Free Writing Workshop:
THE PERSISTENT LINE
led by Stephen ThomasSaturday, July 1, 4:30-6:00 pm
BookTree Bookstore,
609 Market St., Kirkland.
Sponsored by Raven Chronicles Press and BookTree.
June 25th, Sunday, 2-5 pm: Annual James W. Washington Jr. Garden Party and Fund Raiser. SPECIAL GUEST: Literary Artist Carletta C. Wilson. Author of Poem of Stone & Bone, Carletta has documented her 2011 experience as an artist-in-residence in powerful words and full color photographs that are designed to encourage and inspire….
Join us at: the Dr. James & Janie Washington Cultural Center, 1816 26th Avenue, Seattle 98122. Music and presentations by community members.
Free Writing Workshop: MEMOIR IN THE CONTEXT OF HISTORY led by Kathleen Alcalá.
There are many untold stories from history. These are not the ones alluded to in history books, but those passed down through generations as, in some cases, all that is left of a family inheritance.
“The time that was continues to tick inside the time that is,” Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano once wrote—from Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World (translated by Mark Fried).
You might have lived through a historically significant event, and not have realized it. You might have spent hours with an elder who experienced a historic event, but has not left a written or recorded memoir behind. It might have been told in another language, or by someone who had little formal education. The prose poem is a succinct form in which to present these vignettes, preserving or highlighting brief moments from the past. Students are encouraged to bring a photo or other memento that can act as a focal point for the work.
Join us for Raven Chronicles Press’s live reading at Elliott Bay Book Company, June 1, 2023. Kathleen Alcalá will be interviewed by Professor Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs about Raven Chronicles’ new edition of THE FLOWER IN THE SKULL.
Spanning 130 years, The Flower in the Skull opens in the 1870s with Concha, an Ópata Indian woman who has fled to Tucson, where she works as a housekeeper and clings to memories of her old way of life. Her daughter, Rosa, feels the trauma of Concha’s loss but struggles to understand her mother’s culture. The story jumps forward to 1990s Los Angeles, where Shelly, a young Chicana woman, digs through historical archives in search of information about the Ópata people.
“Kathleen Alcalá is one of America’s best writers. The clarity and depth of her work allow us to see and treasure the many untold stories about our indigenous ancestors in a territory always influenced by both Mexican and American history.” —Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, author of How Many Indians Can We Be? ¿Cuántos indios podemos ser? and The Runaway Poems
“Alcala’s timely endeavor to reclaim, research, write and honor the ‘old stories’ of her Ópata great-grandmother is an utterly glorious achievement.” —Penina Ava Taesali, author of Sourcing Siapo
“A book of deep connections, one that bridges the Old Ways with modern life, the Mexican-American culture with its Native roots, and the unrelenting grind of reality with the triumph of spirit.” —Anita Endrezze, author of Butterfly Moon
As artist-in-residence at the Dr. James and Janie Washington Studio and Cultural Center in the Central District, Wilson created a series of site-specific installations whose process is documented in Poem of Stone & Bone. Journal entries chart her journey and visceral responses to objects found on the grounds, in the house and studio of the artist. Poem of Stone and Bone engages objects, land and literature to create a nuanced perspective on the life and work of James W. Washington Jr.
On April 24, 7-8:30 pm, at Elliott Bay Bookstore Raven will be launching our 2nd anthology of work, selected from the work we published from 1991 to 2018: This Light Called Darkness, A Raven Chronicles Anthology, Selected Work 1997-2005. The anthology contains the work of 85 writers and 34 artists. Readers include Anna Odessa Linzer, Kathleen Alcalá, Paul Hunter, Koon Woon, Carletta Carrington Wilson, Anna Bálint, Raúl Sánchez, Annie Pearson, Carolyne Wright, Natalie Pascale Boisseau, and Martha McAvoy Linehan.
Reception for Carletta Carrington Wilson’s book “Poem of Stone & Bone, The Iconography of James W. Washington Jr.” 2-5 pm, Sheraton Grand Hotel Seattle, 1400 6th Avenue, Seattle 98101. This is a reception for the Raven Chronicles Press’s 2023 publication of Carletta Carrington Wilson’s “Poem of Stone & Bone, The Iconography of James W. Washington Jr. in Fourteen Stanzas and Thirty-One Days.” This book documents four site-specific installations Wilson created in 2011 on the Seattle property of noted African American sculptor James W. Washington Jr. This house, located at 1816 26th Avenue in Seattle, Washington, honors the life and legacy of Washington, a celebrated African American painter and sculptor and a leading member of the Northwest School of artists.
