Kathleen Alcalá was born in Compton, California, to Mexican parents, and grew up in San Bernardino. She has a degree in linguistics from Stanford University, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and an MFA from the University of New Orleans. A graduate of the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy program, her work embraces both traditional and innovative storytelling techniques. She is the author of six books that include a collection of stories, three novels, a book of essays, and most recently, The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island (University of Washington Press, 2016). Recognition includes the Western States Book Award, the Governor’s Writers Award, and two Artist Trust Fellowships. Kathleen has been a guest professor at Seattle University and the University of New Mexico, as well as a writer in residence at Hugo House in Seattle. Until recently, she taught at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, a low-residency MFA program. She lives on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington, where she has been designated an Island Treasure.

Photo Credit: Wayne Roth

Phoebe Bosché was raised in Long Beach, California, and studied political science at Cal State Los Angles. She is a cultural activist, and has been managing editor of The Raven Chronicles literary organization/Raven Chronicles Press since 1991. Beginning in 1984, she organized literary events and readings in the Pacific Northwest. In 1985, she co-founded, along with poet Roberto Valenza, “Alternative to Loud Boats,” a literary and musical festival which ran for ten years in various venues in Seattle. In the mid-1980s to early 1990s, she was co-editor of Swale Magazine (with Valenza) and SkyViews, a monthly literary publication of Red Sky Poetry Theater. Her spoken word poems appear in various publications, including the anthology Durable Breath, Contemporary Native American Poetry, Salmon Run Publishing Co., Anchorage, Alaska, and Open Sky Magazine. She is a full-time editor and book designer. Her favorite poet is Archy, the cockroach, whose muse is Mehitabel, the alley cat.

Photo Credit: Scott Martin

Philip H. Red Eagle is of Dakota and Puget Sound Salish heritage. Philip was raised in the Northwest, including Sitka, Alaska, where he graduated from Sitka Senior High School in 1963. He holds two degrees from the University of Washington— a BFA. in Metal Design from the School of Art (1983) and a BA. in Editorial Journalism from the School of Communications (1987). Philip’s poetry, fiction, essays and reviews appear in Art Access, Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Humanities Today, Nobody's Orphan Child (Anthology), Northwest Ethnic News, The Raven Chronicles, Red Ink, and the Seattle Arts Commission Newsletter—Diverse Views, Guest Editor Series. His novel, Red Earth: A Vietnam Warrior's Journey, was re-published in paperback by Holy Cow Press (2007). Philip has been part of the Canoe Nations Program for the past decade. The focus of the use of these canoes has been in canoe journeys which encourage group cooperation, discipline, and cultural pride. This is a growing program which has no single leader. The leadership comes from the canoe societies of each tribe and various spiritual and cultural persons from the area.

Scott Martin grew up in Normandy Park, in the Pacific Northwest. He is an artist and illustrator, and proprietor of Tin Hat Novelties, the originators and producers of National Waffle Association products and a host of other original novelty items. He works for a graphic design/sign-making firm in Georgetown, Seattle. He has been Raven Chronicles’ art director for many years, produced an online column, “Art Is Where You Find It,” and interviewed many Seattle-area artists for Raven. His paintings and drawings were exhibited at the Globe Cafe, House, and Free Mars in Seattle.

Willie Pugh brings nearly thirty years of Direct Marketing experience to his position with Raven Chronicles. He is a forty-year veteran of the US Postal Service from which he retired in 2017 as Senior Sales Executive-Mailing. While in that position he assisted many companies in the State of Washington achieve their direct marketing goals, including numerous small and mid-sized businesses. He was also instrumental in helping Washington State Elections create and move to its current Vote By Mail system. A graduate of the Leadership Tomorrow Class of 1993, Willie devoted scores of volunteer hours working with arts and non-profit organizations in the Northwest. This included working as a board member for DanceWorks N.W., and in various capacities with Discover Dance, Langston Hughes, Festival Sundiata, Intiman Theater, Group Theater, and the Seattle Rep. Aside from working with arts organizations Willie is also an artist himself: a long time Seattle photographer. An Alabama native, Willie attended an all-Black high school in Selma, Alabama, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

