Oregonlive - Julie Mancini, who helped build Portland’s reputation as a book-lover’s paradise, dies at 73
By Kristi Turnquist | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Julie Mancini, who made a major mark on the Portland cultural scene thanks to her pioneering work with such organizations as Literary Arts, Mercy Corps, and the Writers in the Schools program, died Monday, Aug. 29, at the age of 73.
Mancini’s eldest son, Peter Bromka, said the cause of death was lung cancer, which Mancini had been diagnosed with in 2021. Mancini’s husband, Dennis Bromka, and her sons, Peter and Alec, were with her when Mancini died at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center Monday evening.
“She was a force,” Peter Bromka said on Thursday. “She poured every ounce of her energy into every day. She just pushed herself all the time. She wasn’t an easygoing spirit who did yoga, and drank tea. She was blasting rock music, and drinking Diet Coke.”
Mancini’s drive, passion, and ability to form community all helped make her one of the most important cultural leaders in recent Portland history, according to those who knew her.
Among her most significant achievements was helping to transform Portland from a city that authors might consider a backwater into a destination that welcomed and celebrated writers, books, and the arts. After she took charge of Portland Arts & Lectures in 1985, Mancini built the series into one of the hottest tickets in town, luring such notables as Toni Morrison, Garry Trudeau, Doris Lessing, Joan Didion, Philip Roth, and many more.
Countless Portlanders saw Mancini, in her role as producer of the series, enthusiastically introduce the guests onstage before sellout crowds at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
“Julie was amazing,” said Andrew Proctor, executive director of Literary Arts, the organization created when Portland Arts & Lecture merged with the Oregon Institute for Literary Arts, in 1993. “She was wry, and funny, and stubborn, and impatient, and radically creative. She wasn’t interested in bureaucracy, and got things done.”
Proctor came to Portland to assume the executive director role in 2009, after Mancini had left Portland Arts & Lectures in 2000, though he said she remained an invaluable source of advice.
Despite her deep investment in the organization, Proctor was impressed by how ready Mancini was to see it evolve.
“She had very strong views, and we didn’t always agree on everything,” Proctor said. “But she was always interested in seeing the organization progress. She didn’t want to freeze it in time, even after she left. That’s why she was a cultural force, and such a leader. She wasn’t interested in fossilizing.”
Mancini made such an impact on Portland that “it’s hard to quantify,” Proctor said. For example, when she left Portland Arts & Lectures, the budget was $750,000, and “we had a $1 million endowment in the bank. Very few directors leave organizations in such incredible shape. We still to this day have the largest live audience for literature events in the country. That’s Julie Mancini.”
Beyond her work with Literary Arts programs, Mancini also helped launch Caldera, an arts and nature-focused program for young people. She was director for the Mercy Corps’ Action Center, the international humanitarian organization’s Portland headquarters.
Mancini, who grew up in Rochester, New York, earned a master’s degree in child development from Tufts University. After starting her career as a teacher, Mancini later returned to youth-focused programs as executive director of College Possible, a nonprofit that works to help students from diverse backgrounds get into college and complete their studies. Mancini left College Possible in 2020.
As news of Mancini’s death spread this week, tributes to her have been appearing on social media sites, and elsewhere.
“I can tell you from my emails and texts and calls there are a lot of broken hearts in Portland,” said Bart Eberwein, a longtime friend of Mancini’s, and a former member of the Literary Arts Board of Directors.
“Julie was very well-loved,” Eberwein said. “I think so many of us fell in love with her as she walked out onto the stage six or seven times a year to introduce a famous author at the Schnitz (the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall), and she was just so funny, and real.”
It was easy, Eberwein said, to feel “blessed by that huge, generous spirit she had. She believed she could change the world, and have some fun doing it.”
Peter Bromka, Mancini’s son, has created a web site that is, as he wrote, “intended to celebrate and share the impact she had on all of us.” True to her irreverent approach, and love of colorful language, the site is called “julie(f-word)mancini.com.”
Bromka, 41, said he wanted the website to “try and capture and amplify all the little slivers of her spirit that people carry. She was our family, but what I’ve come to learn as I’ve gotten older is how so many people around the world feel like a member of our family.”
Mancini’s famiy members are looking to have some kind of event to celebrate Mancini’s life in October, Bromka said. For now, he said, he’s thinking about how his mother was drawn to Portland and moved here “with my father about 50 years ago, and in short order, she started to figure out where she could help, and how she could make it better. She had endless skills for making things better, which is what drew people to her, I believe.”
Part of what made his mother special, Bromka said, was how “she truly believed in people’s ability to be creative, to be inspired, and that was so genuine. People have said to me, I’m going to try to live in the way she saw me, and live up to that standard. I just want people to keep believing in themselves in the way that she believed in them. I know that’s what I’m going to try to do, and I hope they will, as well.”