Julia McConnell (Dec. 3, 2024)
Julia McConnell is a poet and a librarian. Her manuscript Landlocked was selected by Thomas Lynch as the winner of the 2022 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize (Emerging) and was published by Michigan State University Press in 2023. Her chapbook, Against the Blue, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Julia’s publications include Whale Road Review, Shark Reef, Right Hand Pointing, Plainsongs, Lavender Review, and other journals. Originally from Oklahoma, Julia lives in Seattle with her partner, her poodle, and her Jack Russell Terrier. Learn more about Julia at www.juliamcconnell.net.
Susan Blair (Nov. 6, 2024)
Susan Blair is a poet, writer, arts event organizer and award-winning speaker. Her full-length poetry collection, A Howling, was published in the fall of 2023 by Press 53 in Winston-Salem, N.C. Her poetry chapbook, What Remains of a Life, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018; her work has also appeared in numerous print and online publications. Susan founded and is the editor of The Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal, an annual anthology representing the poets of Central Washington. She hosts the monthly “Third Thursday Poets” open mic event. She has also written five poetry-activity books for children and presents them in costume as “Perri the Poetry Fairy” to elementary school kids. Susan graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont with a B.A. in German and Russian and lives in Wenatchee, WA.
Tony Beeman (Oct. 2, 2024)
Tony Beeman is a Seattle-based writer and performer who has been published in the Sycamore Review, the Oak Leaf, and even a few non-tree based publications. He is Assistant Artistic Director at Unexpected Productions in Pike Place Market, where he has directed, produced and performed several poetry-based shows including Thirteen Ways and This Is For You (co-directed with Audrey Kohler). He minored in poetry at Purdue University, studying under Marianne Boruch and the late Tom Andrews, who once accused Tony of enthusiastically presenting and then abandoning his poems like paper airplanes thrown out a third story window. Tony has not yet broken the habit, and is excited to throw a few more airplanes this Fall.
Joanna Thomas (August 7, 2024)
JOANNA THOMAS was born in April, which is the cruelest month, in Chicago, where the fog comes on little cat feet. She currently lives in a tin-sided house, on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, in a small, rural, university town. She encountered her first simile when she was eleven years old, while reading National Velvet, a novel in which author Enid Bagnold describes Velvet Brown's sisters as sleek golden greyhounds, their fine faces like antelopes. Thomas is a bibliophile. She is also a visual artist, working with paper scraps, scissors, and paste, and a poet, working with language fragments. She has no fear of breaking an egg to make an ocelot. When composing poems, she likes to read first drafts aloud to the dog, and when the dog says no, no, no, you gotta sigh like a goose, honk like a duck, quack like a bunny, she revises.
Maurice Robkin (July 3, 2024)
Maurice Robkin grew up in Hollywood, California at the time that the electric streetcars still ran on Hollywood Boulevard. He graduated from Hollywood High School, within a few miles of major movie studios. He took his undergraduate degree from Caltech and his doctorate from MIT. He has worked as an engineer in industry and retired from the faculty of the University of Washington.
After he retired, he began to write fiction. He took some classes at UW Extension and practiced by writing two mysteries. He has written seven volumes of a series about Margaret Fleming Hawley, a female pirate. The eighth and last of the series is finished and is in the final editing phase. He writes fiction under the pseudonym of Martin March. As is the case for many authors of this new era, his books are available on Amazon. Many years ago, he tried his hand at poetry. He took a class but had little encouragement from the instructor. In the last few years, he tried again. Perhaps the added experiences of living made the attempts more productive. He now has a collection of poems on various themes, many of which he has inflicted on poetry open mics around his home in Puget Sound country. John Burgess (June 5, 2024)
John Burgess grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan, and now retired, writes and draws in Seattle. His influences include 70s punk, Montana bars, and Japanese haiku. He has six books of poetry from Ravenna Press, each with an increasing number of maps, graphs, and comics interwoven. His latest book is Punk Poems Complete (2023) which collects all 100 of his 10-line poems. He's a co-instigator with the Band of Poets, a poetry and music collaborative. More at punkpoet.net.
Mary Ellen Talley (May 1, 2024)
Following a career in special education as a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), Mary Ellen Talley now devotes herself to poetry endeavors. She has studied with Deborah Woodard, Judith Skillman, Susan Rich, and Kelli Russell Agodon, among others. Her poems have been published in journals such as Banshee, CIRQUE, and Deep Wild, as well as in anthologies such as “Sing the Salmon Home” and “Raising Lilly Ledbetter.” Her chapbook, “Postcards from the Lilac City,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020 and “Taking Leave '' by Kelsay Books in 2024. Born and raised in Spokane, she earned degrees at UW in Seattle, the city she and her husband call home. Visit maryellentalley.com. Bennett, Stewart, Hayden (April 3, 2024)"I Am Not Cursed": A Reimagining of the Persephone-Demeter-Hades Myth
Three poets—Laura Lee Bennett, Elizabeth Carroll Hayden, and Chi Stewart—have been writing together since 2012. At some point, they decided to challenge themselves by writing persona poems, and looked to mythology for inspiration. They found a dysfunctional family saga and decided to play with it and see if they could bring it into the here and now. In January 2016, they debuted this poetic collaboration, a voice play of sorts—channeling the characters of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades. Years later, they have evolved the narrative and put poems to the page. Please join the authors for a reading of their new chapbook, I Am Not Cursed. 
The poets: Laura Lee Bennett, Chi Stewart, and Elizabeth Carroll Hayden. Photo: Emily Getts
Chi Stewart is an artist and writer. Her writing career began in an abandoned chicken house on a nearby farm in South Jersey where—at age 10, she hid from the rest of the world to write stories. Earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing, Stewart worked for 14 years in healthcare settings in Chicago, Oregon, Washington state and Saudi Arabia. With the birth of her third child, she became an at-home mom for the following two decades. She then attended Gage Atelier in Seattle for 2 years and continues to show her art in Seattle and East-Side venues. She lives the belief that knowledge can lead to compassion, and that no act of creativity is ever wasted. Elizabeth Carroll Hayden is a writer and lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest. A former teacher of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing students in Bellevue and Seattle school districts, she is the mother of two very creative adult children. Hayden is published in the anthologies Here, There, Everywhere, and 10x10, as well as the online journal, Belletrist, and has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. When not writing, she can be found ballroom and swing dancing. Laura Lee Bennett is a writer and community organizer, holding a Master of Fine Arts in Short Fiction from the Creative Writing program at University of Oregon, Eugene. She is a past president of Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP) and serves on the boards of Venues for Artists in the Local Area (VALA Eastside) and the Redmond Historical Society. Her chapbook, Snake Medicine: First Step, was published by nine muses books in 2017. Bonnie Wolkenstein (March 6, 2024)
Bonnie Wolkenstein's journey to writing has been multifaceted. Having written throughout childhood, she wanted to study writing at college but was encouraged to take a more professional degree, and psychology beckoned. She is now a writer, photographer and psychologist based in Seattle. Her poetry, essays and photography explore what lies below the surface of everyday moments. Work has appeared in Penumbra, Poetica Magazine, New Note Poetry, Kitchen Table Quarterly, The Good Life, Kansas City Voices, Drash; Northwest Mosaic, 56 Days of August, (Re) An Ideas Journal and La Presa. She has been a featured reader around the greater Seattle area, and has participated in international poetry readings in Guanajuato, MX and Seville, SP. She is the host of the Guanajuato Writing Retreat. Her first book, Dreaming in Cantera/Sueños en Cantera, is a bilingual collection of poems (WordTech Editions, 2023).
Catherine Broadwall (Feb. 7, 2024)
Catherine Broadwall is the author of Water Spell (Cornerstone Press, forthcoming 2025), Fulgurite (Cornerstone Press, 2023), Shelter in Place (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), and other collections. Her writing has appeared in Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. She was the winner of the 2019-2020 COG Poetry Award, and a finalist for both the 2021 Mississippi Review Prize in poetry and the 2021 Pinch Literary Awards in poetry. She is an assistant professor at DigiPen Institute of Technology, where she teaches creative writing. Her website is www.catherinebroadwall.com.
Tristan Tugade (Jan. 3, 2024)
Tristan Tugade was born somewhere in England (scientists debate the precise location). Ten years later he and his family moved to a small, Western Washington town called “Duvall”. Fifteen years after this (approximately 1 year and 2 months ago) he wrote his first poem. Experts say he wrote this initial poem on his phone, while on a lunch break at work. He has written several poems since then, and it is speculated he may continue doing so indefinitely. He began attending Duvall Poetry meetups in April 2023, after which Wednesday became his favorite day of the week.
Branwyn Holroyd (Dec. 6, 2023)
Branwyn Holroyd's poetry is informed by over twenty years of working as a social worker, primarily in the area of child protection. She currently lives on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia where she is employed as a barista. She has an MFA from Oklahoma City University and is working on her first full length poetry manuscript. She has publications in Cirque, San Pedro River Review, Room Magazine and Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art.
Matt Trease & Xan Roberti (Nov. 1, 2023)
Matt Trease is a poet, artist and astrologer living on the Duwamish ancestral homeland in south Seattle, WA, where he serves on the board of the Cascadia Poetics Lab, co-curates the Margin Shift reading series, and teaches at Hugo House. His poems have recently appeared in small po[r]tions, WordLitZine, Phoebe, Fact-Simile, Hotel Amerika, Juked (among others), and in the anthologies, Shake the Tree Vol 3 (Brightly Press, 2018) and Make It True Meets Medusario (Pleasure Boat Studios, 2019). He is the author of the chapbook Later Heaven: Production Cycles (busylittle1way designs, 2013) and rcvrdtxt: a disappearing chapbook (rlysrslit, 2018).
Xan L. Roberti is a double Leo with a Capricorn moon. Her chapbook manuscript City Artist was a semifinalist for the Tomaz Salamon Prize, and her manuscript Go Ahead was semifinalist in Crab Orchard’s first book contest. She has poetry and articles published in multiple journals such as Beloit Poetry Journal; Sparkle + Blink, Off Channel, Red Light Lit, Goodfoot and Eclectic Heart. Her memoir “Portable Housing” was nominated for the Walter Sindlinger Award. She leads personal growth, creativity and yoga workshops, and roams the country as an Education Consultant. She lives in Tukwila, WA with her partner Matt and pup Hoopla. Nicole Renée La Follette (October 4, 2023)
Nicole Renée La Follette
[“victory of the people” • “reborn” • “little fool” (feminine)] Nicole was born into Seattle’s rains, lush moss and cedar essence, and was raised with the scents of eucalyptus trees and Nag Champa in Marin County, California. She has a Bachelor of Arts in languages and philosophy from The Evergreen State College, where she also dipped her toe in poetics. She is a third generation published poet; active in her local poetry communities; and sniffs out open mics when sauntering the globe. She celebrates that her life’s story is unique, like everyone else’s. Nicole currently lives in Kirkland, Washington. Unique, Like Everyone is her first book. Michael Magee (Sept. 6, 2023)
Michael Magee studied under David Wagoner and Bill Matchett at the University of Washington. He has written scripts for the plays "A Night in Reading Gaol With Oscar Wilde" produced in England and "Shank's Mare" which was made into a movie and won a Best Actor's Prize. He won first prize in the Dancing Poetry Contest in San Francisco and second prize in KindofaHurricainePress’ Editor’s Choice Awards. Michael has read at Shakespeare and Company, Paris and on BBC Radio 1, as well as being a participant in the Jack Straw Writers Program for radio in Seattle. He also wrote several songs for the CD Vaudeville. He has been an Artist-in-the-Schools in Washington, Seattle Artist-in-Residence with the Seattle Arts Commission and Arts and Aging Team. Terra Firma is his 3rd collection published by MoonPath along with "How We Move Toward Light" and "Cinders of our Better Angels." In 2022 he published "Self Variations: Travels in Greece and Turkey" and "The Penny Princess," a coloring book. Michael lives in Tacoma, Washington.
Janka Hobbs (Aug. 2, 2023)
Since Janka read here in 2020, she still has not gotten any books published or won any awards. She has, however, kept writing, and hopes that everyone finds something new here, even if they have heard it before.
Erika Brumett (July 5, 2023)
Erika Brumett’s words appear in numerous publications, including North American Review, Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, and Barrow Street. She is the winner of RHINO’s Editor's Prize, Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Poetry Fellowship, as well as Black Mountain Press' 2019 Writer's Grant. Erika’s novel, Scrap Metal Sky, was published by Shape&Nature Press, and her chapbook, bonehouse, was released from Green Linden Press. She received a Special Mention in The Pushcart Prize 2021 Anthology.
T. Clear (June 7, 2023)
T. Clear has been writing and publishing since the late 1970s, and her work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Northwest, Sheila-na-Gig, The Rise-Up Review, Red Earth Review, Terrain.org, The Moth, Common Ground Review, Crannog, The American Journal of Poetry, and Take a Stand: Art Against Hate. Her book, A House, Undone, is the 2021 winner of the Sally Albiso Award from MoonPath Press. She is an Associate Editor at Bracken Magazine.
David Post (May 3, 2023)
David Post has been a featured poet at Poets West venues in Seattle, Bothell, and Woodinville, WA; a guest reader at various African American Writers Alliance venues in Seattle and Burien, WA and has read in Tacoma, Kenmore, and Duvall, WA. He is MC for Poets West events at Green Lake Library in Seattle and co MC for Poets West readings in Bothell, WA. His poem "Brown Shoes" was published in the anthology "Poetic Impressions" by East Point West Press in 2021. He has two sons who live in Seattle and one grandson.
