Spring 2022
May, 11
Rebecca Brown is the author of 14 books published in the US and abroad, most recently YOU TELL THE STORIES YOU NEED TO BELIEVE (Chatwin Books, 2022). Her other books (novels, short stories, essays, prose poems) include AMERICAN ROMANCES, THE HAUNTED HOUSE, THE DOGS:A MODERN BESTIARY, THE TERRIBLE GIRLS (all with City Lights) , THE GIFTS OF THE BODY (HarperCollins) and NOT HEAVEN, SOMEWHERE ELSE (Tarpaulin Sky). She has also written a play, the libretto for a dance opera, a one-woman show, Monstrous, commission by Northwest Film Forum, and popular arts and book criticism. Her written work has been translated into Japanese, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Italian, etc. She has taught writing and literature for 40 years in venues as diverse as prisons, public schools, homeless encampments, senior citizens’ centers, at-risk youth centers, and universities. Her visual work has been displayed at the Frye Art Museum, Hedreen Gallery, Henry Art Gallery, Simon Fraser Gallery (Vancouver, BC) and the University of Arizona Poetry Center Gallery. She has taught and lectured in the US, UK, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Japan and Uganda. She was the designer, co-founder and first curator of the Jack Straw Writers program, first writer in Residence at Hugo House (1997-1999) and is a former Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers conference. She is currently putting together a book of essays for the Fellow Travelers Series. She lives in Seattle.
Woogee Bae writes poems and edits the ecopoetics journal Snail Trail. Her work can be found in Afternoon Visitor, P-QUEUE, Tagvverk, and elsewhere. Visit her at www.woogeebae.com or @qodnrl
Meta LeCompte is an MFA student at the University of Washington Bothell. Before falling in love with poetry at the University of Denver where she graduated with a degree in creative writing and sociology, Meta was a musician who wrote two albums. Currently, Meta writes surreal prose.
Raelynne Woo is a first-year graduate student pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at UW Bothell. Last year she received her BA in creative writing and arts, media, and culture from UW Tacoma as a result of rediscovering her passion for writing while she was a student there. A few of her poems are published in Tahoma West which is UW Tacoma’s literary arts journal. This spring, her essay “Literature as an Activist Tool to Spark Conversations” will be published in The CROW, UW Bothell’s research journal. Her writing interests include poetry, fiction and non-fiction short stories, children’s literature, and multimedia work.
February, 23
A 2021 Whiting Award winner, and shortlisted for Granta’s “Best of Young American Novelists,” Steven Dunn is the author of two books from Tarpaulin Sky Press: water & power (2018) and Potted Meat, which was a co-winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and has been adapted for a short film entitled The Usual Route, from Foothills Productions. Steven was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy, he earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Denver, and an MFA from Stetson University. He teaches in the MFA programs at Regis University and Cornell College.
Madison Gaines is a first-year graduate student pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. She received a B.F.A. in Creative Writing from George Mason University, where she received a grant from the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research, to explore the accessibility that poetry brings to the social sciences and the liminality of biracial identity. She is passionate about highlighting the experiences and relationships of Black women throughout history and is returning to the Cultural Studies Association’s annual conference in June to present her paper, “Writing B(l)ack: A Reckoning With the Postcolonial Center.”
Joseph Niduaza is a writer from Salinas, California. He has held numerous jobs and professional hobbies throughout the years, including: shoe salesman, freight hauler, “hemp” farmer, cardplayer, house painter, unlicensed contractor and equipment operator. He received a BA in English from Humboldt State University in 2014, proudly served as a Machine Operator for the Mad River Brewing Company in Blue Lake, California from 2015 to 2018, and earned an MFA at the University of Washington Bothell in 2021. Through historical and speculative fiction, with the aid of magical realism, his work explores the sociopolitical, economical, and lingual building blocks of cultural identities, cyclical patterns of generational violence, forms of government, macroeconomic cycles, class consciousness, modes of sociability, and the role of the individual identify within culture. He is currently working on a novel, based on his MFA thesis,Chimera (Listen to an excerpt via YouTube). His work has appeared in Clamor and The Homestead Review.
Winter 2022
Maria Delgado Stevens has taught high school English for nineteen years and still loves the twentieth century American canon. She is in her second year of the MFA program in Creative Writing & Poetics at UW Bothell. Maria lives in Seattle, on a hill called Queen Anne, on Puget Sound Salish land. She keeps company with a slowly diminishing menagerie, and a constantly busy brood. Born in Manhattan, raised in Chicago, Maria moved from Los Angeles to Seattle about a nickel ago and doesn’t intend to leave anytime soon. It was never her intention, but recently, she’s been writing a lot about death and memory, and questioning the role of being captive to complicated lineages.