Photo Credit: Anna Balint

Anna Bálint: London-born and raised Anna Bálint is a writer/poet/editor, and proud to have co-edited the anthology Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, Raven Chronicles Press, 2020. She also edited Words From the Café, an anthology of writing by people in recovery, Raven Chronicles Press, 2016, and was a long-time contributing editor to the Raven Chronicles Journal. Her fiction collection, Horse Thief (Curbstone Press, 2004), spans cultures and continents, and was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Award. Two earlier books of poetry are Out of the Box and spread them crimson sleeves like wings. Anna’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. All her writing is informed by her mixed ancestry (Irish/Hungarian/Roma), immigrant experience, and a sense of not belonging to any one group. From an early age she found herself drawn to and living among people of different cultures and parts of the world, and those on the margins of society. An alumna of Hedgebrook Writers Retreat and the Jack Straw Writers Program, Anna has received awards/grants from the Seattle Arts Commission and 4Culture of King County. In 2001 she received a Leading Voice Award in recognition of her creative work with urban youth at Seattle’s El Centro de la Raza. In response to 9/11 she organized a 2002 event, Evidence of Compassion, A Reading of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Poetry & Literature, hosted by Elliott Bay Book Company. A passionate teacher, Anna has taught Creative Writing for many years and in many places, including in prisons, Writers in the Schools, Antioch University, Richard Hugo House, and Seattle’s Path With Art. Since 2012, she has taught creative writing at Seattle’s Recovery Café, where she founded and leads Safe Place Writing Circle to help adults in recovery heal from the traumas of homelessness, addiction, and mental illness.

Photo Credit: Willie Pugh

Thomas Hubbard, a retired writing instructor and spoken word performer, authored Nail and other hardworking poems, Year of the Dragon Press, 1994; Junkyard Dogz (also available on audio CD); and Injunz, a chapbook. He designed and published Children Remember Their Fathers (an anthology), and books by seven other authors. His book reviews have appeared in Square Lake, Raven Chronicles, New Pages and The Cartier Street Review. Publication credits include poems in Yellow Medicine Review, spring 2010, I Was Indian, editor Susan Deer Cloud (Foothills Publishing, 2010), and Florida Review; and short stories in Red Ink and Yellow Medicine Review.

Paul Hunter’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, as well as in seven full-length books and three chapbooks. His first collection of farming poems, Breaking Ground (Silverfish Review Press, 2004), was reviewed in The New York Times, and received the 2004 Washington State Book Award. A second volume of farming poems, Ripening, was published in 2007, a third companion volume, Come the Harvest, appeared in 2008, and the fourth, Stubble Field, from the same publisher, appeared in 2012. He has been a featured poet on The News Hour, and has a prose book on small-scale, sustainable farming, One Seed to Another: The New Small Farming (Small Farmer’s Journal, 2010). His book of prose poetry, Clownery, In lieu of a life spent in harness, was published by Davila Art & Books (2017), Sisters, Oregon. His most recent book is eighteen contemporary cowhand stories, Sit a Tall Horse (Davila Art & Books, 2020).

Anna Odessa Linzer is the author of the award-winning novel, Ghost Dancing, and of A River Story, that was adapted into a two-person performance piece. Her home waters are the Salish Sea, where she is a long distance, cold-water swimmer. Home Waters, a trilogy of three novels—Blind Virgil, Dancing on Waters and A River Story—was published as a limited edition by Marquand Books. Her stories, poems, and essays have been published in anthologies and literary magazines, including Kenyon Review, Carolina Quarterly, Paris LA, Raven Chronicles, NW Ethnic News, and Caliban.

Photo Credit is Mary Randlett

Tonya Namura has spent her entire life in giving physical form to stories. As a kid, she copied out poems from books in the library, falling in love with the shapes of letters and the arrangement of words on the page. She moved on to design the yearbook in high school, and the newspaper and literary magazine in college, discovering how covers and fonts and even paper choice could influence how stories are received. Her professional gigs have included everything from catalogs and mathematical texts to national magazines and nonprofit marketing materials. Most recently, she’s been designing books for MoonPath Press, Concrete Wolf Poetry Series, World Enough Writers, and Empty Bowl Press. To Tonya, every project has a story just waiting for its best possible form.

Thomas R. Prince is a poet, playwright, and published journalist. Born in Chicago, he was a woodwind player until he broke his hand in a fall in 1981. Excepting a couple of brief sojourns, he has resided in Seattle since 1973. One six month trip to Mexico in 1986 taught Prince Spanish, which he has mostly forgotten. A political activist, Prince has organized unorthodox marches such as the January 2001 Funeral for Democracy. He is currently producing a documentary with the working title Red Sky Poetry Theatre: An Alternative Seattle.

Photo Credit: Maryna Ajaja