Xavier Cavazos (April 5, 2023)
Xavier Cavazos is a performance artist and a grand slam champion of the NuYoRican Poets Cafe in NYC, and a member of three national poetry slam teams. He is the author of three award-winning poetry collections: Barbarian at the Gate (Poetry Society of America), Diamond Grove Slave Tree (Ice Cube Press), and The Devil’s Workshop, (Editor’s Choice Award from Cleveland State University Poetry Center, forthcoming 2023). Currently, Cavazos is a senior poetry editor for Poetry Northwest, Directs the Liberal Studies Program at Central Washington University, and serves on the board of trustees for Humanities Washington.
He hopes to conjure. (Photo and bio from picturesofpoets.com/Poets/xavier-cavazos) Laura Da' (March 1, 2023)
Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher. A lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and The Institute of American Indian Arts. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee. She is a recipient of the Native American Arts and Cultures Fellowship, an Artist Trust Fellowship, and fellowships from Hugo House and the Jack Straw Writers Program. Da’ is the current Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. Her first book, Tributaries, won the 2016 American Book Award. Her latest book, Instruments of the True Measure, won the Washington State Book Award.
Janée J. Baugher (February 1, 2023)
Janée J. Baugher is the author of the only guidebook of its kind, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020), as well as the full-length poetry collections Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada Books, 2010) and The Body’s Physics (Tebot Bach, 2013). She’s an assistant editor at Boulevard magazine, and she’s been featured on Seattle Channel TV and at the Library of Congress.
Alex Smith (January 4, 2023)
Alexander Smith has lived in the Seattle area since 1989, having grown up in southern California. He is the proud father of three grown children and currently resides in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood.
His poetry dates from the mid-1960’s to present. A longtime participant and sometimes featured reader at open mic venues like North End Forum, Hugo House, EasySpeak Seattle, Poetry Bridge, Duvall Poetry and a sit-in with the 52nd Street Band, Alex plays harmonica and has developed a harmonica/poetry style to add to his spoken word. His poetry trends toward lyrical, ironic, self-referential free verse with inherent buried rhythms and rhyme. Rena Priest (December 7, 2022)
Rena Priest became the sixth Washington State Poet Laureate on April 14, 2021, and her term will run until March 31, 2023.
Priest’s literary debut, Patriarchy Blues, was honored with the 2018 American Book Award, and her most recent work is Sublime Subliminal. A member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation, she is the first Indigenous poet to assume the role. She succeeds poets Claudia Castro Luna (2018-2021), Tod Marshall (2016-2018), Elizabeth Austen (2014-2016), Kathleen Flenniken (2012–2014), and Sam Green (2007–2009). Learn more about past laureates here. Priest’s work can be found in Poetry Northwest, Pontoon Poetry, Verse Daily, Poem-a-Day at Poets.org, and elsewhere. She has taught Comparative Cultural Studies and Contemporary American Issues at Western Washington University and Native American Literature at Northwest Indian College. Priest holds a BA in English from Western Washington University and an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Bellingham, Washington. Each laureate puts their own unique focus on the position, and Priest focuses on two primary goals during her term: celebrating poetry in Washington’s tribal communities, and using poetry to increase appreciation of the natural world and the threats facing it. Read Priest’s blog at wapoetlaureate.org, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter. This event is sponsored & co-hosted by: - Duvall Cultural Commission - Duvall Poetry - Humanities Washington 
Benjamin Schmitt (November 2, 2022)
Lynne Ellis (October 5, 2022)
Lynne Ellis writes in pen. Her words appear in Poetry Northwest, Sugar House Review, WA 129, and elsewhere, and she was awarded the 2021 Perkoff Prize in poetry by the Missouri Review. Her book--In these failing times I can forget (Papeachu Press)—considers the human cost of rapid economic growth in a prosperous American city.
Cathy Ross (September 7, 2022)
Cathy Ross has been writing poetry for thirty years and has read at many local venues in the Pacific Northwest. Her poems reflect a woman’s journey through the middle years and often reveal unexpected layers within an ordinary life. Her latest book, “What the Tulips Said,” was published in 2020. She is a member of Poets Table in Seattle.
Bonnie Wolkenstein (August 3, 2022)
BONNIE WOLKENSTEIN is a writer, photographer and psychologist based in Seattle, WA. Her poetry, essays and photography explore what lies below the surface of everyday moments. Published work: Penumbra, Poetica Magazine, The Good Life, Kansas City Voices, Drash: Northwest Mosaic, 56 Days of August, (Re) An Ideas Journal and La Presa. She has been a featured reader in the greater Seattle area as well as in international poetry readings in Guanajuato, MX and Seville, SP. She is the host of the Guanajuato Writing Retreat www.guanajuatowritingretreat.com. Her poetry and photos are at www.thinkinggirlthoughts.com. Her first book of poetry, Dreaming in Cantera/Sueños en Cantera, a bilingual collection inspired by living in Guanajuato City 2019-2020, comes out February, 2023 from WordTech Editions.
Jeremy Robkin (July 6, 2022)
JEREMY ROBKIN has dabbled in a variety of artistic pursuits over his 57 years on the planet. In music, he favors playing the vibes, in painting, watercolor, in theater, improv. With the written word, he favors poetry. He occasionally commits poetry to paper, but his first love is walking the tightrope of extemporaneous free verse. An experienced improvisational actor, he fuses his love of improv and poetry to create poems on the fly based on a single word provided by the audience. His listeners take a journey of unexpected connections and contrasts, celebrating the magic in little things, frivolous themes and precious moments. Whether the poem is remembered or forgotten, there is joy in knowing it lived once, it was heard, and it moved through us on its way to somewhere else.
Michael Dylan Welch (June 1, 2022)
Michael Dylan Welch is a former poet laureate of Redmond, Washington, where he is also president of the Redmond Association of Spokenword and curator (since 2006) of the monthly SoulFood Poetry Night reading series. He is also founder and president of the Tanka Society of America, and a cofounder and director of the Haiku North America conference and the American Haiku Archives. In 2010, he also started National Haiku Writing Month, held every February (www.nahaiwrimo.com). Michael's poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies in at least twenty languages, and he has published dozens of poetry books, and books of translation. Michael lives in Sammamish, and his website, devoted mostly to haiku and other poetry, is www.graceguts.com.
Joannie Stangeland (May 4, 2022)
Joannie Stangeland is the author of several collections, most recently The Scene You See. She received the 2019 Crosswinds Poetry Journal grand prize, and her poems have also appeared in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Boulevard, The Southern Review, SWWIM, Pangyrus, and other journals. Joannie holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop. (Photo credit: Rosanne Olson.)
Eugene Marckx (April 6, 2022)
Eugene Marckx lives in the Pacific Northwest, and his writing comes from this ground. He studied at the University of Washington under Theodore Roethke in the final year of the poet’s life. A more recent influence comes from his personal work in a men’s group for eighteen years, A Gathering of Men, in Snohomish County. A storyteller and a poet, he has completed his first novel, unpublished, "Broken Charlie," – set in 1952 – about a Native American in grief over the clear-cutting of hills around Willapa Bay in Southwest Washington. Eugene has always loved this bay, where he spends his summers.
Carolyne Wright (March 2, 2022)
Carolyne Wright’s new book is Masquerade, a memoir in poetry (Lost Horse Press, 2021). Her previous book is This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse, 2017), whose title poem won a Pushcart Prize and also appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009. Her ground-breaking anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse, 2015), received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. Carolyne has five earlier books of poetry, a volume of essays, and five award-winning volumes in translation from Spanish and Bengali. A Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prizes, she teaches for Seattle’s Richard Hugo House and for literary conferences and festivals nationwide. Carolyne lived in Chile and traveled in Brazil on a Fulbright Grant; and she returned to Brazil in 2018 on an Instituto Sacatar artists residency in Bahia. She has also received NEA and 4Culture grants, and a 2020-2021 Fulbright Scholar Award will take her back to Bahia after the CoVid-19 pandemic subsides in Brazil. (Photo credit: Erik Rucker.)
East Point West Press Anthology (February 2, 2022)
Poetic Impressions was produced on an antique Chandler & Price letterpress (c. 1911; see image). This chapbook features fourteen Pacific Northwest poets: Mary Eliza Crane, David Horowitz, Raul Sanchez, Lyn Coffin, Clark Crouch, Terry Busch, Peggy Barnett, Christopher J. Jarmick, Art Gomez, Sharon Cumberland, Griffith H. Williams, David Post, Eugene Marckx, and Washington State Poet Laureate, Rena Priest. The book looks and feels as if it comes from the middle of the last century, but the brand new poems within speak for today with a clarity of vision, and a command of poetic techniques, that is sure to impress.
Nan Harty (January 5, 2022)
Nan Harty’s first book of poetry is a compilation of twenty years of writing with themes of nature, place, and people. She considers herself a “community poet” in concert with poets who gather and share in libraries, and cafes, and living rooms all over the Northwest. Nan is a retired social service worker. She is a member of Poets Table, the Northwest Collage Society and lives in a beautiful place near Sultan, Washington.
Deborah Bacharach (December 1, 2021)
Deborah Bacharach is the author of Shake & Tremor (Grayson Books, 2021) and After I Stop Lying (Cherry Grove Collections, 2015). Her poems have been published in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, Sweet, The Carolina Quarterly, and The Southampton Review. She is an editor, teacher and tutor in Seattle. Find out more about her at DeborahBacharach.com.
Nan Robkin (November 3, 2021)
Nan Robkin, who uses A.L.H. Robkin for her poetry nom, has led a long and varied life. As a Navy Junior, she travelled all over the U.S., and got as far west as Guam and China. She got to Europe, too, as a 38th birthday gift from her mother. Educated by degrees, she has been a stage lighting designer, a university instructor, a computer sales person, and a retail clerk in a rubber stamp store among other adventures. Since retiring, Nan has taught mixed media art at ArtWorks in Edmonds.
Nan began writing poetry late in life, at the age of 14. She has been published in a few literary journals which have since vanished, and recently has printed and bound her own chapbooks. Her topics range from the autobiographical to her sideways take on Greek myths, with a few verses about politics thrown in. She has read for Duvall Poetry several times in the last few years, and is delighted to be asked to present in November. Joanna Thomas (October 6, 2021)
JOANNA THOMAS is both poet and visual artist, residing in the small university town of Ellensburg, Washington. Her poems have appeared in the journals Found Poetry Review, petrichor, OTOLITHS, and Picture Sentence, as well as several anthologies, including WA129: Poets of Washington, selected by Tod Marshall; and her erasures, collages, and one-of-a-kind artist books have been exhibited in galleries across the nation. Her chapbooks include rabbit: an erasure poem (Dogtown Press 2018) and blue•bird (bloo-bird) (forthcoming, Milk & Cake Press 2021). She likes to read first drafts to the dog, and when he says no, no, no, you gotta sigh like a goose, honk like a duck, quack like a bunny, she revises. Find her at joannathomas.xyz and milkandcakepress.com.
Lyn Coffin (September 1, 2021)
Lyn Coffin (b. 1943) is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, playwright, translator. Her novel, The Aftermath, was published by Adelaide Books in 2020. Her translations of the poems of Razhden Gvetadze (assisted by Z. Zurabashvili and N. Darbaiseli) will be published in 2021. More than 30 of her books have been published by Doubleday, Ithaca House, Abattoir Editions and others. Her poems have won many awards and been published in more than a hundred literary reviews and magazines. Her plays have also won awards and been performed in Singapore, Detroit, Boston, Off Off Broadway, Ann Arbor and Seattle. She was a recipient of a Michigan Council for the Arts grant and a National Endowment for the Humanities Award. She is looking for a publisher for her autobiographical novella, Tinder.
Katherine Grace Bond (July 7, 2021)
Katherine Grace Bond wants to heal the rifts in our culture and in ourselves. She writes on writing, race, family, and relationships on Medium, and is at work on a YA fantasy involving time-travel, mental illness, and Manet. Her books include The Summer of No Regrets, about finding the meaning of life and death when the boy next door may be a movie star in hiding, and The Legend of the Valentine a children’s book about the civil rights movement, illustrated by the awesome Don Tate. Her poetry collections include Considering Flight, about the uneasy dance between parent and child on the razor’s edge of mental illness. Her work appears Peculiar Pilgrims: Stories from the Left Hand of God (Hourglass Books), Here, There, and Everywhere (Redmond Association of Spokenword), the Chrysanthemum 20-Year Anthology, and numerous journals. In 2017 and 2019, she traveled to France to attend a residency at Camac Centre d’Art, and to see if she could chase down Manet. When she emerges from her writing cave, later this year, she’ll get back to Labyrinth, her intensive academy for writers. In the meantime, feel free to join her for Write-Ins on Thursday afternoons. www.katherinegracebond.com (Oh! And when she’s not writing, she plays fiddle in an Irish band called The Scuppermonkeys.)
Michael Schein (June 2, 2021)
Michael Schein is guilty of Liquid Perishable Hazardous (poetry – 2019), John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away (history – 2015), The Killer Poet's Guide to Immortality by AB Bard (hysterical novel - 2012), and historical novels Bones Beneath Our Feet (2011) and Just Deceits (2005). He edited Poets UNiTE! The LiTFUSE Anthology (2015). His poetry has received 3 Pushcart nominations and has been stuck to refrigerators by magnets. He founded LiTFUSE Poets' Workshop, and once upon a time he curated Duvall Poetry.
