Jack Straw Literary Podcasts

Merna Ann Hecht has devoted much of her life to teaching and helping children. When she isn’t teaching, she’s cooking because she finds cooking calms her down. And when she isn’t cooking, she’s fretting about the world. Those are the three things she does and the focus of her writing. 

Merna is a storyteller, poet, and educator. Her years of work in specialized settings include the Hutchinson Cancer Research Center School, BRIDGES: A Center for Grieving Children, detention centers and facilities for homeless youth. She also teaches in the Writers in the Schools Program. Hecht is a recipient of the National Storytelling Network 2008 Brimstone Award for Applied Storytelling. Her writing has appeared in Kaleidoscope, Out of Line, Talking Points: Journal of Whole Language, The National Storytelling Journal, Standing: An Anthology of Women Poets, The Storyteller’s Classroom, Chosen Tales, and other books and journals. 

This podcast was produced as part of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org. 

Music in this podcast is performed by Matt Weiner and Del Rey and was recorded as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.   

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Wendy Call came to writing through her work in political activism. Her experience as a community organizer in Mexico inspired her to write about why people work for change in their communities. In this podcast, she explores how political writing can be effective and how different countries approach political journalism. 

Wendy is writer-in-residence at Richard Hugo House and co-editor of Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide (Plume/Penguin, 2007). Excerpts from her nonfiction book-in-progress, No Word for Welcome, have won awards from 4Culture, Artist Trust, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Seattle City Artist Program. Call’s writing has appeared in more than 20 magazines and literary journals in seven countries, often accompanied by her photographs. She has taught creative writing workshops in English and Spanish at universities, community centers, newsrooms, and detention centers. 

This podcast was produced as part of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org. 

Music in this podcast is performed by Joel Salsman and was recorded as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.      

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Ghida Sinno has created a series of stories looking at how different people experienced 9-11, or 9-1-1 as she calls it. The stories reflect the perspectives of Arab Americans and others, a half an hour after the attacks, a week after the attacks, a year after the attacks. Sinno uses irony and humor to soften her topic and allow readers to indulge in her writing. 

Sinno was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. She earned a B.A. in English Literature from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. She has received grants from Artist Trust and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook and most recently at Casa Libre in Tucson, AZ. Her work has appeared in the Seattle Review, Many Mountains Moving, and Westwind Review.  This podcast was produced as part of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org. 

THIS PODCAST CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE. 

Music in this podcast is performed by The Owcharuk Sextet and was recorded as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.    

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Through her experiences on the open road, with pregnancy, and with miscarriage, Jennifer Munro takes you on personal and high-speed adventures. Jennifer addresses women’s issues in new light and with humor.  

Born and raised in Hawaii as a fourth-generation islander, Jennifer now lives in Seattle. She has been published in journals such as North American Review, Boulevard, Massachusetts Review, and Zyzzyva and anthologies such as The Best of Best American Erotica edited by Susie Bright, The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female, and Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica (Volumes 3, 6, 7). Her first collection of fiction, The Erotica Writer’s Husband, has just been published by en theos press. Munro is currently at work on a nonfiction book about miscarriage and motorcycling, entitled Not Suitable for Children.   

This podcast was produced as part of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org. 

THIS PODCAST CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT.  

Music in this podcast is performed by Grand Hallway and was recorded as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.    

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Jack Straw Writer Waverly Fitzgerald set out to learn about nature in an urban setting. Her studies began in her own neighborhood: Capitol Hill. Waverly researched and collected information about her natural surroundings, and through the writing process, completed her own learning process.   

Waverly is a writer, teacher and writing coach. She published a non-fiction book Slow Time: Recovering the Natural Rhythms of Life, in 2007. It was inspired by her studies of and experiments with time and flowed out of her participation in the Take Back Your Time Day movement and conferences. She also writes historical fiction and non-fiction articles about time, seasonal holidays and flowers. She posts preliminary writings about her flower project on her blog: livinginseason.blogspot.com.   

This podcast was produced as part of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org. 

Music in this podcast is performed by The Bird Tribe Orchestra and was recorded as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.   

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The Jack Straw Writers podcast begins the 2008 series with Janna Cawrse Esarey. She sailed and wrote her way around the world for two and a half years on an extended honeymoon. Her writing is about relationships and the journey, sailing and through life.

Janna blogs about love-and-marriage for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at “Happily Even After” (http://blog.seattlepi.com/HappilyEvenAfter) and writes for various sailing magazines. Her stories have appeared in several anthologies, most recently, More Sand in my Bra: Funny women write from the road, again! (Travelers’ Tales, 2007). Janna lives in Seattle with her fisherman husband, their daughter, and the friendly ghost of a Labrador Retriever named Scout.

This podcast was produced as part of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org.

THIS PODCAST CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE.

Music in this podcast is performed by Jim Page and Artis and was recorded as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.

