MFA Spring Festival

Asia Ashley-Emerson

if ever you know again

Asia Ashley-Emerson is a Chicago-born writer, artist, and facilitator whose work explores the interior lives of persons with intersectional identities. An Imagining America Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) Fellow, she works across writing, workshops, and event curation to create immersive experiences rooted in collective possibility and space holding.

In poetry and speculative fiction, Asia’s lyrical and sensorial approach examines how storytelling can transform lived memories into connection, reflection, and healing for both the self and the community. Her work has appeared in Hugo House’s Chapbook, Clamor Literary Magazine, and several craft zines. If you would like to read more of Asia’s writing or connect in any way, feel free to reach out at www.asiaashley.com.

Amanda Dawn Benningfield

Rations

Amanda Dawn Benningfield is a writer from Boise, Idaho. They hold a BA in Film and Television from Boise State University and are currently pursuing their MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell. With a background in screenwriting, they work to blend together the sensory memory of watching a cult-classic flick with the playfulness of prose and poetics.

Zyaire Cheatham

What the Body Holds

Zyaire Cheatham is a writer from Seattle, Washington, whose work explores memory, the body, family, and the quiet moments that shape who we become. Zyaire’s work blends reflection with narrative, capturing the complexity of love, absence, and survival. She is currently focused on developing short fiction and personal essays.

M. Marlene Elliott

Touching Trees

M. Marlene Elliott M. Marlene Elliott is a poet and novelist working at the intersection of surrealism and whimsy, drawing from nature for her palette. She and her dog Benny currently reside in North Seattle where she is in an intimate relationship with a red leaf.

Ashley Gilland

Verb Gazelle

Ashley Gilland is a multimedia poet and fiber artist from Kansas City currently focused on embroidered handwriting and textile assemblage. She draws inspiration from diaries, stop motion animation, field guides, tide pooling, and recurring dreams.

Erik Keevan

Malformation: A Remix Graphic Novel

Erik Keevans is a writer, poet, and digital artist living in Seattle, WA. Erik serves as the chair for HWA Seattle, President of Gamut literary series, and writer for the Victorian horror troupe Phantasmagoria. His work has been featured in Horror Tree’s Trembling with Fear series, Clamor literary magazine, was a finalist in Quillkeeper Press’ Chapbook contest, and won the 2025 Camp Crypticon writing contest for best horror story. He is currently graduating with an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at University of Washington, as he has become sufficiently pretentious. Find his work and more about upcoming reading events at www.erikkeevan.me, or on Instagram at @ekeevan.

Leanne Machado

object-tivity

Leanne Machado is an a creative writer who finds value in creating horror out of the average world, focusing on philosophical theories of anthropocentrism, human insignificance, speculative fiction and cosmic horror. She is inspired by video games, horror novels, her dreams, nature, and mundane objects of her everyday life. She is published in University of Washington-Bothell’s 2025 and 2026 Clamor Journals, as well as in Abundance Literary Magazine Vol. 2, and HNDL’s Hyperfocus Horror Issue 1.

Nadine Antoinette Maestas

featured Guest Writer and Benedictory Reader

Nadine Antoinette Maestas is a poet’s poet and believes that the empire of the sentence is an extremely oppressive totalitarian regime. She prefers the company of poems so much that she would rather read a bad poem than a good novel, but when she is not doing poetry, Nadine loves mountain biking and trail running in dangerous and remote places in the Pacific Northwest. She holds an M.F.A. from University of Michigan’s Hellen Zell Writer’s Program where she was awarded the Faraar award for playwriting. Her hybrid poem play “Hellen on Wheels: A Play of Rhyme and Reason” was performed at California College of the Arts. She is the co-author with Karen Weiser of “Beneath the Bright Discus” (Potes & Poets Press, 2000), and is a co-editor for the poetry anthology Make It True: Poetry from Cascadia. You can find her poems published in Ofrenda Magazine, Snail Trail Press, Pageboy Magazine, Lyric &, The Germ, Poor Mojo’s Almana(k), Really Serious Literature Disappearing Chapbooks, and the bilingual anthology Make It True Meets Medusario. Her dissertation, “Calling out the State: Postmodern American Anthropoetics” landed her a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Her first solo book, Imperialism As Sweet As Insult, was published by Really Serious Literature Press in April 2021. She currently teaches at Cornish College of the Arts.

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Damien Oz

Void Hunter Survival (Wiki)

Damien Oz (he/him) is a writer and poet, artist, musician, director, and voice actor based in the Pacific Northwest. He has his B.A. in English: Creative Writing from the University of Washington, Seattle, and by the time you read this, his MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics. Damien’s poetics focus on the Dreamscape and the Void, the Supernatural, Spirituality, Physics, and Horror– though he cannot resist a comedic voice here and there. He is particularly passionate about audio drama, game-writing and design, video-making, and energy-work poetry. Incredibly “normal” about “doors”. Loves lemonade, stargazing, and wandering in the dark.

Vitoria Ramos

Sanguine

Vitoria Ramos is a queer femme poet and writer from the Pacific Northwest. Her writing bridges the connection of the self to the natural world, finding inspiration by exploring coastlines, looking up at the night sky or walking around her neighborhood. Vitoria has had work published with Silly Goose Press, The Hyperbolic Review, HNDL Magazine, Ancient News Technology and Clamor. When Vitoria is not writing she is making visual art, studying the timeline of the universe and tending to her cacti.

MK Reed

A Phoenix’s Saga

MK Reed is the author of ten (and counting) graphic novels, the artist of several other comics, and a winner of an Oregon Book Award, for comics. Their thesis, despite their best intentions, is an experimental comic.

Ricardo Ruiz

Doctrine of Echos

Ricardo Ruiz is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose. The son of potato factory workers, he hails from Othello, Washington. Ricardo’s work is shaped by his experiences as a first-generation Mexican-American and U.S. Army combat veteran (11B). He holds an Associate Degree in Business and Accounting from Big Bend Community College, B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Washington (UW), and MFA in Creative Writing from UW Bothell. During his military service, Ricardo achieved the rank of Staff Sergeant and served on three deployments. His first poetry collection, We Had Our Reasons (Pulley Press, 2022), debuted #1 on Amazon’s Hispanic-American Poetry Chart and won the Washington State Book Award. Passionate about amplifying marginalized voices from rural communities, Ricardo takes pride in serving as a cultural connector and advocate.

Krista Sawyer

Listen Closely

Krista Sawyer is a fiction writer whose work explores the intersection of psychological fiction, magical realism, and “whimsical horror.” Writing across both poetry and prose, she is particularly interested in formal experimentation and the ways narrative structure can shape emotional experience. Her work has appeared in Silly Goose Press, Hyperfocus Horror, and The Corvus Review, among others.

Adam Shen

Sophia

Adam Shen first became interested in writing fiction and reading literature in high school. Then, he studied philosophy in college, and later returned to writing after graduating. He has written a realist novel. His novel is about the drama of normal people living normal lives. His main character, Sophia, is shown in a braided narrative going between mostly 2008 and 2025 to show her growth, the changes, and the challenges she faces. He would like to thank his advisors Mattilda and Jeanne as well as his family and cohort.

Angelica Urquizo

The Other Mouth

Angelica Urquizo is a poet and collage artist who seeks magic in the mundane. She finds inspiration from the natural world, mythology, shadow work, and the overall human experience. She has publications in Silly Goose Press, Genrepunk, and Suburban Witchcraft, among others. You can find her on a rainy day reading or watching the hummingbirds from her porch. To discover more about her work, find her on instagram @acraftyname.