Alexandria Simmons is a life-long writer of prose, and a converted poet, falling in love with the writing form quickly and deeply as a form of self-expression and as a means to herald differing perspectives on a controversial society. Her works have shown a wide range of interest; from technical writing and military-focused community projects, to steampunk fantasy and historical fiction. She has been published with various journals, for both short stories and poems, and has been recognized by the United States Army on numerous occasions for trailblazing poetry, essays, and speeches. In the Writer’s Digest’s 75th writing competition, Simmons won an award in the short story category with A White Rose for His Lady. To her additional flattery, she was also honored for her poem, Memorial Weekend. She completed her bachelor’s degree from Seattle Pacific University in 2017: Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing and Communication and is currently spending her days working hard to earn her MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics at UW Bothell. Her recent work focuses on humanity, geneology, mental illness, clashing perspectives on realism, and femininity.
Simon Topo is a Junior at UW Bothell majoring in Interactive Media Design. He is currently interested in AR/VR and possibly exploring projection/lightwork among many other facets of art and design.
Autumn 2021
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Miriam Bartha (IAS/MFA Staff) comes from Exit 9 on the Jersey Turnpike; a maternal line of Protestant thrift, Jewish guilt, and quiet obstinance; and a paternal line of narrow escapes, Molotov cocktails, and Catholic martyrdom. She finds delight in old objects and creatures great and small. She writes a mean memo, job description, executive summary—the genres of her day job as Director for Graduate Programs and Strategic Initiatives. She has also written on postwar poetry, graduate education, and publicly-engaged creative arts and scholarship.
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Alysa Levi-D'Ancona was born in Trieste, Italy, grew up in Chicagoland, and is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at UW Bothell. When she's not teaching English to high schoolers or pampering her cats, she's working on her debut novel. She was longlisted in the F(r)iction 2020 Fall and 2021 Spring Contests and a published finalist in the 2021 Stories That Need to Be Told Contest. Levi-D'Ancona weaves themes of liminality, culture, language, belonging, and identity into her writing, throwing in the occasional absurd joke. Find her on Instagram! @alevidancona
Emily J. Mundy is a Seattle-based poet, particularly intrigued by cycles of nature and the moon. She shares a small realm with her two cats and one beloved typewriter.
Talena Katrell (Queen) is the first poet laureate of the great City of Paterson, NJ where she created the city's first ever Poetry Festival now in it fourth year. She the chair of City's Cultural Arts Commission (PAX) Queen is an inductee to the University of Washington HALL of EXCELLENCE. Queen is also the founder/ president of Her Best Self a program of the National Black United Fund that fosters leadership qualities in young women. She is the president of nonprofit Word Seed, Inc. 501(c)(3) which offers itself as a voice and a service for anyone that writes. The Paterson, NJ native earned her MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell where she authored Fourteen. She is passionate about history, African-American culture and social justice issues. She is often inspired by current events and is known to infuse music into her highly emotive poetry. Queen is a columnist for Tapinto Paterson where she curates a space for critical conversations that offer perspectives which both deepen and elevate. She is a certified and licensed K-12 teacher specializing in Middle Level Humanities in both New Jersey and Washington states. Among her alma mater are Rosa Parks School of Fine & Performing Arts High School where she earned her diploma in Creative Writing, Montclair State University where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Broadcasting, University of Washington where earned both her teaching certification, and her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Poetics, and University of Notre Dame where she earned an Executive Certification in Transformational Nonprofit Management at the Mendoza Business School.
Spring 2021
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Sky O’Brien is a writer from Perth, Western Australia / Noongar Boodja. He currently lives in Seattle / Duwamish Land where he is a student in the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics at the University of Washington Bothell. In his creative work he plays with place, land, and ecosystems. He writes for Dispatches Magazine.
Chris Ryan Lauer is an author, artist, and academic in practicum at the University of Washington, with interests in the New York School literary movement, modernism, postmodernism, assemblage, montage, film d’auteur, visual culture, and intersection points between film, literature, and painting. He is recognized for his confessional style of writing & poetry.
Jessica Hagy (MFA, 2018) is the artist and writer best known for her Webby award-winning webcomic, Indexed. She is the author of the nonfiction books The Humanist’s Devotional (Freethought House), The Art of War Visualized (Workman), How to Be Interesting (Workman), and Indexed (Viking), the novel One Morning (Tartarus), and the poetry collection Here in Line for Security (Ribbon Pig). How to be Fearless (Sasquatch Books), will be published in 2021 and AETUI: Pentagram Poems (Inside the Castle), will be released in 2022. She has contributed essays, cartoons, and illustrations to more than 20 other books.