OPS was founded in 2012: “with the specific mission to provide services to survivors of Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE).” Moderator Nykki Canete will lead a discussion with other OPS staff, Martha Linehan, Rekina Perry, SarahAnn Hamilton, and Searetha Simons, on, among other topics, the Art Workshop and how art is used in their programming to facilitate healing and transformation for survivors. “The Organization for Prostitution Survivor’s mission is to accompany survivors of prostitution in creating and sustaining efforts to heal from, and end, this practice of gender-based violence. OPS is survivor-founded, survivor-led, staffed predominately by survivors, and we elevate survivors in all we do.”
Kathleen Alcalá talks to Daniel A. Olivas about his new book, How to Date a Flying Mexican, which is a collection of short stories derived from Chicano and Mexican culture but ranging through fascinating literary worlds of magical realism, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. The characters confront—both directly and obliquely—questions of morality, justice, and self-determination, but often with a large dose of humor.
Allison Green talks to Rebecca Brown about her new book of essays, You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe, on the four seasons, time and love, death and growing up. In this new nonfiction work, queer novelist Rebecca Brown turns her attention to life’s biggest questions: time, love, and how we endure.
We are hosting monthly conversations with writers, artists, cultural warriors. Susan and Harold discuss Susan’s forthcoming book Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry). With an introduction by Ilya Kaminsky, Gallery of Postcards and Maps collects the essential and award-winning poems from Susan Rich’s four books of poetry along with a generous selection of unpublished work. Rich’s poetry spans the last twenty years through a life engaged with human rights, compassion, and questions of travel.
Carolyne Wright and Christine Lysnewycz Holbert discuss the history of Lost Horse Press, particular books published, and the Lost Horse Press Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry Series.
Live Event: Raven Chronicles Press Announces the Publication and Book Release of Dogzes and Katzes, drawings by Elizabeth (Detonator Beth) Lawrence.
We are hosting monthly conversations with writers, artists, cultural warriors. Today, art historian Susan Noyes Platt is talking to Ann Batchelor Hursey about her recently published book, Field Notes, To Maya Lin’s Confluence Project Landscapes.
We are hosting monthly conversations with writers, artists, cultural warriors. Today poet Ann Spiers is talking to Sharon Hashimoto about her recently published book, MORE AMERICAN, winner of the 2021 Off The Grid Poetry Prize
2021 Washington State Book Awards Presents: Take a Stand, Art Against Hate, A Raven Chronicles Anthology
December 9, 6pm, free online event, Registration required.
(“Rescatando lo que es útil para el presente: Activismo por la Nación Ópata”)
Discussion in Spanish & English
Participants: Kathleen Alcalá, moderator (Bainbridge Island, Washington State);
Isabel Cristina Murrieta López (Nácori Chico, Sonora, Mexico);
Dani Ahuicapahtzin Cornejo Warner (East Oakland, California)
Set in northern Mexico in the 1870s, Spirits of the Ordinary is a novel that weaves the stories of women struggling against societal constraints, Mexican Jews practicing their religion in secret, and a gold prospector turned spiritual seeker in a spectacular desert landscape.
Originally published by Chronicle Books in 1997, Spirits incorporates styles and themes that the author has continued to explore in her later novels and nonfiction works: fabulist/speculative fiction, environmental writing, the Mexico-U.S. borderland in the late 19th century, and crypto-Judaism.
Register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkdu6gpzgiGNOtiUn_paHBgk700QPwx8AC
Please join Kathleen Alcalá and Rigoberto González to launch a new edition of SPIRITS of the ORDINARY from Raven Chronicles Press—with a foreword by Rigoberto González.
Link to live even:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88420546769
Also live on Raven’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RavenChroniclesPress/
Set in northern Mexico in the 1870s, Spirits of the Ordinary weaves the stories of women struggling against societal constraints, Mexican Jews practicing their religion in secret, and a gold prospector turned spiritual seeker in a spectacular desert landscape.
Winner of the Washington State Governor’s Writers Award and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award when originally published in 1997, Spirits of the Ordinary was one of the first books to address the topic of the hidden Jews of Mexico. The author has gone on to write two more novels of the Mexico-U.S. borderland in the late 19th century (The Flower in the Skull and Treasures in Heaven), and in her collection of essays, The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing, she describes how the three novels were inspired by family stories, interviews with elders, and extensive research.
