October 7, 2020: Tanya McDonald
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.
Emcee: Pamela Denchfield November 4, 2020: Sierra Golden
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.
Emcee: Jeremy Robkin December 2, 2020: Liz Crain
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.
Emcee: Pamela Denchfield |
Jan. to April 2021: To Be AnnouncedMay 5, 2021: David Thornbrugh
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.
Emcee: TBA June to Sept. 2021: To Be AnnouncedOctober 6, 2021: Joanna Thomas
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.
Emcee: TBA |