David Thornbrugh (May 5, 2021)
David Thornbrugh has misspent a lifetime happily spitting watermelon seeds into the vegetable patch of poetry, hoping opium poppies would be the result. In the open mic of his dreams, he sloshes NW microbrews with whomever pressed the Epic of Gilgamesh into clay tablets, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, and Federico Garcia Lorca.
Alexander Smith (April 7, 2021)
Alexander Smith, Seattle poet, has resided in the Seattle area since 1989, having grown up in southern California and is the father of three grown children.
His poetry dates from the mid-1960’s to now. Alex has been a longtime participant/reader of poetry at open mic venues like North End Forum, Hugo House and EasySpeak Seattle, and a sometime sit-in with the 52nd St Band. He plays harmonica and has developed a harmonica/poetry style to add to his spoken word. As for day jobs, Alex has had a long career in business, as well as university teaching in social sciences. Due to a deliciously mis-spent youth, he is still working his day job. Clare Chu (March 3, 2021)
Clare Chu was raised in Malta and England, and has adopted Palm Springs, CA. as her home. She is an art curator, dealer, lecturer and writer who has authored and published twelve books and numerous academic articles on Asian art. Her poetry is featured in a continuing collaboration with Hong Kong-based calligraphic and landscape painter, the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, in which poet and artist challenge and expand traditional media boundaries. Her poetry is published in The Perch, The Comstock Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal and the Raw Art Review amongst others. Clare's debut collection, The Sand Dune Teacher, was published by UnCollected Press in June, 2020. She is a 2021 Pushcart nominee.
Marie Hartung (February 3, 2021)
Marie Hartung writes from her living room recliner in the small-ish town of Monroe, WA. She earned two MFA’s in poetry and nonfiction from the Whidbey Island Writers’ Workshop MFA program and has a day job as a Realtor. Her poetry and nonfiction work has appeared in Slab, East Jasmine Review, Talking River, Poetry Quarterly, Thin Air, Whidbey Life Magazine, Soundings Review, Third Wednesday, Cordite Review, Perceptions Literary Magazine, River Poets Journal, Raven Chronicles and the anthology The Burden of Light. Her most recent poetry publications include Clackamas Review and the anthology, Hashag Queer Vol. #3. She was named a 2014 finalist for the Writers at Work Fellowship, 2014 finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose and 2019 Honorable Mention in Poetry at Write on the Sound. Annually, she is one of the judges for National Bisexual Book Awards, in 2021 for Memoir/Biography.
She has two sons age 15 and 17 who are the love of her life, although, NY pizza is a close second. She is working on finding a publisher for her full-length memoir, Apple Fallen Elsewhere, about finding out she was adopted as an adult and coming to terms with being bisexual. In her past life, she lead strategic diversity efforts at Microsoft and spoke and taught workshops on bisexuality in the workplace at through the national organization, Out and Equal. Liz Crain (December 2, 2020)
For Liz Crain, a trained sociologist, these are most interesting times, and documenting through her writings has helped bring context and reassurance in this age of insanity. Liz has experienced life on a verity of "stages", from rural Oklahoma to Manhatten, coast to coast, and many other international adventures. Now stewarding a farmstead in Duvall,WA, she spends much of her time cultivating restorative agriculture and animal husbandry. When not mucking the coop, planting native growth, or wrangling sheep and goats, Ms. Crain works on her social reflections in short stories, poetry, and collage. Her passions include connecting people to the natural world through naturalist exploration, mycology, and hunting conservation. She is a co-founder of “The Giraffe”, Duvall’s number one zine- promoting local creative arts. Her published work is scarce, owing to her belief in the fleeting moment of creative “genius”, and a need for impermanence in life. Liz’s legacy can be viewed in the landscape she tends, and reflected in her treatment of others.
Sierra Golden (November 4, 2020)
Sierra Golden graduated with an MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University. As winner of the 2018 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize, her debut collection The Slow Art was published by Bear Star Press. The Slow Art is also a finalist for the 2019 Washington State Book Award. Golden's poems appear in literary journals such as Prairie Schooner, Permafrost, and Ploughshares. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies by Hedgebrook, Hugo House, and The Elizabeth George Foundation. Although she calls Washington State home, Golden spent many summers in Alaska, working as a commercial fisherman. She now works in communications at Agros International, a nonprofit working to break the cycle of poverty among rural farmers in Central America.
Tanya McDonald (October 7, 2020)
Tanya McDonald (she/her) is known for her bright plumage and her love of birds. Her haiku, rengay, and haibun have appeared in various journals. She judged the 2014 Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest (with Michael Dylan Welch), the 2016 Haiku Poets of Northern California Rengay Contest, and the 2018 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational (with Jacquie Pearce and Paul Chambers). Last year, she edited the 2019 Haiku Society of America’s members’ anthology, A Moment’s Longing, which prepared her for the launch of her new, print haiku journal, Kingfisher in 2020. Also in 2020, she and Lew Watts were awarded first place in the first ever Garry Gay Rengay Contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America. A Touchstone Award winner and a New Resonance poet, Tanya lives in Woodinville.
Jen Lynn (September 2, 2020)
Jen Lynn is a student at Central Washington University, pursuing a BA in Teaching English/Language Arts, who recently, by divine intervention, fell headlong into the poetry abyss. She skillfully navigates unmarked roads at tumultuous speeds as mom to five and driving instructor to teens. She is a member of the Yakima Coffeehouse Poets, is involved with Inland Poetry’s annual poetry prowl, and is prone to wandering towards kittens in the wilderness, always picking up buttons at inappropriate times.
Savannah Slone (August 5, 2020)
Savannah Slone is a writer, editor, and English professor who currently dwells in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry and short fiction has appeared in or will soon appear in Glass: A Poetry Journal, Crab Creek Review, FIVE:2:ONE, Pidgeonholes, decomP magazinE, Crab Fat Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Hobart Pulp, and elsewhere. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Homology Lit and the author of Hearing the Underwater (Finishing Line Press, 2019). She enjoys reading, knitting, hiking, and discussing intersectional feminism. You can read more of her work at www.savannahslonewriter.com.
Laura LeHew (July 1, 2020)
Former girl scout Laura LeHew is obsessed with the creepy, creaky underbelly of life and whatever lies beyond. Widely published, her collections include: Buyer’s Remorse (Tiger’s Eye Press—Infinities) poems on abuse, Becoming (Another New Calligraphy) a non-linear discourse on alcoholism and dementia, Willingly Would I Burn, (MoonPath Press) themed around math and science, It’s Always Night, It Always Rains, (Winterhawk Press) murder/noir and Beauty (Tiger’s Eye Press) fairy tales. As a result of her recent residencies she was able to complete 3 manuscripts and is actively seeking homes for them: Let Widows Be Widows, Dear John, and What She Carries Concealed.
In her alternate life Laura has been active in the high-tech industry for over thirty-five years. Her company Deer Run Associates provides Computer Forensic investigations and Information Security consulting services to select clients across the United States, and throughout the world working with law enforcement and commercial organizations on some of the largest and most high-profile cybercrime cases in recent years. Laura received her MFA from the California College of the Arts. She is on the steering committee for the Lane Literary Guild and facilitates the 1st and 3rd critique group. Formerly Laura held various positions for the Oregon Poetry Association including President, Contest Chair and Cascadia editor, she co-hosted a reading series, Poetry for the People, which ran for 4 seasons and has received residencies to Hypatia-in-the-Wood, PLAYA, the Montana Artists Refuge and Soapstone. Laura owns and edits Uttered Chaos, a small press which publishes books of poetry by NW writers. She knows nothing of gardens or gardening but is well versed in the cultivation of cats. Find her here: utteredchaos.org lauralehew.com Sibyl James (June 3, 2020)
Sibyl James is the author of twelve books--poetry, fiction and travel memoirs--including In China with Harpo and Karl (Calyx Books), The Adventures of Stout Mama (Papier-Mache Press), China Beats (Egress Studio Press), The Grand Piano Range (Black Heron Press) and, most recently, Hard Goods & Hot Platters (Last Word Press). She has taught at colleges in the U.S., China, Mexico, and--as Fulbright professor--Tunisia and Cote d'Ivoire. Her writing has received awards from Artist Trust and the Seattle, King County and Washington State arts commissions.
Michael Haeflinger (May 6, 2020)
Originally from the Midwest, Michael Haeflinger is the author of two chapbooks, Love Poem for the Everyday (2011) and The Days Before (2014), both from Dog On A Chain Press. In 2016, he released Let's Don't Be Crazy, a spoken word album. His latest collection, Low Static Rage, will be published in September 2019 by Blue Cactus Press.
He is the recipient of the Rutgers-Camden Award for Community Engagement (2013), The Amocat Award for Community Engagement (2017), and a Tacoma Arts Initiative Program Award (2015). He is the Executive Director for Write253, a literary arts organization in Tacoma, WA. Rayn Roberts (April 1, 2020)
Rayn Roberts, studied American and British Poetry under legendary poet and professor, Dr. Lee Gerlach and Dr. Betsy Walsh at the University of San Diego. He is published in Anthologies: Illuminations, Expressions of the Personal Spiritual Experience (Celestial Arts an imprint of Ten Speed Pres, 2006), The Book of Hope (Beyond Borders Press, 2002), The World Healing Book (Beyond Borders Press, 2002) -- Journals: City Works, Rattle, Retort Magazine, The Seattle Star, San Diego Poetry Annual, The Pedestal Magazine, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Thunder Sandwich, Void Magazine and many others. He has extensively and taught English in Japan, S. Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, Hawaii, Spain, Canada and the U.S. He is heard on Radio KSER 90.7 Everett in Washington State; has read all over the nation and the west coast. In 2003, he toured various libraries, coffee houses, art centers and bars in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York and Brockton, Massachusetts. Currently, he hosts a well-established reading at the Green Lake Public Library in Seattle for PoetsWest featuring some of the best poets in Washington, Oregon and California along with an open mic. Find books and poems online or at his blog, “Poetry, Etc.” & Poets & Writers. He did a reading tour in the fall of 2018 of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales where he was invited to read by Geoff Haden at the birthplace of Dylan Thomas on the poets birthday October 27th. He has two books in print and is currently in the final stages of a thrid which will be out this year 2019.
Janka Hobbs (February 5, 2020)
Janka glanced at the bios for the other readers, and came down with a bad case of impostor syndrome. The rest of these people have written loads of books and won multiple awards! Janka occasionally reads at RASP open mike, where she hopes to make people laugh, mainly because she has trouble reading her more serious stuff out loud.
You can find Janka’s poems in Here, There and Everywhere, 56 Days of August, on urbanfantasist.com, and a few other places. She has also released several short stories into the wild. B.B. Ullman (January 8, 2020)
B.B. Ullman was born in Seattle where Dad was an electrician for Boeing and Mom was a secretary in the fire department. She had four brothers and one sister, and they were a scrappy lot. Despite hardship, conflict, and time, they remain her people.
B.B. graduated from WSU where she studied art. She married Jim Ullman, raised two girls, painted pictures, took care of Grandma, and, in 2006, published The Fairies of Nutfolk Wood, a Book Sense pick that received a star on Book List. Ullman was nominated to state awards for children's literature in Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Georgia. Whistle Bright Magic followed—another mid-grade novel that was a standalone sequel to Nutfolk Wood, mixing real kids and real concerns with a dash of enchantment. Now it’s Bad Order, an MG Sci-fi that’s a story of four working-class kids, three holograph aliens, and two men in black who must work together to find out why the aliens have suddenly come knocking—and figure out how to stop an interdimensional catastrophe on the brink. Paranormal meets action with a heartfelt twist. When negative thoughts threaten humanity, the biggest gun and smartest computers are useless. Hope lies in the strength and kindness of love. Jillian Ingram (December 4, 2019)
Jillian Ingram is a singer/songwriter, poet and activist from Albuquerque New Mexico. She earned her degrees from UW in mass media communications and sociology of law, politics and social policy in 2003 on the Marty Wilson memorial scholarship. Jillian worked in television and radio production and script development, and was an assistant producer on the Emmy nominated documentary film "Perfect Illusions: Eating Disorders and the Family." Frequently asked if she regrets choosing her music and poetry over "using her degrees" at this point in her life, she states that sociologists are people who study the world and document their findings, which is exactly what good poets do. She has published two books of poetry, and has been featured in books such as "Everett's Finest Poetry Anthology" as well as the literary magazine "Labor of Love" out of Toronto. Her band, Rare Birds and Rosemary, has created two demo albums followed by their first professionally produced record "Dollar Store Unicorn", which was released in 2017. She has been a featured poet at Everett Poetry Night, and is currently working on a project to draw attention to and end stigmatization and the abuse of mental health patients by hospitals in Washington State, using poetry as a tool to create that change. Jillian is much more skilled at the art of self-expression than she is at staying silent in the face of prejudice and ableism. Poetry for her is about shared humanity. It is impossible to write and consume large amounts of poetry and stay ignorant about ourselves or others. Poetry is an act of compassion for her.