Rigoberto González is the author of eighteen books of poetry and prose. His awards include Lannan, Guggenheim, NEA, NYFA, and USA Rolón fellowships, the PEN/Voelcker Award, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America. A critic-at-large for The LA Times and contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, he is the series editor for the Camino del Sol Latinx Literary Series at the University of Arizona Press. Currently, he’s Distinguished Professor of English and the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.
A writer whose work embraces both traditional and innovative storytelling techniques, KATHLEEN ALCALÁ is the author of six award-winning books that include a collection of stories, three novels, an essay collection, and a blueprint for sustainability, The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island. The daughter of Mexican parents, Alcalá was born and raised in California, and now lives in the Pacific Northwest.
https://www.eagleharborbooks.com/event/zoom-conversation-kathleen-alcala-claudia-castro-luna
Set in northern Mexico in the 1870s, Spirits of the Ordinary tells interweaving stories centered on Zacarías Carabajal, who leaves his comfortable city home to prospect for gold in the wilderness while his abandoned wife, Estela, struggles to build a new life. Visions, dreams, and portents are part of the everyday world of Spirits of the Ordinary. Estela's siblings, the enigmatic and supernaturally beautiful twins Manzana and Membrillo, discover their gift for water divining. Zacarías's mother, Mariana, has been silent all her adult life after experiencing an apocalyptic vision of angels in her teens. His father, Julio, is an apothecary devoted to Torah study and Jewish mysticism, practicing his religion in secret as generations before him have done. Meanwhile, Zacarías's wanderings turn into a spiritual quest that takes him to the ancient cliff dwellings known as Casas Grandes.Presenting a tapestry of fascinating lives as well as the story of a reluctant mystic in a spectacular desert landscape, Spirits of the Ordinary demonstrates that, as Alcalá writes in her introduction, "magic and holiness are all around us."
A writer whose work embraces both traditional and innovative storytelling techniques, Kathleen Alcalá is the author of six award-winning books that include a collection of short stories, three novels, an essay collection, and a blueprint for sustainability, The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island. The daughter of Mexican parents, Alcalá was born and raised in California, and now lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Claudia Castro Luna is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate fellow (2019), WA State Poet Laureate (2018 – 2021) and Seattle’s inaugural Civic Poet (2015-2018), the author of One River, A Thousand Voices (Chin Music Press), the Pushcart nominated Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press) also shortlisted for WA State 2018 Book Award in poetry, and the chapbook This City (Floating Bridge Press). Her most recent non-fiction is forthcoming in There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis (Vintage) due out in May 2021. Born in El Salvador she came to the United States in 1981. Living in English and Spanish, Claudia writes and teaches in Seattle on unceded Duwamish lands where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and their three children.
Information on joining the free Zoom will be posted next week. We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible!
*Anyone interested in ordering Claudia Castro Luna's book can find them here. Eagle Harbor Book Co. will be unable to order them for this event. Thank you for understanding.
Register at:
"A fecund fable about the convergence of cultures—Mexican, American and Jewish—along the Mexico/Texas border.... Alcalá's seductive writing mixes fatalism and hope, logic and fantasy."—Publishers Weekly.
"Alcalá's lyrical language soars, sweeping the reader into achingly beautiful landscapes, the rapture of spiritual experience and the madness lurking at the edge of solitude."—Claudia Castro Luna.
Kathleen Alcalá is the author of five other works of fiction and non-fiction. Joining her this evening will be Dalia Kandiyoti, professor of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, and author of The Converso’s Return: Conversion and Sephardi History in Contemporary Literature and Cinema (Stanford University), a book which traces some of the same ground Kathleen Alcalá works in her fiction.
"Embedded in a sophisticated theoretical framework and a wide range of historical reference, The Converso's Return brilliantly explores and confronts questions of memory's use and representation. In creating a new literary map based on seemingly disparate texts that actually belong together, Dalia Kandiyoti is ever vigilant to the political implications of all forms of return."—Ammiel Alcalay.
