Judith Roche

February 11, 2020

Judith Roche (1941-2019) was a 2001 Jack Straw Writer and curated the 2008 Writers Program, and collaborated with Jack Straw on many other projects and programs over the years. The following remembrance, by Paul Nelson, was published in the South Seattle Emerald. “Roche published four books of original poetry, including Myrrh: My Life as a […]

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Michael Schmeltzer

July 29, 2019

Michael Schmeltzer was born and raised in Japan. He is the co-author of the nonfiction book A Single Throat Opens, a lyric exploration of addiction and family. His debut book Blood Song was a Washington State Book Award Finalist for Poetry. He is a member of Seattle7Writers and currently serves as the President of Floating […]

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Rena Priest

July 29, 2019

Rena Priest is a writer and Lummi tribal member. Her debut book, Patriarchy Blues, was released on MoonPath Press and garnered an American Book Award. Her most recent collection, Sublime Subliminal, was published by Floating Bridge Press in 2018. She has attended residencies at Mineral School, Underwater New York/Works on Water on Governors Island, and Hawthornden […]

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Sylvia Byrne Pollack

July 29, 2019

Sylvia Byrne Pollack’s poems appear in The Stillwater Review, Crab Creek Review, Wild Roof, and many other print and online journals. She’s a two-time Pushcart nominee, 2019 Jack Straw Writer and 2021 Mineral School Resident. Her debut collection Risking It (2021) and her latest book, What Lasts (2023) are both from Red Mountain Press. 2024 […]

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Shankar Narayan

July 29, 2019

Shankar Narayan explores identity, power, mythology, and technology in a world where the body is flung across borders yet possesses unrivaled power to transcend them. Shankar is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, winner of the 2017 Flyway Sweet Corn Poetry Prize, and has been a fellow at Kundiman, Hugo House, and now Jack Straw. He […]

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Leanne Dunic

July 29, 2019

Leanne Dunic is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and writer. Her work has won several honors, including the Ema Saiko Poetry Fellowship and Alice Munro Short Story Award. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Leanne is the Artistic Director of the Powell Street Festival Society and is the singer/guitarist of The Deep Cove. To Love the Coming End is her first […]

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Gabrielle Bates

July 29, 2019

Gabrielle Bates works for Open Books: A Poem Emporium, cohosts the Poet Salon podcast, and edits for Poetry Northwest, Broadsided Press, and Bull City Press. Her poems and poetry comics have appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, and New England Review, among other journals. She is originally from Birmingham, Alabama. 2019 Writers Program

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Christianne Balk

July 29, 2019

Christianne Balk grew up in upstate New York, studied biology and art at Grinnell College, English and writing at the University of Iowa, taught at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and now lives in Seattle. Her poems have appeared in Cirque, Poemoftheweek.org, Women Writing Nature, Floating Bridge Review, Nimrod, Terrain, and other publications. Christianne loves gardening, the Anglo-Saxon rhythms of […]

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Dianne Aprile

July 29, 2019

Dianne Aprile is the author and editor of nonfiction books, including three book collaborations with visual artists and three gallery collaborations. She teaches Creative Nonfiction on the MFA faculty at Spalding University’s School of Creative and Professional Writing. Her current project is a family memoir, from which two excerpts have been nominated for Pushcart prizes. […]

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Samar Abulhassan

July 29, 2019

Samar Abulhassan holds an M.F.A. from Colorado State University and has worked as a teaching artist for ten years, for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ WITS Program, Jack Straw, and the Skagit River Poetry Foundation. Born to Lebanese immigrants and raised with multiple languages, she is a 2006 Hedgebrook alum and the author of multiple chapbooks, […]

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