C.W. Buckley (November 6, 2019)
A fourth-generation West Coast native, C.W. Buckley lives and works in Seattle with his family. Corporate by day, Catholic by faith, he graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Human Biology before earning an M.A. in Religion after spending two years as a chaplain resident at the Stanford and Packard Children’s Hospitals. His writing explores geek culture, conscience, faith, and fatherhood. Reading regularly at Easy Speak Seattle in that city’s northeast, his work is forthcoming in Catamaran and Image Journal and appears in Timberline Review, Raven Chronicles Journal, Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature, Rock & Sling | a journal of witness, Lummox Journal, POESY Magazine, and the Bay Area Poets Coalition Anthology 23. He is the author of BLUING, a chapbook from Finishing Line Press. You can follow him as @chris_buckley on Twitter.
Rose Alley Press (October 2, 2019)
Rose Alley Press was founded by David D. Horowitz in November 1995. It was named for the London street where, on December 18th, 1679, poet and playwright John Dryden was brutally beaten by three thugs. Apparently they were hired by an aristocrat who mistakenly attributed a satire's authorship to Dryden. Undaunted, Dryden continued writing. Inspired by such perseverance, Mr. Horowitz established Rose Alley Press to publish formal poetry, cultural commentary, and pamphlets about writing and publication.
In 2019, Rose Alley Press published Footbridge Above the Falls: Poems by Forty-Eight Northwest Poets, edited by David D. Horowitz. At this event. we will hear from several poets whose work appear in this book. Some advance praise of the book: Ranging from introspective to political, from philosophical to ecological, the poems of Footbridge Above the Falls delight the ear and mind. Enjoy these lyrical performances as you “Listen to the thunder of the sweet, old rhymes” —and these new ones. —Jennifer Bullis, author of Impossible Lessons Rose Alley Press has done it again! This bold collection of contemporary Pacific Northwest poetry holds a clear sense of voice. The reader is constantly reminded of how the sound of a poem informs the meaning. Alliteration, assonance, rhythm and rhyme, in new forms and old, help to express wisdom and wonder. —Griffith Williams, publisher, East Point West Press Daniel Edward Moore (September 4, 2019)
Daniel lives in Washington on Whidbey Island with the poet, Laura Coe Moore. His poems are forthcoming in Weber Review, Duende Literary Journal, Bluestem Magazine, Slipstream, Levee Magazine and The Blue Nib Magazine.
His chapbook, "Boys," is forthcoming from Duck Lake Books in December 2019. His first book, 'Waxing the Dents,' was a finalist for the Brick Road Poetry Book Prize and will be released in February 2020. His work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. Visit him at DanielEdwardMoore.com. Kathy Paul (August 7, 2019)
Kathy Paul is a survivor of many things, including cancer and downsizing. Her poems have appeared in Ekphrasis; Lunch Ticket; The Ekphrastic Review; Hospital Drive; Words Dance; The Fem; Stirring; and the Poetry on Buses Writing Home collection. In 2017, her poem Instructions for Daughters was nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets. She lives in Mukilteo, Washington.
Ken Osborne (July 3, 2019)
Ken Osborne was born and grew up in the UK. A disruptive child he walked out of school on his 16th birthday and ran away to sea (actually the ferries to France). After a working trip to New Zealand he bummed around England, eventually lied his way into a job in a large retail company and worked his way up to senior executive. He retired for health reasons. Ken has been writing poetry since he was 9 yrs old. He had a booklet and a number of poems published in magazines and won several competitions in the UK. He also ran the Cambridge Poetry Group for many years. His recent book ‘Within Without’ was produced by Third Place Books and his website kenspoetry.com includes recordings of many of his poems. He also writes and plays music and produces the occasional oil painting.
Cheryl Latif (June 5, 2019)
Originally from Southern California, Cheryl Latif attended a Seattle poetry conference in 2000, during which she fell in love with the area. She emigrated to the Northwest in 2001 and has never regretted the move.
Growing up with a mother busy acquiring a PhD in English, that home was much like her own private university. Writing poems since she was about 12 years old, she kept her writing to herself, though her mother found some of it and wrote her a wonderful note praising her work. Her poetry was first published in Between Sheets, a Cal State Stanislaus literary magazine (1978). It was her first ever submission (prompted by her mother, of course), and she swears it was simply beginner’s luck. She didn’t submit again for many years. Now her poems can now be found in a variety of local, regional and national publications such as New Millennium Writings, The Comstock Review, Spillway, How Luminous the Wildflowers, Magee Park Poets and others. While living on Bainbridge Island (where she originally landed), she participated in several annual public arts poetry projects which featured poems of hers in storefronts and hanging in the ferry terminal (these banners were up for more than two years). Cheryl served as curator/host of a popular weekly poetry reading in San Diego featuring poets from across the nation and across the pond. Hosted in a wonderful coffee house, the reading quickly grew to over 100 attendees each week. She has served as a judge for several local and regional poetry contests. Her poetry manuscript, body series, was a semi-finalist in The Word Works annual contest and continues to be a work in progress. A copywriter by trade, Cheryl relishes fooling with words and feels blessed that his passion fills her days. Donna James (May 1, 2019)
By the time Donna James started writing poetry seriously, she was already old. After long years of academic writing, she returned to the genre that was her first literary love, and is now an emerging poet at age 71. Last year she got serious about sending out her work. Soon, three hands-full of her poems will be in journals and books, a promising start.
Donna has spent thirty-five years meeting individuals and couples in the intimate confines of her psychotherapy consulting room. Her poetry gives voice to the stories of idiocy, affliction, spasms of hope, and resilience that are peculiar to the human psyche. Donna spends her money on art, clothes, and food. And books—she always has at least five of them going at once. Her one other art form is ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement. Dating back to the 7th century, it’s a meditative practice akin to the Japanese tea ceremony. She’s attracted to its ephemeral nature and how it teaches her to prune and simplify line and mass, great skills to apply to the writing of poetry. Laura Lee Bennett (April 3, 2019)
(Left) The author in 1990. Photo: Laura Heller. (Middle) Savvy Dani. Sans Serif, 2015. Collection of the Artist. www.savvydani.com. (Right) Chapbook cover illustration: Crystal Edwards
Laura Lee received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon in 1982. Soon after, she discovered Red Sky Poetry Theatre in Seattle, and was embraced by that community. Today she actively supports written and spoken arts in her Eastside community, including past service as president of the Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP). Recent contributions include poetry performances at “[R]evolution” (2015), an installation featuring five local artists/activists at Venues for Local Artists on the Eastside (VALA Eastside); poems for “Ekphrastic Assimilations” (2016), an interactive project that brought together visual artists and poets from China and the U.S; and collaboration with poets Elizabeth Carroll Hayden and Chi Chi Stewart on a retelling of the Persephone myth, I Am Not Cursed (2016). Snake Medicine (First Step) is Laura Lee’s first chapbook, drawn from a spoken word performance in the 1990s. Praise from the publisher: “in 1993 i had the pleasure of hearing this story with its passionate honesty poured from the author's mouth at the microphone of red sky poetry theatre. i was overwhelmed with its beauty and power, and wanted to see it in a book. times were busy and it didn't happen then. whenever i saw Laura Lee, i would speak of it, but the copies were lost for many years. toward the end of 2016 the manuscript was found and digitized, and we went to work. with help from two beautiful artists, we now have the book i wanted for so long.” ―margareta waterman, nine muses books Benjamin Schmitt (March 6, 2019)
Benjamin Schmitt is the Best Book Award and Pushcart nominated author of three books, most recently Soundtrack to a Fleeting Masculinity (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, Fall 2018). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Antioch Review, Hobart, Worcester Review, Columbia Review, Roanoke Review, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he has also written articles for The Seattle Times and At The Inkwell. He lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter.
Carolyne Wright (January 2, 2019)
Carolyne Wright’s latest book is This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2017), whose title poem received a Pushcart Prize and was included in The Best American Poetry 2009. Her co-edited anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse, 2015), received ten Pushcart Prize nominations and was a finalist in the Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Awards. She is author of nine previous books and chapbooks of poetry, a book of essays, and five volumes of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali, the latest of which is Map Traces, Blood Traces / Trazas de mapa, trazas de sangre (Mayapple Press, 2017), a bilingual sequence of poems by Seattle-based Chilean poet, Eugenia Toledo (featured at Duvall in September 2017). Wright teaches for Richard Hugo House and for national and international literary conferences and festivals. A Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prizes and a Senior Editor for Lost Horse Press, she lived in Chile and traveled in Brazil on a Fulbright Grant during the presidency of Salvador Allende. She has received grants from the NEA, 4Culture, and Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, among others, and returned to Brazil in mid-2018 on an Instituto Sacatar residency fellowship in Bahia.
https://carolynewright.wordpress.com 
This project was supported, in part, by a grant from 4Culture.
Griffith H. Williams (December 5, 2018)
Griffith H. Williams says: "Chapbooks and broadsides are the heart of my work. I learned to operate an antique printing press from my parents. It seemed natural, early on, to start printing my own poems with hand-carved linoleum block illustrations. The goal has been a chapbook a year, whenever possible. As of 2017, my current mark is twenty-three books over twenty-five years. Most often, my poems arise from formal verse structure and traditional bardic techniques. Topics celebrate history, nature, Wales, water, boats, children’s verse and more."
Jared Leising (November 7, 2018)
Jared Leising grew up in the Midwest, and is the author of a chapbook--
The Widows and Orphans of Winesburg, Ohio. Before moving to Seattle, he received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. In 2000, Jared began teaching English at Cascadia College, and continues to do so. This past year he’s also been teaching a creative writing class for women at the King County Jail. Emily Dietrich (Oct. 3, 2018)
Emily Dietrich writes novels and poetry. Searching for her own voice and encouraging others to find their own motivates her. Expressing and sharing emotion, hope, and comfort guide her content. Recent works are Holding True (Booktrope, 2013) The Angled Road, 2015, The Case of the Missing Mask and other Stories, (Puzzazz, 2012). Works in progress are: The Book of Forty, a novel; The Conjurer’s Almanaq, a puzzle book; and, constantly, poems. She has lived in Redmond for nineteen years.
Eugenia Hepworth Petty (Sept. 5, 2018)
Eugenia's writing and photography has appeared in a variety of literary journals, and she is the author of three chapbooks of poetry: Pamyat Selo, People Live Here and Instructions for the Apocalypse. She holds an MA in Poetics from New College of California, and studied film with the late great George Kuchar. Her artistic inspirations include: tape recorders, travelling for significant periods of time on trains and buses, silver salt.
http://www.eugeniahepworth.com/ T. Clear (August 1, 2018)
A founder of Floating Bridge Press, T. Clear’s poetry has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, most recently in Terrain.org, Scoundrel Time, UCity Review, Raven Chronicles, The Rise Up Review, and 56 Days of August/Poetry Postcards. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Award and Independent Best American Poetry Award. She is a lifelong resident of Seattle, and has the good fortune to spend her days inventing new color combinations to paint on sandblasted glass, allowing her to make her living as an artist.
WA 129 authors (June 6, 2018)
Featured authors:
Joanna Thomas ( Ellensburg) Penny K. Johnson (Ellensburg) Ed Stover (Yakima) Lynne Ellis (Seattle) Michael Dylan Welch (Seattle) Tanya McDonald (Seattle) Mary Crane emcees! Selected from thousands of submissions by Washington poets, WA129 boasts the overwhelming talent of its artists. Honoring Washington’s 129 years, this work features 129 notable authors, some published for the first time in this collection, currently living in Washington. Every author has a tie to Washington, whether born and raised in the state or those who have come to find a home here. Each poem beautifully describes a deep felt connection to Washington through poems of cherished hometowns, Washington’s wonderous landscapes, racial divisions and cultures, experiences only found in this great state, and a variety of other topics. This is an expansive and memorable collection of voices. Notable authors include Elizabeth Austen (Washington Poet Laureate 2014-2016), Sherman Alexie, Linda Bierds, Kathleen Flenniken (Washington Poet Laureate 2012-2014), Tess Gallagher, Samuel Green (Inaugural Washington Poet Laureate), Christopher Howell, Richard Kenney, Heather McHugh, Laura Read, Tom Robbins, Katrina Roberts, Derek Sheffield, Martha Silano, Nance Van Winckel, Katharine Whitcomb, and Maya Jewell Zeller. The independent and poet-owned BookTree was the vendor for WA129. Cynthia Neely (May 2, 2018)
Cynthia Neely is the 2016 winner of the Bright Hill Press chapbook contest for Passing Through Blue Earth and the 2011 winner of the Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment chapbook contest for Broken Water. Her essay work has appeared in The Writers’ Chronicle and her poems in numerous journals including Pontoon, Bellevue Literary Review (runner up for the Jan and Marica Vilcek poetry prize as judged by Marie Ponsot), Crab Creek Review, Raven Chronicles, Terrain.org and in several anthologies. Her full-length book, Flight Path, was published in 2014 as a finalist in the Aldrich Press book contest. Her chapbook Hopewell Bay which consists of one long hybrid poem is forthcoming from Seven Kitchens Press. She is the recent co winner - shared with Joseph Powell - of the 2016 Paula Jones Gardiner Memorial Award from Floating Bridge Press.