REGISTER @:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIodO6prjkqEtWWzqOmRYTDj0ex2Gfl4uRL
Anna Bálint is a London-born, Seattle-based poet, writer, editor and teacher of East European descent. Her most recent editorial work is the anthology Take a Stand, Art Against Hate (Raven Chronicles Press, 2020). Her story collection Horse Thief (Curbstone Press, 2004), was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and her poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. Two earlier books of poetry were Out of the Box and spread them crimson sleeves like wings. An alumna of Hedgebrook’s Writers in Residence Program and the Jack Straw Writers Program, Anna has also taught creative writing for many years and in many places, including Washington State Prisons, El Centro de la Raza, Writers in the Schools, Antioch University, Richard Hugo House, and Path with Art (all in Seattle). In 2001, she received a Leading Voice Award in recognition of her creative work with urban and immigrant youth at El Centro de la Raza. Currently she is a teaching artist at Recovery Café where, in 2012, she founded Safe Place Writing Circle for people in recovery from trauma, addiction, mental illness, and homelessness.
https://sites.google.com/site/soulfoodpoetrynight/future-readings/march-18-2021
https://sites.google.com/site/soulfoodpoetrynight/Home
Join Raven Contributors to "Take a Stand, Art Against Hate": March 18, 7pm; followed by an open mic.
MC: Michael Dylan Welch; Readers: Marc Beaudin (Livingston, Montana), Risa Denenberg (Olympic peninsula), Thomas Hubbard (Kirkland), Tamam Kahn (San Rafael, CA), and Susana Praver-Pérez (Oakland, CA).
Marc Beaudin, an Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Foundation artist-in-residence, is a poet, theatre artist and ABAA-member bookseller in Livingston, Montana. He is the author of Life List: Poems, the hitchhiking memoir, Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals, and several other books. His work has appeared in numerous journals including Cutthroat, High Desert Journal and Whitefish Review, and has been widely anthologized in publications fighting for environmental and social justice. He believes the Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D is more powerful than all the guns, smokestacks and coal trains in the world. More at https://crowvoice.com.
Risa Denenberg lives on the Olympic peninsula and is co-founder and editor at Headmistress Press, publisher of lesbian/bi/trans poetry. She publishes poetry book reviews at Adroit, the Rumpus and other venues, and curates The Poetry Café, an online meeting place where poetry chapbooks are reviewed. She has published seven collections of poetry, most recently, slight faith (MoonPath Press, 2018) and Posthuman, finalist for the 2020 Floating Bridge Chapbook Contest. Visit: https://thepoetrycafe.online/ and https://risadenenberg.com/.
Thomas Hubbard, a retired writing instructor and spoken word performer, wrote features for various newspapers and magazines during the 1980s, then authored Nail and other hardworking poems, Year of the Dragon Press, 1994; Junkyard Dogz (also available on audio CD); and Injunz, a chapbook, also Poems for my people, Foothills Publishing 2011. 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 andYellow Medicine Review.
Tamam Kahn is the author two books on the women of early Islam: Untold, A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad (Monkfish Books, 2010), was awarded an International Book Award in 2011, and translated into Indonesian; and Fatima’s Touch, Poems and Stories of the Prophet’s Daughter (Ruhaniat Press, 2016). Tamam has traveled to sacred sites in Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Andalusia, and India, and spent two decades researching early Islamic history. In 2009, she was invited by the Royal Ministry of Morocco to read her poetry at a world-wide Sufi conference in Marrakesh. She presented at The Mystics Summit, February, 2021: Mother Ancestor Stories. Website: https://completeword.wordpress.com.
Susana Praver-Pérez is an Oakland-based, Pushcart nominated poet. By day, she works as a Physician Assistant at La Clínica de la Raza. By night, she can be found reading poetry at open mics from San Francisco to San Juan, By nature, she is a storyteller recounting that to which she bears witness through her poetic lens. Susana’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals including: The Acentos Review, La Respuesta, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Poets Reading the News, About Place Journal, Meow Meow Pow Pow Press, Dove Tails, and the Raven Chronicles anthology Take a Stand: Art Against Hate. Her first full-length book of poetry titled: Hurricanes, Love Affairs and Other Disasters, will be released by Nomadic Press in 2021.
On Jan. 21, 2021, Thursday, from 7:8:30 pm PST, contributors from the anthology Take A Stand, Art Against Hate will read their work and work by other authors. With over 170 contributors, including Jericho Brown, Lucille Clifton, Marge Piercy, and Danez Smith, Take a Stand features poetry, artwork, essays, and fiction that confront past and ongoing injustices and offer visions of positive change. Co-hosted by Seattle City of Literature, The Seattle Public Library, and Raven Chronicles Press. Third Place Books bookstore will partner with us.
