The Lyceum Agency was established by Julie Mancini and Miriam Feuerle, who together have more than three decades of experience working with writers and artists.


Miriam Feuerle has worked in the field of arts and culture for more than fifteen years.  Beginning at The Macdowell Colony (www.macdowellcolony.org) and then The Alliance of Artists Communities (www.artistcommunities.org), a national organization focusing on policy, funding and management issues related to the field of residential arts centers, she has worked to help the careers of artists and writers across the nation. She also helped establish the Caldera artist residency program in Sisters, Oregon and served as the interim director of a venture philanthropy grantmaking organization in Portland. 

She has worked as a consultant to nonprofits in the field of philanthropy and arts and culture and has taught classes through Portland State University's Institute for Nonprofit Management.  She has a MA from the University of Chicago where her research focused on the development of philanthropy in the U.S. particularly as practiced by fraternal orders in the 18th and 19th centuries.


Kate Gannon comes to Lyceum Agency with a background in nonprofit work and the arts, focusing in workforce and youth development.  Beginning in youth development, she taught photography to at-risk youth in New York City after receiving her B.A. in Photography from The University of Colorado, Boulder.  After making the connection between the success of individuals and gainful employment she went to work in the field of workforce development where she worked as Office Manager and Marketing Coordinator for a train-the-trainer organization that worked to educate those who trained job seekers to land and keep meaningful jobs. 

Always an avid reader, Kate brings her love of literature and skills in marketing and PR to work for Lyceum Agency.

Kate continues to be active in volunteering for the youth community and looks forward to bring her learned knowledge of literature to the various literacy organizations in the community of Portland.


Julie Mancini has worked in the field of literature, lectures and presenting for twenty years. In 1985 she became the Director of Portland Arts and Lectures, an organization not more than a year old. Over the next fifteen years she developed PAL into one of the largest and most well-attended lecture series in the country, regularly presenting in a 2,700 seat venue and cultivating a stable subscriber base of more than 1700. She has presented more than 180 writers to full houses, including such literary and cultural icons as Wallace Stegner, Phillip Roth, Toni Morrison, Richard Ford, Joan Didion, Paul Theroux, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., David Sedaris and Maya Lin. Literary Arts, with its highly successful series Portland Arts and Lectures (www.literary-arts.org), continues to be Oregon's premier literary institution.

In addition, Julie has consulted nationally on how to establish a successful lecture series. Organizations that she has worked with range from library systems, to hospitals, to world affairs councils.