Chris Jarmick (April 4, 2018)
Christopher J. Jarmick is a writer/poet and the owner of Kirkland, Washington’s only independent full service new and gently used bookstore – BookTree (website: http://www.booktreekirkland.com/). He has curated and hosted regularly scheduled poetry nights and special events in the Puget Sound area since 2001. His newest collection of poetry, Not Aloud, was published in September 2015 by MoonPath Press; other books include IGNITION: Poem Starters, Septolets, Statements and Double Dog Dares (2010), The Glass Cocoon – a mystery thriller he cowrote with Serena F. Holder, & Poems for the Middle Class (out of print). When he has time he still updates his POETRYisEverything blog (google it as one word). His poetry, articles, reviews and interviews have appeared in a wide variety of online and print journals, magazines, newspapers and anthologies.
Born on the East Coast he migrated to Los Angeles in 1975 to co-write and contribute to several screenplays and worked in several capacities including editor, producer, writer and director at PBS, Paramount and Fox contributing to award winning documentaries and television shows and creating segments for programs like Hard Copy and Entertainment Tonight. He relocated to Seattle in 1994 and co-produced a radio talk show and then became a Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley (later Waddell and Reed) before freelancing as a consultant and technical writer. Then he decided to open a bookstore! He now lives in Kirkland, Washington. Raúl Sánchez (March 7, 2018)
Raúl Sánchez is a Seattle Bio-Tech technician, translator, and occasional DJ at KBCS 91.3 FM community radio. He was featured in the 2011 Burning Word Poetry Festival in Leavenworth WA. Raul’s inaugural collection "All Our Brown-Skinned Angels" was nominated for the 2013 Washington State Book Award in Poetry. He was a 2014 Jack Straw Fellow, mentor and judge for the 2014 Poetry on Buses, and TEDx participant in Yakima WA. His work appeared on-line in The Sylvan Echo, Flurry, Gazoobitales, Pirene’s Fountain, on bookmarks by the Seattle Public Library 2007 Poetic Art Project, in the 2008 Floating Bridge Review Volume 1 “Poetry from the left corner” also in the 2010 winter issue of toddbosspoet.com/Flurry Vol. 3, in the second Anthology by The Miracle Theatre Viva la Word!, Latino Cultural Magazine, Real Change, in the Anthology Speaking Desde las Heridas (Publisher: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), in the Raven Chronicles, Clover, Ghost Town Poetry, Randomly Accessed Poetics, Lowriting, The Smoking Poet, Poetry of Resistance, Shake the Tree. Translated the continuation of John Burgess’ "Punk Poems" and may times on “La Bloga” among others. He teaches a yearly workshop on The Day of the Dead. He is currently working on a Memoir in Free Verse. This year he will join the PONGO team mentoring youth in detention. Raúl will be teaching poetry in Spanish through the residency program in 2018 for the Writers In The Schools Project part of Seattle Arts and Lectures at a High School in Burien, WA. Raúl's website is at www.tlatlaliani.com.
Dennis Caswell (Feb. 7, 2018)
Dennis Caswell is the author of the poetry collection Phlogiston (Floating Bridge Press, 2012). His work has appeared in Bluestem, Crab Creek Review, Poetry Northwest, Rattle, and assorted other journals and anthologies. He lives outside Woodinville, Washington and works as a software engineer in the aviation industry. His dorky and not-very-compatible website may be found at denniscaswell.com.
Peter Munro (January 3, 2018)
By day Peter Munro counts fish, conducting research fishing cruises in the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. After the field season they chain him to a computer in Seattle, permitting occasional visits to his wife and children between parameter estimations. By night, Munro makes poems, some of which have been published or are forthcoming in Poetry, the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Iowa Review, the Birmingham Poetry Review, Passages North, The Cortland Review, The Valparaiso Poetry Review, Compose, Rattle, The Literary Review, Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Munro’s second most recent publication is in the on-line journal, concīs, a poem entitled Turn Around. Munro’s most recent publication is in the journal Fishery Bulletin, a poem entitled The effects of wave-induced vessel motion on the geometry of a bottom survey trawl and the herding of yellowfin sole (Limanda aspera), on which he is listed as third author, which is why the title is so crappy. Listen to more poems at www.munropoetry.com, where you will also find an iron-clad guarantee. David D. Horowitz (December 6, 2017)
David D. Horowitz founded and manages Rose Alley Press, which publishes books featuring Northwest formal poetry and an annually updated booklet about writing and publishing. His latest poetry collections are Stars Beyond the Battlesmoke (2008), Sky Above the Temple (2012), and Cathedral and Highrise (2015). David's poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The New Formalist, The Lyric, Candelabrum, The Smoking Poet, and Here, There, and Everywhere. His essays regularly appear in the online journal Exterminating Angel. David frequently organizes and hosts readings in the Seattle area, and he maintains a website: www.rosealleypress.com.
Kelle Grace Gaddis (November 1, 2017)
In December of 2016, Yellow Chair Press published Kelle Grace Gaddis’s My Myths. Other recently published works appear in Chicken Soup For The Soul, Rhetoric Askew, Dispatches Editions, Vending Machine Press, BlazeVOX, Knot Magazine, Entropy and elsewhere. Ms. Gaddis is one of 4Culture’s “Poetry on the Buses” contest winners in 2015 and 2017 She earned her MFA from the University of Washington in 2014.
Michael Schmeltzer (Oct. 14, 2017)
Michael Schmeltzer’s debut full-length “Blood Song” is a finalist for the WA State Book Award in Poetry. His other books include a lyric exploration of addiction entitled “A Single Throat Opens” written in collaboration with Meghan McClure and the chapbook “Elegy/Elk River,” winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award.
Eugenia Toledo & Carolyne Wright (Sept. 6, 2017)
Eugenia Toledo was born in Temuco, Chile, grew up in the same neighborhood as Pablo Neruda, completed higher degrees in Spanish, and came to the U.S. for doctoral studies after her university instructorship was terminated following the 1973 military coup. She received an M.A. in Latin American Literature and a Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from the University of Washington, and settled in Seattle to teach and write. She has published four books of poetry and a creative writing text in Spanish. Her new, 4Culture award-winning bilingual poetic sequence is Trazas de mapa, trazas de sangre / Map Traces, Blood Traces (translated by Carolyne Wright, Mayapple Press, 2017), the story of an exile's return to her homeland after the military coup that sent her away for decades. With her husband, Eugenia divides her time between Temuco and Seattle.
Carolyne Wright’s ground-breaking anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse Press, 2015), co-edited with Eugenia Toledo, received10 Pushcart Prize nominations and was a finalist in Foreword Review's Book of the Year Awards. Her nine volumes of poetry include Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire (Blue Lynx Prize, American Book Award); and A Change of Maps (Lost Horse Press), an Alice Fay di Castagnola Award finalist. Soon to appear is This Dream the World: New and Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2017). Carolyne, who lived in Chile and traveled in Brazil on a Fulbright Grant during the presidency of Salvador Allende, has also published five award-winning volumes of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali. She returned to her native Seattle in 2005, and teaches for Hugo House, the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA Program, the NILA Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program for its entire 2005-2016 existence, and for conferences and festivals around the country. Carolyn Agee (August 2, 2017)
Carolyn Agee is an actress and author whose work is inspired by her experiences teaching English overseas and a passion for performing Shakespeare. When she isn’t suffering from existential depression, she enjoys petrichor, walking down unknown forest trails and intimate gatherings of kindred spirits. Her forthcoming books include the multi-genre chapbook "Drowning Ophelia" (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2017) and the YA novella "The Ambiguous Tides of Saudade" (Wolfsinger Publications, 2017).
Website: http://sites.google.com/view/ carolynagee/ Robert Lashley (June 7, 2017)
A 2016 Jack Straw Fellow, Artist Trust Fellow, and nominee for a Stranger Genius Award, Robert Lashley has had poems published in such journals as Feminete, Seattle Review Of Books, NAILED, Drunk In a Midnight Choir, and The Cascadia Review. His work was also featured in Many Trails To The Summit, an anthology of Northwest form and Lyric poetry. His full-length book: The Homeboy Songs, was published by Small Doggies press in April 2014. His new book, Up South, will be out in March 2017.
Chi Chi Stewart, Elizabeth Carroll Hayden, and Laura Lee Bennett (May 3, 2017)
"I Am Not Cursed"—Persephone Retold
We took the Greek myth of Persephone's abduction. We each took on the persona of one of the three main characters—Demeter, Persephone, and Hades. Not only did we experience the myth in a new way, but we also had our characters and poems interact with each other. So the work is a kind of hybrid. We performed it onstage locally to do some final tuneups to the play of the language as well as the story arc, which changed itself a bit. The work turned out to be about a dysfunctional family that finds a way to get along. At the age of 10, Chi Chi Stewart hid out in an abandoned chicken house on a near-by farm in South Jersey where she grew up, and wrote stories. She later earned a nursing degree and worked for 14 years in different health care settings both here and abroad. She was an at-home mom starting with the birth of her third child. The third was quickly followed by a fourth. 19 years later, while the nest was emptying out, she spent two bold years at Gage Academy in Seattle learning landscape painting and continued to write. Her poems have been published locally, and people seem to like her art well enough to buy it from time to time. Currently she works as a community instructor training people to be home health care aides. She believes that knowledge can lead to compassion and dearly hopes that no act of creativity is ever wasted. After nearly entering the Underworld while canoeing around Deadman’s Island near La Connor, Elizabeth Carroll Hayden decided writing was safer. Teacher by day, poet by night, she is currently working on her MFA at the University of British Columbia. She is a past board member of Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP). She has two poems published in the RASP Anthology Here, There, Everywhere, and for the Redmond Poet Laureate Project for Redmond Centennial Poetry Anthology 10x10, she wrote ekphrastic poems in response to ten historical photos. She loved channeling Hades from the Underground, although she isn’t interested in meeting him anytime too soon. When she isn’t working on her young adult novel in verse, This Red Earth, she can be found Foxtrotting so far, a safer pastime than canoeing. Over her 15th summer, Laura Lee Bennett took her first ride on a Harley with a lifeguard named Daryl. Persephone, the eternal punk daughter, became her alter ego. She now channels Persephone on a daily basis. Laura Lee received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon. In Seattle, she discovered Red Sky Poetry Theatre, and was embraced by that community. She is a past president of Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP), and actively supports the written and spoken arts in her community. Recently, she was invited to participate in Ekphrastic Assimilations, an interactive project through VALA Eastside, Pacific Lutheran University, and ryan james fine art, designed to bring together visual artists and poets from China and the United States. Laura Lee has a chapbook forthcoming from nine muses books, a short story called Snake Medicine. Jenessa Hope, Ginna Luck, and Kara Simon (April 5, 2017)
Jenessa Hope makes mosaic and erasure poems exploring midlife evolution and other things. Her little sister once said they were like tiny, perfect snowflakes. Jenessa is also a magical dress up wizard and loves doing erasure poetry fortunes at the Punk Rock Flea Market. Ginna Luck's work can be read in Hermeneutic Chaos Journal, Radar Poetry, Gone Lawn, decomP, Bodega and more. She is nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has a MFA from Goddard College. Kara Simon earned a PhD in psychology, studying topics like teams and personality. She is the President of the Redmond Association of Spokenword and runs a critique group at the Redmond Library. When not writing, she enjoys collecting hobbies, such as knitting, acting, and playing Dungeons & Dragons. Her work has appeared in Sonic Boom Journal, Snakeskin, and Poplorish. Check out her blog at https://ksimonwriterblog.wordpress.com/. Joannie Stangeland (March 1, 2017)
Joannie Stangeland is the author of In Both Hands and Into the Rumored Spring from Ravenna Press, and the chapbooks A Piece of Work, Weathered Steps, and A Steady Longing for Flight, which won the Floating Bridge Press chapbook award. Her poems have also appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, The Southern Review, and other journals. Joannie has been a Jack Straw writer, and she is currently enrolled in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program.
Michael Schein (Jan. 4, 2017)
MICHAEL SCHEIN is an author, attorney, historian, lively speaker, and former professor of American Legal History. Find out more at www.michaelschein.com.
Sibyl James (Dec. 7, 2016)
Sibyl James is the author of eleven books--poetry, fiction and travel memoirs--including In China with Harpo and Karl (Calyx Books), The Adventures of Stout Mama (Papier-Mache Press), China Beats (Egress Studio Press), and, most recently, The Grand Piano Range (Black Heron Press). She has taught at colleges in the U.S., China, Mexico, and--as Fulbright professor--Tunisia and Cote d'Ivoire. Her writing has received awards from Artist Trust and the Seattle, King County and Washington State arts commissions.
Emcee: Michael Schein Tod Marshall (November 2, 2016)
Tod Marshall was born in Buffalo, NY. His first collection of poetry, Dare Say, was the 2002 winner of the University of Georgia’s Contemporary Poetry Series. He has also published a collection of his interviews with contemporary poets, Range of the Possible (EWU Press, 2002), and an accompanying anthology of the interviewed poets’ work, Range of Voices (2005). These volumes include interviews with and poems by Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Robert Wrigley, Brenda Hillman, Dorianne Laux, Kim Addonizio, Ed Hirsch, Yusef Komunyakaa, and others. In 2005, he was awarded a Washington Artists Trust Fellowship. His second collection of poetry, The Tangled Line (Canarium Books, 2009) was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. His most recent collection, Bugle, was published by Canarium in 2014 and was the 2015 winner of the Washington State Book Award. In 2015, he was awarded the Humanities Washington Award for creativity and service. He lives in Spokane, Washington, and teaches creative writing and literature at Gonzaga University where he is the Robert and Ann Powers Chair in the Humanities. From 2016-18, he will serve as Washington's Poet Laureate.