Meeting ID: 840 8704 7740
Holly Hughes (moderator) is the author of Hold Fast, Sailing by Ravens, coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and editor of the award-winning anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease. Her fine art chapbook Passings received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2017.
Kathleen Alcalá: Both a graduate of and instructor in the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy program, her work embraces both traditional and innovative storytelling techniques. She is the author of six award-winning 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, from the University of Washington Press.
Ronda Piszk Broatch, poet and photographer, is the author of Lake of Fallen Constellations (MoonPath Press, 2015). Ronda was a finalist for the Four Way Books Prize, and her poems have been nominated several times for the Pushcart prize.
Mike Dillon, retired publisher of Pacific Publishing Co., grew up on Bainbridge Island. His most recent book is Departures: Poetry and Prose on the Removal of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese Americans After Pearl Harbor(Unsolicited Press, April 2019).
Ed Harkness is the author of three poetry collections, Saying the Necessary, Beautiful Passing Lives, and, most recently, The Law of the Unforeseen, from Pleasure Boat Studio Press. He lives in Shoreline, Waashington.
Anna Odessa Linzer lives on Dabob Bay, where she writes poetry and fiction, is adapting her play from her novel A River Story into a film, and where she swims year around. Her novel Ghost Dancing received an American Book Award in 1998; three of her other novels were published as a limited-edition trilogy Home Waters by Marquand Books.
Jed Myers is author of Watching the Perseids (Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award), The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press), and four chapbooks. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Poetry Northwest, The American Journal of Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, Greensboro Review, and elsewhere.
Carletta Carrington Wilson is a visual and literary artist. The form and formation of language is integral to the work she creates by which she explores the “texts” of textiles. Her installation, letter to a laundress, was exhibited at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, the University of Puget Sound’s Kittredge Gallery, and Seattle’s King Street Station.
“We can regard Take a Stand, Art Against Hate as a print-form peace march, an ongoing campaign for justice for all of the struggles embodied in these writings and depicted in the photos and artwork included here.” —Carolyne Wright
Riverwood Poetry Presents: Take a Stand: Art Against Hate
Online: Tuesday, October 13, 7pm EST; 4pm PST.
Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QQ8feRjlTOq7a4krB3rfyQ
Riverwood Poetry Series @ Real Art Ways opens its new season with readings and conversations from the anthology Take A Stand: Art Against Hate, from Raven Chronicles Press in Seattle, Washington. New England poets and community leaders who will read poems from the collection and share their responses, include:
• Anthony Bennett – Lead Pastor at the Mt. Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport, CT
• Steven Hernandez – Director of Connecticut Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity and Opportunity
• Mike Keo – Photographer and Founder, IAMNOTAVIRUS Campaign
• Frederick-Douglass Knowles II—Poet, Professor of English Three Rivers Community College, and Hartford Poet Laureate
• Marilyn Nelson – Poet, University of Connecticut Professor Emeritus, and former Connecticut Poet Laureate
• Elizabeth Neptune – President, Neptune Advantage serving Passamaquoddy and other Native American tribes
• Attorney General William Tong – Connecticut Attorney General
• Taylor Bryan Turner – Assistant Regional Administrator, Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration, Boston, MA, and her father, Robert Bryan
• Representative Mary Jane Wallner – New Hampshire State Representative
• Elaine Zimmerman – Poet and U. S. Region 1 Administrator of Children and Families Boston, MA.
Poems will engage with legacy, presence, questions, evidence and/or resistance. There will be time for discussion with our readers following the presentation. Take a Stand: Art Against Hate can be purchased from the Raven Chronicles at https://www.ravenchronicles.org/shop/take-a-stand-art-against-hate-a-raven-chronicles-anthology/ or at local bookstores.
Thank you for joining us to forward a climate of respect, diversity and dignity. We reach out virtually for the safety and health of all.
J
Olympic Peninsula Take A Stand: Art Against Hate Anthology Reading
Co-sponsored by Northwind Reading Series
Port Townsend Public Library
Raven Chronicles Press
This event is supported in part by Poets & Writers
October, 8, 2020, 7:30-9:00 pm (PST)
Moderator: Holly Hughes
Readers: Sharon Carter, Alice Derry
Patrick Dixon, Tess Gallagher,
Gary Copeland Lilley, Lawrence Matsuda
Tune in & add us to your calendar!