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If you missed any of this year’s Jack Straw Reading Series, you can tune in to the “Sound Focus” archive to hear portions of the live reading featuring poet and 2008 Jack Straw Writer Kevin Craft on the weekly literary segment produced by Elizabeth Austen.

Kevin Craft hails from the mid-Atlantic zones of the USA. Born in Delaware and raised in southern New Jersey, he holds a BA in English and French from the University of Maryland and an MFA in English from the University of Washington. His first book, Solar Prominence (Cloubank Books), won the Samuel & Rhea Gorsline Prize in 2004. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), Camargo Foundation (France), and Washington Arts Commission/Artist Trust. He teaches at Everett Community College and at the UW’s Rome Center in Italy.

Follow this link to “Sound Focus,” KUOW 94.9 FM, Seattle, to listen: http://kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=15095. 

Here you’ll find out which writer has a certain fondness for three-letter words, who uses language as a central theme, and why poetry matters. The podcast features clips from in-studio readings by writers Kevin Craft, Rebecca Hoogs, and Brian McGuigan as well as selections from their interviews with curator Judith Roche (pictured right).

Here’s the lineup for the Jack Straw Writers Program Reading Series:

• THURSDAY, MAY 15, 7:30pm
  Merna Ann Hecht, Kevin Craft, Jennifer Munro, Wendy Call.
  
• WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 7:30pm
  Janna Cawrse, Waverly Fitzgerald, Brian McGuigan, Ghida Sinno.
  
• THURSDAY, MAY 29, 7:30pm
  Michael Spence, Rebecca Hoogs, Judith Skillman, Sharon Cumberland. 

Judith Roche will host at Jack Straw Productions, located at 4261 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle. Admission to each reading is a $5 suggested donation, which comes with a gift of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Anthology, featuring new work by this year’s writers.

This podcast was produced as part of the Jack Straw Writers Program. Music in this podcast is performed by Matt Weiner and Del Rey and recorded as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.

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Jack Straw Productions is proud to announce the literary artists selected by curator Judith Roche for the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. They are Wendy Call, Janna Cawrse, Kevin Craft, Sharon Cumberland, Waverly Fitzgerald, Merna Ann Hecht, Rebecca Hoogs, Brian McGuigan, Jennifer D. Munro, Ghida Sinno, Judith Skillman, and Michael Spence.  

Click here for writer bios
 
“There are too few ways to honor literary artists,” says Roche. “The Jack Straw Writers Program addresses that by providing promotional opportunities for some of our area’s finest writers, and the Program’s emphasis on oral presentation helps return poetry and story to its origins in the oral tradition.” 

The purpose of the Jack Straw Writers Program is to introduce local writers to the medium of recorded audio; to encourage the creation of new literary work; and to provide new venues for the writer and their work. The program was created in 1997, and each year a single curator selects 12 writers/writing teams out of dozens of applicants based on artistic excellence, diversity of literary genres, and a cohesive grouping of writers.
This year’s writers will participate in various activities that include voice and presentation training, in-studio interviews, the May Reading Series, the annual Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and the Jack Straw Literary Podcast series. 
This year’s May Reading Series will take place: 

• Thursday, May 15, 7:30pm   

• Wednesday, May 21, 7:30pm   

• Thursday, May 29, 7:30pm   

All readings are open to the public and are hosted at Jack Straw Productions (4261 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle). Admission is a suggested donation of $5, and comes with a free copy of the anthology. These live performances are recorded for future production as podcasts, radio features, and other noncommercial new media content.    

Jack Straw Productions has selected award-winning poet Judith Roche as the curator of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program. As curator, Roche will select the 12 participants in the upcoming cycle of the annual Writers Program, who will be announced in February 2008, and she will participate in a variety of public events, development trainings, and activities with the writers at Jack Straw’s recording studio. 

“I have enormous respect for Judith as a poet, teacher, and literary advocate,” said Joan Rabinowitz, executive director of Jack Straw Productions and founder of the Jack Straw Writers Program. “We are honored to have her as this year’s curator. Our writers and our program will benefit dramatically from Judith’s creativity and leadership.” 

Judith Roche, an alumnus of the 2001 Jack Straw Writers Program, is the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent of which, Wisdom of the Body, won an American Book Award. She has edited a number of poetry anthologies and has worked in collaboration with visual artists on several public art projects which are installed in the Northwest area. She is Literary Arts Director Emeritus for One Reel, a Seattle-based arts presenter, and teaches poetry workshops. She was Distinguished Northwest Writer in Residence at Seattle University in 2007 and is a Fellow in the Black Earth Institute.  

Each year the Writers Program culminates in May with a series of readings featuring the new writers and hosted by the curator. This year’s May Reading Series will take place:  

Thursday, May 15, 7:30pm  

Wednesday, May 21, 7:30pm  

Thursday, May 29, 7:30pm 

The readings cost a suggested donation of $5, and audience members receive a complimentary copy of the Jack Straw Writers Anthology.