Sponsored by Arts WA and Humanities Washington, the poet laureate builds awareness and appreciation of poetry throughout the state. Ann Tweedy (October 5, 2016)
Photo by Karen Wolf Ann Tweedy’s first full-length book, The Body’s Alphabet, was published by Headmistress Press in August 2016. She also has published two chapbooks: Beleaguered Oases (tcCreativePress 2010) and White Out (Green Fuse Press 2013). Her poetry has appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Rattle, damselfly press, Lavender Review, literary mama, Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly, and elsewhere. Ann is currently a student in Hamline University’s Master of Fine Arts Program. Originally from Southeastern Massachusetts, she has lived in many places on the West Coast and in the Midwest and now makes her home in Washington State. In addition to writing poetry and essays, she is also a law professor and a practicing attorney who represents Indian Tribes. Shane Guthrie (September 7, 2016)
Shane Guthrie currently lives in the beautiful Snoqualmie Valley in the town of Duvall, WA. He says: "I’ve been writing poetry since 1993 and don’t seem to be able to stop. As far as accomplishments go, I'm please to have been included in the King County 'poetry on buses' 2015. My other hobbies include hiking, playing board games, gardening, and acrylic painting."
Michael Schmeltzer (Aug. 3, 2016)
Michael Schmeltzer is the author of Elegy/Elk River, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award, and Blood Song, his full-length debut from Two Sylvias Press. He earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. His honors include numerous Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gulf Stream Award for Poetry, and the Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Prize. His writing has been published or is forthcoming in various journals such as Black Warrior Review, Rattle, PANK, and Mid-American Review,among others.
Quinton Hallett (July 6, 2016)
Quinton Hallett, east coaster happily transplanted to Noti, has three chapbooks and founded Fern Rock Falls Press in 2004. Recent poems appear in Cirque, Turn, The Knotted Bond, and december. Quinton coordinated a reading series and high school poet visits for the Oregon Poetry Association. Her first full-length collection, Mrs. Schrödinger’s Breast, was published by Uttered Chaos.
Jim Bertolino & Anita K. Boyle (June 1, 2016)
James Bertolino taught literature and creative writing for 36 years, and retired following a position as Writer-in-Residence at Oregon’s Willamette University in 2006. His 11th volume of poetry, Every Wound Has A Rhythm, was published by World Enough Writers in 2012, and Ravenous Bliss: New & Selected Love Poems, was published by MoonPath Press in 2014. Five of his books have issued from presses associated with Princeton University, Cornell University, Brown University and Carnegie-Mellon University, and he has received several national awards—including a Book-of-the-Month Club Poetry Fellowship as an undergraduate, the Discovery Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and two Quarterly Review of Literature Book Awards. He lives on five acres near Bellingham, Washington.
Anita K. Boyle is an artist, poet, and publisher of Washington State poets. Her poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Indiana Review, The Raven Chronicles, StringTown, Clover and Cranky, and others. Her books include What the Alder Told Me, published by MoonPath Press in 2011, and The Drenched: A Creation Myth for the Pacific Northwest, Egress Studio Press, 2014, and Bamboo Equals Loon. She enjoys making assemblages, books, and paper as a way to visually “speak" about the landscape and our environment.
Emcee: Michael Schein Shankar Narayan (May 4, 2016)
Shankar Narayan’s writing explores identity in a world where the body is flung across borders yet possesses unrivaled power to transcend them. Shankar's work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and he is a 2016 Kundiman Fellow. Shankar works for social justice and builds community in Seattle, where he awakens to the wonders of Cascadia every day, and where his heart yearns east to his other hometown, Delhi.
Eileen McCabe (April 6, 2016)
Eileen McCabe, while a native of the Boston area, lived in Utah for 20 years, and has been in Washington almost 2 years. She is the mother of 2 children with whom she has collaborated on art and poetry projects. After an abbreviated career as a theatrical costume designer, she settled into the 9-5 life as a software engineer to keep body and soul together while writing, collaging and pursuing avant-garde costume projects. While she has written essays for years, she only began writing poetry about 13 years ago.
Eileen has self-published 3 chapbooks. She was published in “Utah Voices," as part of the “Nine Muses” poetry/art project, and the “Poetry on Canvas” poetry/art project. She was a member of the Utah State Poetry Society, and placed in national competitions. Most recently, she took first place in the Iron Pen poetry category at the 2011 Utah Arts Festival. She is a regular at the Everett Poetry Night at Café Zippy. Jessica Gigot (March 2, 2016)
Jessica Gigot, Ph.D., M.F.A, is a poet, farmer, teacher and musician. Her small farm in Bow, WA –Harmony Fields – grows herbs, lamb and produce. She offers educational and art workshops through her Art in the Barn series, and has an academic background in horticulture and plant pathology. Jessica has lived in the Skagit Valley for over ten years and is deeply connected to the artistic and agricultural communities that coexist in the region. Her first collection of poems, Flood Patterns, was published by Antrim House Books in November 2015 and her writing has been published in the Floating Bridge Press Review and Poetry Northwest.
Brandon Pitts (February 3, 2016)
Seattle area-based Canadian poet Brandon Pitts is the author of the poetry collection, Tender in the Age of Fury (2015 Mosaic Press). Pitts first came onto the Toronto lit scene in 2010 with the short story “The BC Crib,” published in the anthology Canadian Voices Volume II. In 2011, he was inducted into the prestigious Diaspora Dialogues as an “Emerging Voice” for fiction. He followed this with his novel Puzzle of Murders (2011) and then a poetry collection Pressure to Sing (2012) and the production of three plays. He is now based in Everett, Washington and is a prominent figure in the city’s poetry scene.
Natasha Moni (January 6, 2016)
Natasha Kochicheril Moni, a first-generation American born to native Dutch and Indian parents, grew up in the Witchduck area of Virginia Beach, VA. She has no doubt, given her studies of naturopathic medicine, that she would have been pitched in the Lynnhaven inlet years ago or maybe even now, considering the South.
Her first full-length poetry collection, The Cardiologist's Daughter, was released by Two Sylvias Press in late 2014. Her writing has appeared in over fifty journals including: Luna Luna, Magma Poetry, [PANK], Rattle, Hobart, Verse, and DIAGRAM. http://www.natashamoni.com Debby Bacharach (December 2, 2015)
Debby Bacharach is the author of After I Stop Lying (Cherry Grove Collections, 2015). Her poems and essays have been published in journals nationally and internationally including The Antigonish Review, Arts & Letters, Calyx, Cimarron Review, New Letters and Poet Lore; been anthologized in A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-Five Years of Women's Poetry; and nominated for a Pushcart prize. She has been the featured reader at poetry readings in Boston, Seattle, South Bend, and Minneapolis. She is currently a poetry reader for The American Journal of Nursing.
Educated at Swarthmore College and the University of Minnesota, Debby lives in Seattle with her family. She is a college writing instructor, editor, and tutor and teaches poetry workshops for children. Find out more about her at DeborahBacharach.com. November 4, 2015: wren thompson-wynn
wren thompson-wynn is a poet, teacher, and artist who lives in Washington with her poetess-wife, their dog-cat Strega No-no, and four oddly unique fish. She and her wife have five amazing kids. Many of wren's original paintings are in private collections as well as businesses in Texas and have been included in a gallery show in Dallas. Her small-print art chapbook, Chrysalis, combines her poetry with her art. She is currently working on her Master's and first full-length manuscript.
Terry Martin (October 7, 2015)
Terry Martin earned a B.A. from Western Washington University and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. An English Professor at Central Washington University, she is the recipient of CWU's Distinguished Professor Teaching Award and the CASE/Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year Award. Her poems, essays, and articles have appeared in hundreds of publications and she has edited books, journals and anthologies. Her first book of poems, Wishboats, won the Judges' Choice Award at Seattle's Bumbershoot Book Fair in 2000; her second book, The Secret Language of Women, was published in 2006. Her new book of poems, The Light You Find, was published by Blue Begonia Press in September, 2014. She lives with her family in Yakima, Washington.
Chris Jarmick (Sept. 2, 2015)
Christopher J. Jarmick is a writer/poet who has curated and hosted regularly scheduled poetry nights, and special events in the Puget Sound area since 2001. His newest collection of poetry Not Aloud is due out by September 2015 from Moon Path Press. His last collection: IGNITION: Poem Starters, Septolets, Statements and Double Dog Dares was published in 2010. His frequently updated blog is PoetryIsEverything (google it as one word). His first poem was published when he was 12, he cowrote the novel The Glass Cocoon (2001), wrote the award winning one act play: Clash of Cultures, published articles, poetry and interviews in a variety of print magazines, newspapers and literary journals (including Los Angeles Magazine, Seattle Weekly, Poetry Quarterly, Real Change, Raven Chronicles, Chrysanthemum, Cambridge Book Review, Military Times, South District Journal and many others) and in several anthologies: Poeming Pigeons (2015 - Poetry Box), Many Trails to the Summit (2010 - Rose Alley Press), Jump Start (2009-steel toe books), Between Sleeps (2006 - en theos Press), and others. He has also published numerous articles, book and film reviews, interviews and his online film reviews have more than 3 million views.
Currently his short poem Dear Poem Owner is riding two King County Rapid Ride buses and the bus stop at 3rd and Bell in downtown Seattle features his poem along with a larger-than-life-size picture. After co-writing and working on several screenplays in Los Angeles he worked in several capacities including editor, producer, writer and director at PBS, Paramount and Fox contributing to award winning documentaries and television shows and creating segments for programs like Hard Copy and Entertainment Tonight. Born on the east coast, he moved to Los Angeles in 1975 and in 1994 he re-located to Seattle, co-produced a radio talk show and then became a Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley (later Waddell and Reed). He has been married to Teresa since 2010 and their blended families includes 8 children and one grandchild. Duane Kirby Jensen (August 5, 2015)
Duane Kirby Jensen is a painter and poet from Everett, WA. As a child in Stanwood, WA, he was inspired by watching his grandmother and grandaunt paint scenes of their community. His art has appeared on numerous book, CD, and magazine covers, plus each of his own chapbooks. As a poet, Duane has read throughout the Northwest since 1990 and has been published in over twelve chapbooks and dozens of other publications. The underlying theme of his work evokes those places which linger beneath the surface, underscoring the narrative of being, the fragility of identity, the gravity of emotion, and the ease in which it can be lost. He explores social injustice, documenting the plight of the few. He attempts to give a voice, visually and poetically, to the dead, and the need for accountability. As a counterbalance to what people might term “his dark poems,” Duane also pens poems that are playful and extremely sexy—poems that touch the heart by bringing memories to life. His work often combines a sense of “magical realism” and what he refers to as “emotional realism.” Since September 2013, Duane has hosted Everett Poetry Nite, which meets every Thursday night. Duane received the 2013 Mayor’s Arts Award for Artistic Excellence & Contribution to Everett’s
Cultural Vitality. See https://www.facebook.com/duanekirbyjensen.
Nancy Pagh (July 1, 2015)
Nancy Pagh has authored two award-winning collections of poetry (No Sweeter Fat and After) and has a book about creative writing (Write Moves) coming from Broadview Press next year. Her poems appear most recently in Pif Magazine, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Canadian Literature, Conversations across Borders, and A Sense of Place: The Washington State Geospatial Poetry Anthology. She took second prize (of 4,484 entries) in the 2014 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest and recently judged the Concrete Wolf chapbook competition. She teaches at Western Washington University in Bellingham. More at nancypagh.com.
Risa Denenberg (June 3, 2015)
Risa Denenberg lives a quiet life on the Olympic peninsula. She has worked in the cracks of healthcare for four decades in HIV/AIDS care, end-of-life care, and currently, in chronic pain management. She is a volunteer for Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group that assists people who wish to use the Washington State Death with Dignity law. Her poetry often reveals an intimate portrait of aging, suffering and death.
Risa is a moderator at The Gazebo, an online poetry board; reviews poetry for the American Journal of Nursing; and is a co-founder of Headmistress Press, an independent publisher of poetry by lesbians. Risa’s poems have appeared in print and online journals over many years. Recent publications include three chapbooks: what we owe each other & In My Exam Room (The Lives You Touch Publications, 2013 and 2014); and blinded by clouds (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2014); and a full length book, Mean Distance from the Sun (Aldrich Press, 2013). May 6, 2015: Raúl Sánchez
Raúl Sánchez, a Seattle Bio-Tech technician, eschatologist, colletic, prosody enthusiast, hamartiologist, translator, DJ and cook who conducts workshops on The Day of the Dead in Tieton WA. Featured in the program for the 2011 Burning Word Poetry Festival in Leavenworth WA. Board member of the Washington Poets Association, Los Norteños writers group and recently a moderator for the Poets Responding to SB 1070 Facebook page. His work appeared in the second Anthology by The Miracle Theatre Viva la Word!, in several Latino Newspapers, on the Latino Northwest Magazine, Latino Cultural Magazine, on bookmarks by the Seattle Public Library 2007 Poetic Art Project. Also in the 2008 Floating Bridge Review Volume 1. His work has appeared on-line in the Sylvan Echo, Flurry, Gazoobitales, Pirene's Fountain and several times in the La Bloga. His most recent work is the translation of John Burgess' "Graffito" released by Ravenna Press. Also he appears in the Occupy San Francisco Anthology by Jambu Press, in the Anthology Speaking Desde las Heridas (Publisher: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico).
