Joliene Carolina
Joliene Carolina Adams is an award-nominated writer, writing coach, and dedicated multilingual advocate born and based in Portland, Oregon, USA. Her writing typically covers travel, adventure, environmental and cultural sustainability.
In writing, teaching, and language education Joliene focuses on equity, closing opportunity gaps, passing the mic to historically underrepresented voices, as well as building sustainable local and global communities. In the travel and tourism space, she is devoted to responsible storytelling and representation.
Her May 2023 article for Adventure.com, "Can Travel Help Save the World's Most Threatened Languages?", was a "Most Impactful Piece Writing Award" finalist for the prestigious Bessie Awards at the 2024 She's Wanderful Women-in-Travel-Summit. It was also a finalist piece for "Consumer Feature for the Year" in the 2024 Inspire Global Media Awards.
In addition to her freelancing, Joliene is also a teaching artist for Literary Arts' Writers in the Schools creative writing residency programs in Portland-area high schools. In the spring and early summertime, she can be found coordinating the Northwest Indian Language Institute's Summer Institute programming at the University of Oregon.
She holds an MA in Comparative Literature (University of Colorado at Boulder, 2013), an MA in Linguistics with a Language Teaching Specialty (University of Oregon, 2017). She is currently working on her first book-length manuscripts as a 2023-2024 Atheneum Master Writing Program Fellow at The Attic Institute in Portland--one of the top 13 literary centers in the USA.
A fierce multilingual advocate, her English and Spanish are good enough to tell and understand jokes in both languages (though she makes no promises about being funny). She's supported the Northwest Indian Language Institute in Eugene, Oregon since 2015 and since 2020, has helped coordinate their two-week Summer Institute for indigenous language instructors.
Her May 2023 article for Adventure.com, "Can Travel Help Save Threatened Languages?", was nominated in December 2023 for the "Most Impactful Piece of Travel Writing Award" at the upcoming April 2024 She's Wanderful Women-in-Travel-Summit. Joliene is also the Portland Chapter director for She's Wanderful, an organization supporting women and gender-diverse travelers.
Education
Atheneum Fellow, Non Fiction Writing program 2023-2024
Master-Writer MFA Alternative
The Attic
Portland, Oregon, USA
M.A. in Applied Linguistics, 2017
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon, USA
Final Project-A Place-Conscious Materials Portfolio for Ichishkíin-Sahaptin
M.A. in Comparative Literature, 2013
University of Colorado at Boulder
Eugene, Oregon, USA
Thesis-Laughter Goes to War: The Demolition Job of Ritual Violence: Laughter
Area of focus: 20th and 21st century literature and film in the Americas
Languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Film
B.A. in Spanish and History, 2015
Willamette University
Salem, Oregon, USA
Area of focus: 20th and 21st century Latin American history and literature
Fun fact
Joliene loves geographic extremes. In hot-pursuit of this, she has dog mushed in the Alaskan bush & lived two years on Rapa Nui (more commonly known as Easter Island), where she became a competitive hoe vaka (outrigger canoe) steerswoman. She dreams of being accepted into the Antarctic Writers and Artists Program one year.
CV for Joliene Carolina | Writer & Educator