Jessica has been prolifically illustrating, consulting, exhibiting, and speaking internationally since 2006. Her work has been described as “deceptively simple,” “undeniably brilliant,” and “our favorite reason for the Internet to exist.” She received her MBA in 2007 and her MFA in 2018. Her work has been flatteringly featured in Wired, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Publisher’s Weekly and Forbes, among many others. It has also been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Rebecca Brown, Senior Artist in Residence, has published over a dozen books in the U.S. and in translation. She has exhibited visual work in museums and has lectured, read, and performed widely. She collaborates frequently with actors, artists, dancers, and musicians and also curates events. Her most recent book is Not Heaven, Somewhere Else (Tarpaulin Sky, 2018); other books include American Romances, The Last Time I Saw You, The Dogs, The Gifts of the Body and The Terrible Girls. She wrote regularly for The Stranger. Her work has been translated into Japanese, German, Dutch, Norwegian and Italian and has received The Boston Book Review Award, Lambda Literary Award, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, Washington State Book Award, and the Stranger Genius Award.
Winter 2021
A. Bunney is an interdisciplinary artist from the Pacific Northwest. Her work focuses on memory and how it intertwines with imagination, history, and the environment. She is currently completing her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at UW Bothell where her thesis includes long exposure, uncertain perceptions of reality, and Edgar Allan Poe. She has been published in Clamor (2020) and The Journal of Occurrences (2018) and is scheduled to publish in the CROW in 2021.
Tricia Fuentes is a first-year student in the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at University of Washington Bothell. A life-long Seattleite, her writing largely centers on everyday relationships within families, communities, and land. Her art explores the beauty and perseverance that comes from pain and loss. As the daughter of a refugee and descendant of a long line of strong women (and the world’s most caring dad), she draws strength and inspiration from her family, those still with her on earth and those (including her father) who have moved to the great beyond. In her free time Tricia enjoys complaining to her three kids about her lack of free time.
Siolo Thompson is a Seattle-based illustrator and writer who works in the realm of the magical, horrific, and fantastical. Her work has been published and exhibited worldwide and her client list includes McSweenys, Victoria’s Secret, Facebook, Astrology.com, and many others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell.
Living on South Beacon Hill, Simon Wolf is inspired by urban space as much as he is by woods and plants. He sees words as the surface of communication, where much is said but much falls through the gaps. Currently working on his MFA in Creative Writing at UW Bothell and working in land restoration, Simon’s poems have been published with Leveler Poetry and Seattle’s Poetry on Buses, he is the Co-Founder of Stay Happy arts Collective.
Fall 2020
G Buck is a writer making a home in Olympia, Washington while they complete their Master’s thesis at UW Bothell. Currently G is interning as an Editorial Assistant with Essay Press while pursuing their creative work which draws on words, reworks physical materials, and leaves marks at the nexus of varied languages, concrete images, and schematic abstractions. In the springtime G will be found in their garden while most evenings are spent advancing their skills in the kitchen.
Alec Owen Gabin is an impulsive, desperate sort of person. As treatment, he strives to find the spiritual in everything, including his writing and artwork. A second year MFA student, Alec recently discovered his love for trees. He has a six-year-old son named Oskar. He lives in Olympia, WA.
Liezel Moraleja Hackett is a writer and choreographer with occasional culinary tendencies. She teaches Filipino Folk dance, inspiring a lot of her work that dwells in the space between dance and illness, culture and captivity, movement and limitation. Liezel has an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell, and her work can be found in Clamor Literary Journal, UOG Press’ Storyboard: A Journal of Pacific Imagery, and Ponyak Press’ The Friday Haiku.
Joe Milutis is a media artist and writer whose interdisciplinary work includes experimental sound and radio; video works; new media; experimental narrative and poetics; theoretical writings; and various media/literature hybrids. Since the early 90s, after having produced a number of radio art broadcasts, his work has focused on new genres and media that have uncertain status and value. He was an early proponent of digital multimedia essays, and continues to work in the intersections between new media and contemporary writing. In recent years, he has been exploring experimental translation, in tandem with a creative project utilizing Michael Maier’s seventeenth-century alchemical emblem book, Atalanta Fugiens, as his source material. Current interests also include live video performance collaborations; internet poetry and related image-text experiments; nineteenth-century French poetry; and new Gothic writing.