Michael Dylan Welch (April 1, 2015)
Michael Dylan Welch is poet laureate of Redmond, Washington, a longtime officer of the Haiku Society of America, founder and chief bottle washer for National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo.com), director of the annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway for the Haiku Northwest group, and curator for SoulFood Poetry Night, the Redmond Association of Spokenword, and poetry readings for Eastside Writes. He is also a cofounder and director of the Haiku North America conference, cofounder of the American Haiku Archives, and founder of the Tanka Society of America. He has published his poems, essays, and reviews in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including three Norton anthologies, in at least twenty languages, and he has won first prize in or judged dozens of poetry contests. He's a judge for the Writer's Digest Poem-a-Day challenge in April 2015, and recently judged contests for the North Carolina Poetry Society and RaedLeaf Poetry India. A poem translated from Japanese with Emiko Miyashita, from one of their numerous art books published by PIE Books in Tokyo, appeared on the back of 150,000,000 U.S. postage stamps in 2012. Michael's latest book is True Colour, a collection of linked haiku in the rengay form, published in December of 2014. His personal website is www.graceguts.com, devoted mostly to poetry. He's directing the free Poets in the Park festival in Redmond on June 20, 2015, and invites all poets to attend.
Matthew Brouwer (March 4, 2015)
Matthew Brouwer is a performance poet and teaching artist residing in Bellingham, WA. His work bridges the worlds of spoken word and literary poetry to create a style that can be both evocative and subtle, enlivening and profound. He has performed throughout the west and been featured in regional literary, performance, and visual arts showcases such as Cirque,Phrasings, and Strands. Matthew leads workshops and retreats for teens and adults, coordinates the Whatcom Juvenile Justice Creative Writing Project, and has facilitated Kintsugi: a writing circle for people suffering chronic medical conditions. He is the author of five poetry chapbooks: Cannonball Island, Men Who Walk with Canes, and The Gospel According to Matthew (Parts I, II & III). Matthew Brouwer's website is matthewbrouwerpoet.com.
Talena Lachelle Queen (February 4, 2015)
The poet, Talena Lachelle Queen, earned her MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell. She specializes in poetry that infuses music. She began her creative writing practice at five years old. She majored in Creative Writing at Rosa Parks School of Performing Arts in Paterson, New Jersey and she teaches writing at a variety of elementary schools and for nonprofit organizations.
Kate Brougham (January 7, 2015)
Kate has resided in the Snoqualmie Valley for 43 years, teaching in the local school district for 31 years. Her time in the valley and its schools has given her a lot to contemplate, as well as plenty of poetic material. Sadly, many of Kate's poetry journals were lost over the years. Nonetheless, Kate's writing continued to be profoundly inspired by her work with young children. She wrote poems with her students, enjoying their joy in words. Bringing kids to literature through good books with fantastic art and poetry ignited Kate's own creativity. Now that Kate is retired, she has time for words again. Kate wishes to thank Duvall Poetry for spurring her to write.
Priscilla Long (Dec. 3, 2014)
PRISCILLA LONG is a Seattle-based author and teacher of writing. Her book of poems,Crossing Over, is forthcoming from the University of New Mexico Press. Her other books are The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life andWhere the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry. Her shorter works include science, poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction, and her column, Science Frictions, appeared on the website of The American Scholar for 92 weeks (2011-2013). Her work has appeared in The Tampa Review, The Gettysburg Review, Women's Review of Books, Post Road, Raven Chronicles, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, Web Conjunctions, Alaska Quarterly Review, Fourth Genre, Passages North, Bosque, and elsewhere. Her awards include a National Magazine Award, and she has been a fellow at Hedgebrook, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and Jack Straw Productions. Her MFA is from the University of Washington. She serves as Founding and Consulting Editor ofwww.historylink.org, the online encyclopedia of Washington state history. For more information please visit www.PriscillaLong.com and PriscillaLong.org.
Holly Hughes (Nov. 5, 2014)
HOLLY J. HUGHES is author of Sailing by Ravens (University of Alaska Press, 2014), co-author of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World (Skinner House Press, 2012), editor of the award-winning anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease (Kent State University Press, and author of the chapbook Boxing the Compass (Floating Bridge Press, 2007).
A graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program and a recipient of an Artist Trust Fellowship, her poems and essays have appeared in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines. In addition to teaching writing at Edmonds Community College for more than 25 years, she has also taught writing workshops at Edmonds Write on the Sound, Fishtrap, the North Cascades Institute, Field’s End, and LitFuse, among others. She has spent over thirty summers working on the water in Alaska in a variety of roles, including commercial fishing for salmon, skippering a 65-foot schooner, and most recently, working as a naturalist on ships. Donald Kentop (September 3, 2014)
DONALD KENTOP graduated from NYU and Columbia. After retirement, he began writing poetry, completed the Writers Program at The University of Washington, and has appeared at numerous area venues. He was a Jack Straw writer for 2004, and a 2005 Seattle Poet Populist finalist. Don’s far ranging poetry has appeared in Mute Note Earthward, Tattoos On Cedar, 2004 Jack Straw Anthology, Chrysanthemum, and Limbs of the Pine, Peaks of the Ridge. He has served on the board of the Washington Poets Association, was a Poet Populist finalist in 2005. In 2004, Rose Alley Press published his chapbook, On Paper Wings.
He is currently preparing to publish a documentary in verse about the Triangle Factory fire of 1911. University of Washington-Bothell MFA Students (August 6, 2014)
UW Bothell MFA students Michael Paschall, Billy Phillips, and Talena Lachelle Queen will lead us on exciting poetic adventures!
MICHAEL PASCHALL studied film as an undergraduate, focused on screenwriting. "I very much believe in the sanctity of poetry, in the spiritual under-current of the human being that gives life and vitality to art; for me writing is an intimate experience--a secret space for me to create--I want to write good, in the same way that I want to live good. I am a waiter, and I write in the mornings. I read a lot of children’s fantasy, magical realism and the like-- BILLY PHILLIPS is an artist and philosopher. He writes poetry, short stories, novellas and plays. He also uses charcoal and ink to do black and white drawings that sometimes feature along with his written work. He has recently received his MFA from UW Bothell, in Creative Writing and Poetics. His works alternate between the priorities of imagination and extreme creativity on the one hand, and ethics and anarcho-syndicalism on the other. The poet, TALENA LACHELLE QUEEN, earned her MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell. She specializes in poetry that infuses music. She began her creative writing practice at five years old. She majored in Creative Writing at Rosa Parks School of Performing Arts in Paterson, New Jersey and she teaches writing at a variety of elementary schools and for nonprofit organizations. Dennis Caswell (July 2, 2014)
DENNIS CASWELL is the author of the full-length poetry collection Phlogiston, published by Floating Bridge Press in 2012. His work has appeared in Raven Chronicles, Floating Bridge Review, Crab Creek Review, and assorted other journals and anthologies. He was awarded a residency in the Jack Straw Writers Program in 2013 and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives outside Woodinville and works as a software engineer in the aviation industry.
Whidbey Island MFA Students (June 4, 2014)
Featured poets for June include Whidbey Island MFA students Stephanie Hammer, Marie Hartung, Leonie Mikele, and Samantha Claire Updegrave, with a special encore reading by Carolyne Wright.
Stephanie Barbé Hammer writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Pearl, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. She is 4-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, and her new poetry collection How Formal? is available from Spout Hill Press. Marie Hartung writes from her living room recliner in the small-ish town of Monroe, WA. She’s almost finished completing a double-concentration in Poetry and Nonfiction in the Whidbey Island Writers’ Workshop MFA program and works as a Realtor. Her poetry and nonfiction work has appeared in Soundings Review, Third Wednesday, Cordite Review, Perceptions Literary Magazine, River Poets Journal, Raven Chronicles and in the anthology The Burden of Light. She was named a 2014 finalist for the Writers at Work Fellowship, 2014 finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose and a recipient of a fellowship scholarship award for the Summer Literary Series in Kenya. Her poem, “Our Parejo,” is the next to be published in the Spring edition of Poetry Quarterly. Leonie Mikele is an MFA candidate at Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and lives in Seattle. David Wagoner, Carolyne Wright and other NW poets have been great inspirations to her. She's working on a theater piece centered on a New Orleans family in 1830. Samantha Claire Updegrave is a writer, poet, and urban planner. Her recent work has appeared in Literary Mama, Bacopa Literary Review, the Shambhala Sun blog SunSpaces, and Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog. She is an MFA candidate at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and lives in Seattle, Washington, with her partner and young son. Carolyne Wright serves on the faculty of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts’ Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program. Among other things, she is a Senior Editor for Lost Horse Press, for which she is co-editing the anthology Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Fall 2014). Her alter-ego Eulene does all the other work. Jennifer Bullis (May 7, 2014)
JENNIFER BULLIS grew up in Reno, Nevada, earned a Ph.D. in English at University of California-Davis, and taught at Whatcom Community College for fourteen years. Her poems appear in Iron Horse Literary Review, Natural Bridge, Conversations Across Borders, Cascadia Review, The Comstock Review, Clover: A Literary Rag, and Floating Bridge Review/Pontoon. Her first collection of poems, Impossible Lessons, was published by MoonPath Press in 2013. These poems engage “leaf and stem and longing,” explore “seasons of loss,” and trace the “long kindnesses” of family. Her next collection, a manuscript of persona poems with the working title Amanda Bubble and the Wild-Caught Gods, is currently in search of a publisher. She continues to live in Bellingham with her husband, son, and horse. She blogs about poetry, mythology, and hiking at www.jenniferbullis.com.
Alice Derry (April 2, 2014)
Tremolo is Alice Derry’s fourth full collection of poetry. It was released by Red Hen Press on September 1, 2012. Tess Gallagher writes of the book: “Tremolo is a tour de force of vibratory power that marks Alice Derry as having come into her own as one of our very best poets.” As manuscript, Tremolo was awarded a Washington State GAP grant from Artist Trust in 2011.
Strangers to Their Courage (Louisiana State University Press, 2001), was a finalist for the 2002 Washington Book Award. Li-Young Lee writes of Strangers: “This book . . . asks us to surrender our simplistic ideas about race and prejudice, memory and forgetfulness, and begin to uncover a new paradigm for ‘human.’”Stages of Twilight (Breitenbush, 1986), won the King County Publication Award, chosen by Raymond Carver. Clearwater appeared from Blue Begonia Press in 1997. Derry has three chapbooks: Getting Used to the Body(Sagittarius Press, 1989), Not As You Once Imagined (Trask House, 1993), and translations from the German poet Rainer Rilke (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2002). Derry’s M.F.A. is from Goddard College (now Warren Wilson). After twenty-nine years teaching English and German at Peninsula College in Port Angeles on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, she retired in June, 2009. She was a major force in conceiving and directing the college’s Foothills Writers’ Series from 1980 to 2009. With Tess Gallagher and others, Derry organized the 75th Raymond Carver Birthday Celebration and delivered the keynote address. Derry was born in Portland, Oregon, and raised in Washington and Montana. More at www.alicederry.com. Su Smallen (March 5, 2014)
Su Smallen is the author of three collections of poetry: Buddha, Proof,a Minnesota Book Award Finalist,Weight of Light, nominated for the Pushcart Press Editor’s Book Award, and Wild Hush. Su’s honors include receiving the Jane Kenyon Prize and serving as Poet in Residence for the Science Museum of Minnesota’s St. Croix Watershed Research Station. She was a founding member of the Laurel Poetry Collective, publishing books and broadsides for ten years. Formerly a professional choreographer and dancer, Su and her poetry were featured in the documentary dance film Klatch.Currently, she is an editor at the University of Minnesota Law School Institute on Crime and Public Policy and director of the writing center at St. Olaf College. www.susmallen.com.
Carolyne Wright (February 5, 2014)
CAROLYNE WRIGHT has published nine books of poetry, four volumes of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali, and a collection of essays. Her latest book is Mania Klepto: the Book of Eulene (Turning Point, 2011), featuring the postmodern alter-ego, Eulene. Previous books include A Change of Maps (Lost Horse Press, 2006), nominated for the LA Times Book Awards and winner of the IPPY Bronze Award; and Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire (Carnegie Mellon U Press/EWU Books, 2nd ed. 2005), which won the Blue Lynx Prize and the American Book Award.A poem of hers appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009 and the Pushcart Prize XXXIV: Best of the Small Presses (2010). Wright is a Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prizes; and a Senior Editor for Lost Horse Press, for which she is co-editing an anthology of poems on women and work, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (forthcoming 2014).
In 2005 Carolyne returned to her native Seattle, where she is on the faculty of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts' Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program. She received a 4Culture Art Projects award for 2013, for a sequence of poems, "Mother-of-Pearl Women," which will form part of her volume in progress of new and selected poems, This Dream the World. This project was supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture.
RASP Anthology Poets (Jan. 8, 2014)
RASP is the Redmond Association of Spokenword, which published an anthology in August 2013. The anthology, titled Here, There, and Everywhere, collects 120 poems by 70 poets who have participated in RASP's monthly reading series as featured or open-mic readers. Editor Michael Dylan Welch has been curator for RASP readings since 2008. For more information about the anthology, see http://raspread.com/poetryanthology.html.
