has vowed to never move again. As a lifelong reader of every genre, she at last made reality her dream of writing a novel. Sara is currently neck deep in rewriting the first draft of a Young Adult Fantasy, the first in a three book series. When she isn’t conjuring words to page, she can be found puttering in her garden or slowly stirring the dubious contents of her cauldron.

James Burke

Retired Navy OB/GYN, Dr. Burke has written 8 books including The Jake Matthews series, a time-travel sci-fi, political satire, and the TAO of Thermodynamics. He lives a quiet life moonlighting as a grammar Nazi and curmudgeon.

Leslie Houghton

 Leslie lives in Eugene with her partner and their Labrador Retriever, Max. She recently published her speculative fiction novel, Morfphology, under the pen name Liv Reimers (www.livreimers.com). Morfphology is available at BookBaby Bookshop, Amazon, B & N, and Apple Books Contact at: Liv@Liv Reimers.com

Ken Roe

Ken is a former truck driver and retired hippie. Originally from Colorado, he does not qualify as a native Oregonian in spite of 38 Willamette Valley winters. Though unpublished and late to the craft of creative writing, he enjoys the search for unique words and combinations of words among the millions from which to choose. One motto employed is-"Everyone has a story to tell". Another is-"It always happens to somebody else until it happens to you."

Gary Vaughn     

Retired US Maritime ship’s captain. Moved to Cottage Grove from “Little Chicago” (formerly Boulder, Colorado) in 1998. Gary enjoys final draft editing, hiking with his dog, and writing short stories. Currently working on his novel Abandon Ship, a collection of “tall sea tales” gleaned from thirty years of sailing the Seven Seas with fellow misfits, miscreants, madmen and malingerers. I’m usually “down below,” “up topside,” “back aft,” or “front forward.”

Rod Williams 

Author of two novels (An Americana Singer for the Twenty-First Century and The Light Don’t Shine No More) as well as the anthology Celestial Springs and Other Stories. He and his wife have lived in Cottage Grove since 2014.

Dan Liberthson

Former college English teacher now retired from a 30-year career as a medical writer and editor, has published five books of poetry and two novels (a fantasy for kids 9-12 and a spy thriller). Each poetry book has a theme: his childhood and family, animal encounters (pets and wild), baseball, birds (with professional photos), and the main passages of living. Dan believes in telling stories in poetry, and that art and poems belong together (most of his poetry books are illustrated). His cat Minnie is his writing coach, sitting on his lap or desk and pressing what she considers the proper keys. Visit liberthson.com to find out more about Dan and his books.