Spring 2020
Cliff Watson will graduate in June 2021 with an MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell. He has a BS from Brown University and a MS from UW Seattle in Applied Mathematics. Cliff writes prose, poetry, and lyrics, and enjoys experimenting with multi-media and live performance. Cliff has been a program manager, software engineer, opera soloist, professional chorister, musical theatre actor, olde-tyme commercial reenactor, and circus set builder. He is currently an Assistant Career Advisor in UW Bothell’s Career Services department. Cliff grew up in Eastern Washington and Hong Kong, and lives in Bellevue, Washington with his family.
Sanika Nalgirkar has a Bachelors in Science and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics at University of Washington Bothell. She and her friend have collaborated and contributed poems, articles and book reviews to an online blog during her time as an undergraduate.
Reed Lowell is a poet and editor whose work focuses on whichever wild hare it decides to chase on a given day. He received his MFA from the University of Washington Bothell, sleeps far less than he probably should, and will read most anything you send him. His writing can be found in Clamor, Literary and Arts Journal.
A poet and multimedia artist, Diana Khoi Nguyen is the author of Ghost Of (Omnidawn 2018), which was selected by Terrance Hayes. In addition to winning the 92Y "Discovery" / Boston Review Poetry Contest, 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Colorado Book Award, she was also a finalist for the National Book Award and L.A. Times Book Prize. A Kundiman fellow, she currently teaching in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and will be an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh starting in the fall.
Jeanne Heuving is the author of Mood Indigo (selva oscura press) and the co-editor, along with Tyrone Williams, of Inciting Poetics: Thinking and Writing Poetry (University of New Mexico Press, 2019). She recently published The Transmutation of Love and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Modern and Contemporary Poetics series (University of Alabama Press, 2016). Her cross genre book Incapacity (Chiasmus Press) won a 2004 Book of the Year Award from Small Press Traffic. Other books include Transducer (Chax 2008), an edited essay collection on Nathaniel Mackey, “Ground Gone Under: Essays on the Work of Nathaniel Mackey” (currently under review at the University of Iowa Press), and Omissions Are Not Accidents: Gender in the Art of Marianne Moore (Wayne State U Press 1992). Heuving is Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell and founding director of the UW Bothell MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics.
Winter 2020
Scott M Bentley is a first year student in the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing and Poetics at the University of Washington, Bothell. He currently lives in Seattle. His poetry and prose have appeared in Pacific Review, Albion Review and Otherwhere Approach.
Ted Hiebert is a visual artist and theorist and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics at the University of Washington Bothell. His work examines the relationships between art, technology and speculative culture with a particular focus on the absurd, the paradoxical and the imaginary. Hiebert is the author of In Praise of Nonsense: Aesthetics, Uncertainty and Postmodern Identity (McGill Queens, 2012), A formalized forum for informal inquiry (Noxious Sector Press, 2015) and co-author (with David Cecchetto, Marc Couroux and Eldritch Priest) of Ludic Dreaming: How to Listen Away from Contemporary Technoculture (Bloomsbury, 2017). www.tedhiebert.net
Troy Landrum Jr. is a native of Indianapolis, IN and has lived in Seattle WA, for 6 years. His passion for youth work led him to the city but his even deeper passion for writing and literature has kept him here. He developed a passion for reading and writing later in life at the age of 27 during a process of self rediscovery surrounding self identity, faith, his culture and his families migration stories from Jim Crow South. A process that will continue to be at the helm of his human experience as a African American male. His work in community and literary work hopes to reimagine and uncover the stories of histories past that have often disappeared with the lives who have transitioned in communities of color. He is currently working toward his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Washington Bothell Campus.
Matt Porter is a writer, musician, and etc. artist currently living in a basement with hordes of baby spiders. Their work has appeared in material reality and has covered such topics as fluid-reality, post-humanism, gender performance, and socio-economic politics. High-falutin subject labels aside, they are a life-long lover of all things music and the work they will be reading from tonight focuses on the center of this obsession: The Beatles. Through poetry, essay, and complete fabrications, they hope to get at the essence of the Beatles: that which has made them the most influential group in the history of recorded music.
Natalie Singer is the author of the lyric memoir California Calling: A Self-Interrogation. Her writing has been published in journals, magazines, and newspapers, including Proximity, Entropy, Hypertext, Literary Mama, The Washington Post, Largehearted Boy, The Nervous Breakdown, and the anthology Love and Profanity. Natalie has been the recipient of several awards, including the Pacific Northwest Writers Association nonfiction prize. She's taught writing inside Washington State’s psychiatric facility for youth and Seattle’s juvenile detention center, has worked as a journalist around the West, and is currently a storyteller for a technology company. Natalie holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from the University of Washington.