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 January 6, 2021: Ginna Luck
Ginna Luck's work can be read in Radar Poetry, Gone Lawn, decomP, Hermeneutic Chaos Journal, Bodega, Rust + Moth, Leveler Poetry, Up The Staircase Quarterly and others. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. Ginna received her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. Her first full-length collection was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020: Everything Has Been Asking for Mercy. She currently lives, writes and teaches in the Seattle area.
Emcee: TBA February 3, 2021: Marie Hartung
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 in the anthology The Burden of Light. Her work recently appeared in 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. Annually, she is one of the poetry judges for National Bisexual Book Awards.
She has two sons age 15 and 17 who are the love of her life, although, NY pizza is a close second. Her wife has incurable ovarian cancer and her oldest son struggles with autism. She is working on finding a publisher for her full length memoir, Apple Fallen Elsewhere, on finding out she was adopted as an adult and coming to terms with being bisexual. Emcee: TBA March 3, 2021: Clare Chu
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.
Emcee: TBA |
April 7, 2021: Alexander Smith
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. Emcee: TBA May 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 2, 2021: Michael Schein
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.
Emcee: TBA July 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 |