Zoom Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86470421418?pwd=Qk5KUGk3UjZaa1hGai9EUEtOdVA1Zz09
Meeting ID: 864 7042 1418, Passcode: 796803
Sharon M. Carter is a poet and visual artist. Originally from Lancashire, she earned a medical degree from Cambridge University working in both British and American non-profit healthcare systems. Her work has been published in many literary magazines, anthologies and online, including Terra Nova, Pontoon, Exhibition, Ars Medica and the American Lung Association. She was fortunate that Hedgebrook and the Jack Straw Writers program supported her early in her writing career. She is one of four poets curating the Northwind Reading Series in Port Townsend. A manuscript entitled Quiver is forthcoming.
Alice Derry is the author of five volumes of poetry, most recently Hunger (MoonPath, 2018) along with three chapbooks, including translations of poems by Rainer Rilke. She taught for thirty years at Peninsula College, where she curated the Foothills Poetry Series, holding some 12-15 readings per year. Since retirement, she has been active in helping local tribal members access poetry and has taught a number of community workshops in poetry. She has also written a number of essays and presented at professional conferences. Raymond Carver chose her first poetry manuscript, Stages of Twilight, for the King County (Seattle) Arts Prize. Strangers to their Courage was a finalist for the Washington Book Award.
Patrick Dixon is a writer/photographer, retired from careers in teaching and commercial fishing. A member of the Olympia Poetry Network Board of Directors, he has been published in several literary journals, including Cirque, Panoplyzine, Oberon, The Raven Chronicles, The Tishman Review, and the anthologies FISH 2015 and WA129. He is the poetry editor of National Fisherman magazine’s quarterly, North Pacific Focus. A member of the FisherPoets Gathering organizing committee, Mr. Dixon received an Artist Trust Grant to edit Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology (2014). His chapbook Arc of Visibility won the 2015 Alabama State Poetry Morris Memorial Award. He lives in Olympia, Washington.
Tess Gallagher’s eleventh volume of poetry, Is, Is Not, was published May, 2019 by Graywolf Press. Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems, also from Graywolf, is the most comprehensive offering of her poems to date. Other poetry includes Dear Ghosts, Moon Crossing Bridge, and Amplitude. Gallagher’s The Man from Kinvara: Selected Stories (fall, 2009) are the basis for film episodes currently under development. Barnacle Soup: Stories from the West of Ireland, a collaboration with the Sligo storyteller Josie Gray, is available in the U.S. from Carnegie Mellon. She spends time in a cottage on Lough Arrow in County Sligo, in West Ireland, where many of her new poems are set, and also lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington.
Holly Hughes is the author of Hold Fast, Sailing by Ravens, coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and editor of the award-winning anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease. Her fine art chapbook, Passings, received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2017. She’s a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program, where she served on the staff for thirteen years, in addition to teaching writing at community colleges for several decades. She currently leads writing and mindfulness workshops in Alaska and the Northwest, and consults as a writing coach.
Gary Copeland Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman’s Medicine Show, from Lost Horse Press (2017), and a chapbook, The Hog Killing, from Blue Horse Press (2018). He is originally from North Carolina, and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He has received the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. He is published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Best American Poetry 2014, Willow Springs, The Swamp, Waxwing, the Taos International Journal of Poetry, and the African American Review. He is a Cave Canem Fellow.
Lawrence Matsuda was born in the Minidoka, Idaho Concentration Camp during World War II. He and his family were among the approximately 120,000 Japanese incarcerated. In 2010, his book of poetry entitled, A Cold Wind from Idaho about the WWII forced incarceration of Japanese Americans was published by Black Lawrence Press. In 2014 his book of poetry, Glimpses of a Forever Foreigner, was published. It was a collaboration between Matsuda and artist Roger Shimomura, who contributed seventeen original sketches. In 2016, he and Tess Gallagher collaborated on Boogie Woogie CrissCross, a book of poetry developed from emails they exchanged while she was in Ireland and he was in Seattle. In 2019, he completed a novel based on his mother’s experiences entitled, My Name Is Not Viola (Endicott and Hugh publisher).
Poets and open mic readers read from their work and from: Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, A Raven Chronicles Press Anthology, 2020.
Oct. 1, 2020
Virtual Event: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81424000025?pwd=cDc0SHM5b0E0dlg4L3JiTStMQ1FIdz09#success
Readers: Stuart Gunter, Virginia's former poet laureate Ron Smith (2014-2106), and open mic readers.
