Alumni Stories

By Andrew Carson (’16)

I recently had the opportunity to meet up over lunch with Lynarra Featherly and Sarah Baker, fellow alumni of the University of Washington Bothell MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics program. What resulted was a ranging conversation during which we discussed our MFA experiences, our lives now, and a few pertinent asides.

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Corbin Louis ('17) was selected for the 2018 Jack Straw Writers Program. The Jack Straw Writers Program was created in 1997 to introduce local writers to the medium of recorded audio, to develop their presentation skills for both live and recorded readings, to encourage the creation of new literary work, and to provide new venues for the writers and their work. 

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Travis Sharp (’15) is a Ph.D. student in the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) where he teaches writing and rhetoric. Amidst the demands of graduate life, Sharp finds space to collaborate, curate, produce, and present.  For example, he was recently funded to curate a series of ephemeral texts via autodestruct.online, and this June, he will teach a workshop on ...

For the first time, since the city was founded by Alexander Hamilton 225 years ago, Paterson, NJ has named Talena Lachelle Queen as their first “African American Poet Laureate.”  A ceremony honoring Queen will take place on February 3 at the historic Paterson Public Library. Queen (’14) is a poet and graduate of UW Bothell’s inaugural MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics program ...

Susan Brown (’14) has been busy!  Her artist book Mythical Magical Physickal Madness was included in the Heroic Works exhibition at University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries last summer. In October, a second copy was exhibited at Seattle's Antiquarian Book Fair, which showcases thousands of rare and antiquarian books and ephemera. Brown is also ...

Shortly after he received his MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics, I ran into Colin (’15) at a reading at Folio, a private library in downtown Seattle. I remembered hearing him read pieces of his thesis—a beautifully written and ambitious start to a novel— at the MFA Salons.

Around the same time Colin was reading at those salons, Seattle City of Literature was in the news for two reasons.

On May 17, four MFA-trained writers met with students and alumni of the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics program to discuss their career paths. Hosted at  McMenamins Anderson School, conversation centered on the diverse ways writers grow and sustain their creative practices.  Special guests included: MFA alumni Scott Brown (’15), Talena Lachelle Queen (’14) and Natalie Singer-Velush (’16), and local artist Sierra Nelson. ...

By Natalie Singer-Velush

The time spent as a student in an MFA program, especially the early months, can be overwhelming. There are never enough hours to read, to spend with new ideas, to fulfill the requirements of the program, and also follow our own newly developing inquiries and impulses. The time, conversely, is often also highly charged artistically: These new ideas, however demanding and sleep-depriving, activate a desire to engage deeply with language and art and the process of making and investigating these.

One group of IAS’s MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics students responded to that charge by launching a micropress, a project that has evolved as its instigators have, and which has provided space for the incubation and expression of art and ideas within the realm of the program and, now, beyond.

Natalie Singer-Velush ('16) was named among the 2016 Winners of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Intro Journals Project, with an Honorable Mention for Creative Non-Fiction for her submission “There is But One Choice: Confession or Some Form of Extinction.” The Intro Journals Project is a literary competition for the discovery and publication of the best new works by students enrolled in AWP member programs, as nominated by the programs. Winning selections are published in participating journals, including Tampa Review, Colorado Review,  and Iron Horse Literary Review, among others.  The essay contains an excerpt from her memoir, California Calling, for which she is seeking a publisher.

Kelle Grace Gaddis (’14) is thriving as a writer.  Her first book My Myths, a poetry collection, was published by Yellow Chair Press in October 2016.  Gaddis was also published by ...

Margaret Chiavetta (’14) has published her first book, The Alchemist’s Theorem: Sir Duffy’s Promise, which is the first book in a planned five-part series. The series features a middle grade hero who registers on the autism spectrum.  Recently ParentMap.com conducted an interview with Chiavetta to find out why kids need more fictional characters with special needs. In the interview Chiavetta says:

Natalie Singer-Velush (’16) has been chosen as a finalist for Autumn House Press’s nonfiction prize.  Selected from more than 1,000 manuscript entries, her memoir, California Calling, traces Singer-Velulsh’s relocation from Canada to California at age sixteen and explores moments of being silenced before finding her voice. Her manuscript was largely written as she was completing her MFA program and seeking small press publishers.  Singer-Velush was enticed by ...

A panel of local writers met with MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics students and alumni to share their career trajectories and advice for the road.  They discussed how their MFA degrees have enhanced their writing, ways they’ve sustained their practices creatively and financially, and what professional opportunities they see for emerging writers.  Panelists included MFA alumni Margaret Chiavetta (’14) and Travis Sharp (’15), and Priscilla Long, and Sarah Mangold.

Margaret Chiavetta (’14) continues to receive glowing reviews on her new kids fantasy novel, The Alchemist's Theorem: Sir Duffy’s Promise...

MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics alumni are publishing widely!  Issue 5 of Small Po[r]tions, a twice yearly journal of short[er] work and multi/intermedia art, has hit the web.  Co-editors include ...

Susan Brown (’14) spent time taking photographs in London while doing field research for her master’s thesis. Responding to a call for posters by the Association of Illustrators based in London, she envisioned “Under the Moon!” which was chosen to be included in the “London Places and Spaces” exhibition at the London Transport Museum, running from May through September 2015.  

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Kelle Grace Gaddis, a 2014 graduate of our MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics program, has launched Brightly Press.  This small press will debut at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in April 2015, featuring some of the coutry's top poets. Gaddis' own work has recently been published in a number of venues.