Kathleen Flenniken (December 4, 2013)
KATHLEEN FLENNIKEN is the Washington State Poet Laureate. Her books are Plume, a meditation on the Hanford Nuclear Site and a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award and the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and Famous, named a Notable Book by the American Library Association. Kathleen’s other awards include a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Artist Trust. She teaches writing through arts agencies like Writers in the Schools and Jack Straw, and publishes Washington State Poets as an editor at Floating Bridge Press and through her Poet Laureate blog, The Far Field. Kathleen is working to bring poetry and poets to all 39 counties before her two-year appointment ends in February 2014. Kathleen's website is www.kathleenflenniken.com.
Marci Ameluxen (November 6, 2013)
MARCI AMELUXEN was born, raised and still lives in Washington State and for most of her life has lived on islands. When not taming her garden or writing poetry she works as a pediatric Occupational Therapist, and currently lives on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound with her husband and two children. Ameluxen is the author of “Lean House”, a chapbook published in 2013 by MoonPath Press of Kingston, Washington. Her poems have appeared in The Crab Creek Review, Rose Red Review, The Comstock Review, Waccamaw, The Madison Review, The Compass Rose, The Dirty Napkin, and Hospital Drive, among others. “What informs my poetry is simplicity and intensity of experience, emotion, detail and a stark, clean line. I like to see white space on the page,” says Ameluxen. She also holds a B.A. in Political Science which convinced her never to run for elected office.
Paul Nelson (October 1, 2013)
PAUL NELSON is founder of SPLAB in Seattle, a spokenword performance, resource and outreach project and the Cascadia Poetry Festival. He wrote a collection of essays, Organic Poetry and a serial poem reenacting the history of Auburn, WA, A Time Before Slaughter (shortlisted for a 2010 Genius Award by The Stranger). He’s interviewed Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Sam Hamill, Robin Blaser, Nate Mackey, Brenda Hillman, Eileen Myles, George Bowering, Diane di Prima, George Stanley & many Cascadia poets, has presented his poetry and poetics in London, Brussels, Qinghai and Beijing, China, Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo, Baltimore, Chicago, Lake Forest, Illinois and other places & writes an American Sentence every day. www.PaulENelson.com
Janée J. Baugher (September 4, 2013)
JANÉE J. BAUGHER is author of two collections of poetry, The Body’s Physics (Tebot Bach, 2013) and Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada Books, 2010). Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have been published in Boulevard, Nano Fiction, Verse Daily, and Portland Review, among other places. Baugher’s collaborations include work with visual artists, composers, and choreographers. Over the years she has had roughly a dozen poems adapted for the stage and set to music at University of Cincinnati, Interlochen Center for the Arts (Michigan), Dance Now! Ensemble (Florida), and elsewhere. As an essayist, Baugher was awarded a 2012 fellowship at the Island Institute of Sitka (Alaska). Baugher’s performance venues include Seattle’s Bumbershoot Arts Festival and the Library of Congress. She teaches at University of Phoenix-Western Washington Campus, as well as Centrum Writers’ Conference. Visit: JaneeJBaugher.wordpress.com.
Roy R Seitz (August 7, 2013)
ROY R SEITZ is a poet with no initials behind his name. Catches reads now and then. Has been known to drive the meek insane and the humble to to do whatever the
humble do when driven insane. Hearing his work is mandatory in his mind. Christopher J. Jarmick (June 5, 2013)
CHRISTOPHER J. JARMICK'S poems have appeared in Seattle Weekly, Cambridge Book Review, Real Change, Pedestal, South District Journal, WebdelSol and other newspapers, literary journals and magazines. Essays, Reviews and Interviews he’s written have been in Rattle, Rain Taxi, Raven Chronicles, Reader, Brutarian,Los Angeles Times, World of Entertainment, Military Times and elsewhere. His latest collection of poetry is Ignition: Poem Starters, Septolets, Statements and Double Dog Dares (2010), and the limited edition CD: Radio Mysteries: Aural Anxieties (produced by Kevin Gershan and featuring Los Angeles poet Michael C. Ford;) was released in 2009. He curates and hosts several poetry readings throughout the Northwest including the regularly scheduled monthly reading at Park Place Books in Kirkland, Washington. His blog is called Poetry is Everything (Google it). Chris was born on the East Coast, moved to Los Angeles and for nearly 20 years wrote screenplays and did script doctor work for several films. He also worked on/produced award winning PBS documentaries, segments for programs like Entertainment Tonight, Hard Copy and others. He re-located to the Seattle area in 1994, continued writing, and became a financial advisor working at Morgan Stanley, then Waddell and Reed). He has 3 daughters, and five step-children and is married to Teresa. He can be contacted at: [email protected].
Robert Moss (May 8, 2013)
ROBERT MOSS is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of modern dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, poet, historian and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three "Only" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home. His collection, Here, Everything Is Dreaming: Poems and Stories, is published by Exclesior/State University of New York Press (April, 2013). His website is www.mossdreams.com.
Peter Ludwin (April 3, 2013)
PETER LUDWIN is the recipient of a Literary Fellowship from Artist Trust. He was the Second Prize Winner of the 2007-2008 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Awards, and a Finalist for the Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award. For the past eleven years he has been a participant in the San Miguel Poetry Week in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he has workshopped under such noted poets as Mark Doty, Tony Hoagland and Robert Wrigley. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bitter Oleander, The Com-stock Review, Nimrod, North American Review and Prairie Schooner, to name a few. His first full length collection,A Guest in All Your Houses, was published in 2009 by Word Walker Press. He lives in Kent, Washington, between Seattle and Tacoma.
Jeannine Hall Gailey (March 6, 2013)
JEANNINE HALL GAILEY is the Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington, and the author of Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006) and She Returns to the Floating World (Kitsune Books, 2011,) an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist for 2012. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in journals such as The Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. She volunteers as an editorial consultant for Crab Creek Review and currently teaches part-time at the MFA program at National University. Her web site is www.webbish6.com.
Michael Schein (February 6, 2013)
MICHAEL SCHEIN is an author, attorney, historian, lively speaker, and former professor of American Legal History. Find out more at www.michaelschein.com.
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Graham Isaac (December 5, 2012)
GRAHAM ISAAC is a writer and performer who grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He holds a Masters in Creative and Media Writing from the University of Wales Swansea, where he co-founded The Crunch, South Wales' largest recurring spoken word open mic. He now lives in Seattle, where he hosts Works In Progress, Richard Hugo House's monthly open mic for writing of all kinds. His work has appeared in Hoarse, Licton Springs Review and various other places. He is allergic to cats.
Shane Guthrie (November 7, 2012)
SHANE GUTHRIE is one of the original poets of Duvall open mics. He has performed in readings at the old Pumps & Grinds Coffeehouse as part of Katherine Grace Bond’s writing cooperative Inducers of Insanity, the name of which Shane dreamed up. Shane’s work can be funny, ironic or devastating--and you never see it coming. His insights into human nature surprise and enlighten, just when you thought you were simply being entertained. Shane currently lives in the beautiful Snoqualmie Valley in the town of Duvall, WA. He's been writing poetry since 1993 and doesn’t seem able to stop. His other hobbies include hiking, playing board games, gardening and acrylic painting.
Ana Kobayashi (October 3, 2012)
ANA KOBAYASHI was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up playing with slugs, hiding in the rhododendrons, and reading vast stacks of science fiction. She studied Zoology, and then Public Health at University of Washington, and works in clinical research at Seattle Children's. Ana has read her work at local events, house parties, and concerts. She lives in Seattle with her husband, and spends time hatching poems, dancing, and making paper artworks as much as she can.
Laura Lee Bennett (September 5, 2012)
LAURA LEE BENNETT received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, with an emphasis on Short Fiction. She is a past president of the board of directors of Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP), in Redmond, Washington. Laura Lee is currently serving a second term as a board member. In addition to writing poems and short stories, Laura Lee has contributed arts reviews to Rewrite, the monthly newsletter for Richard Hugo House, and Artdish Magazine, a Northwest forum on visual art. To support her writing habit, Laura Lee edits software manuals and non-fiction/memoir. She also volunteers for a local shelter, Purrfect Pals (www.purrfectpals.org), and other animal welfare organizations.
Julene Tripp Weaver (Sept 4, 2024 & August 1, 2012)
Julene Tripp Weaver is the author of four poetry collections, the newest released in May: Slow Now With Clear Skies. Prior books include: truth be bold: Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards, winner of the Bisexual Book Award and four Human Relations Indie Book Awards), No Father Can Save Her, and a chapbook, Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues. Widely published and anthologized, she was a Jack Straw Writing Fellow (2022-2023) working on her memoir-in-process about living through the AIDS epidemic. She lives in Seattle, forages wild foods and lives according to the Wise Woman Tradition. Read more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com.
2012 bio: JULENE TRIPP WEAVER has a private counseling practice in Seattle. Her book, No Father Can Save Her, was published by Plain View Press. Her chapbook, An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues, is writing from her work through the heart of the AIDS epidemic. Her poems are published in many journals, a few include Qarrtsiluni, Pilgrimage, Outward Link, Blossombones, Drash, Menacing Hedge, Gutter Eloquence, and Future Earth Magazine; most recently is published in the anthology, Wait A Minute, I Have to Take Off My Bra. She does wordplay on Twitter @trippweavepoet and has a website: www.julenetrippweaver.com. Denis Streeter (June 6, 2012)
DENIS STREETER reads frequently in Seattle area venues and words are his playground. He delights in discoveries, the depth of truth and heartache. He has published one collection of poetry and is currently working on a second collection. When not writing poetry, Denis is dancing. He is a member of the Eclectic Cloggers, a traditional Appalachian clog dancing team.
Julia McCotter (May 2, 2012)
JULIA MCCOTTER was born in Beaverton, OR in 1995. She has lived in Seattle for three years and attends Nathan Hale High School and North Seattle Community College. She has been writing for her entire life with increasing enthusiasm and is currently compiling work to create a chapbook.
Quill & Pen Poets Jane Alynn and Lisa Wible (April 4, 2012)
JANE ALYNN is a poet, essayist, and fine art photographer. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she has lived many places, including New York City, Okinawa, and San Diego, before returning to her beloved Northwest, making Seattle her home. During the decades she spent as a psychotherapist, she also led “Creative Vision” workshops for photographers in Seattle, in Canada, and in the Southwest. After retiring from her therapy practice, she moved to Anacortes, Washington, and earned an MFA in creative writing from Antioch Los Angeles. These days you can find her happily committed to writing, making photographs, traveling at the tug of wanderlust, and teaching workshops. Alynn is the author of Necessity of Flight (Cherry Grove, 2011) and a chapbook, Threads & Dust (Finishing Line Press, 2005). She has been the recipient of a William Stafford Award from Washington Poets Association (2004), and her poems have appeared in numerous journals, such as Calyx, Floating Bridge Review, The Pacific Review, Quercus Review, Manorborn Snowy Egret, StringTown, and Switched-on Gutenberg, as well as in many anthologies.
LISA WIBLE was born in New Delhi, India and raised in Washington, D.C. Her creative life has revolved around the twin interests of poetry and film. Poetry has been the more private expression; film the more public, with documentary, short film and television work appearing across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Currently, she is directing a short film based on Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “Populist Manifesto.” Lisa has served as the editor of the Bay Area Poet’s Coalition publication, Poetalk, and has been included as a featured poet in a variety of anthologies and readings around the Pacific Northwest. People who know her work best tend to call it “funny and tragic.” She’s hoping to minimize the tragedy. Ramsey Jester (March 7, 2012)
RAMSEY JESTER is an aspiring performance poet. He dedicates most of his time to studying the art of being human. When he’s not caught in the beauty of everything he is out trying to make an impact in his community by performing open heart surgery on him-self in front of anybody willing to witness. He is the founder of The Spoken Word Room, a poetry program at his high school (Nathan Hale). The club has played host to over fifty of some of Seattle’s best young artists. Personal accomplishments are made up of over twenty three scheduled performances; these include everything from opening for the mayor at Town Hall meetings to performing at Bumbershoot. He has been lucky enough to share the stage with most of his heroes, Karen Finneyfrock, Tara Hardy, and Buddy Wakefield to name a few. Ramsey was also named the 2011-2012 youth writer-in-residence at the Richard Hugo House. Ramsey has a long way to go but he hopes that this is where he and you meet.
Mark Waterbury (February 1, 2012)
DR. MARK WATERBURY is a materials scientist and engineer with extensive experience at a wide swath of science and technology fields, and at observing the behavior of people in powerful positions. When he is not writing books and developing and reviewing forensic identification technologies, Dr. Waterbury hikes in the Cascade mountains of Washington state, designs vertical gardening systems, invents renewable resources, and tries to prevent the conquest of Earth by extremists of all stripes.
Carolyne Wright and Robert McNamara (January 4, 2012)
CAROLYNE WRIGHT spent four years on Indo-U.S. Subcommission and Fulbright Senior Research fellowships in Kolkata and Dhaka, Bangladesh, collecting and translating the work of Bengali women poets and writers for a major anthology in progress. Wright has published nine award-winning books and chapbooks of her own poetry, and three other volumes of translation from Bengali and Spanish. Since moving back to her native Seattle in mid-2005, she is a member of the faculty for the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts / Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program.
ROBERT MCNAMARA is the author of two collections of poetry, The Body and the Day (David Robert Books) and Second Messengers (Wesleyan UP). Originally from New York, and a graduate of Amherst College, Colorado State and the University of Washington, McNamara is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Writing Program at the University of Washington. He was also the founder and editor of L’Epervier Press, which in its 14 years of activity published 45 titles by more than 30 poets. And many more, to be added soon! |
