From Page to Voice: Jack Straw Writers Reading
In the second of two events, 2025 Jack Straw writing fellows Hillary Behrman, Asha Dore, Makayla Danielle Gay, Monique Ouk, and Connor Watkins-Xu read some of the poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction they’ve been working on this year.
Jack Straw Cultural Center’s Writers Program was founded in 1997 to introduce 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; to present the writers and their work to the public; and to build community among writers.
Participating writers are presented in live readings, in the printed Jack Straw Writers Anthology; and on the web and radio. Writers receive training in vocal presentation, performance, and microphone technique to prepare them for public readings, interviews, and studio recording. Their recorded readings and interviews with the curator are then used to produce programs for SoundPages, our literary podcast, and for selected radio broadcast.
Connor Watkins-Xu
Connor Watkins-Xu holds a BA in Professional Writing from Baylor University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland, where he taught creative and academic writing. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, North American Review, Redivider, Columbia Journal, Gargoyle, The Hong Kong Review, Salvation South, and elsewhere. His manuscript has been named a semifinalist for the Berkshire Prize and The Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry. He is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, scholarships to the Southampton Writers Conference and New York State Summer Writers Institute, and a 2025 Best of the Net nomination. Originally from Alabama, he lives with his wife in Seattle.
Asha Dore
Asha Dore is a writer and illustrator working on a book about fawning. Bylines include The New York Times, The Cut, and Slate. She hosts “Totally Biased Reviews,” a literary interview podcast. Her work can be found at www.AshaDore.net or on Instagram @adjsbb
Makayla Danielle Gay
Makayla Danielle Gay hails from Southeastern Kentucky. Her work has appeared in Adroit, Prairie Schooner, and American Literary Review, among others. Her debut collection, Hackles (Girl Noise Press 2025) is available now.
Hillary Behrman
Hillary Behrman’s award winning short stories have been described as deeply humane and unsettling and have been published in journals, magazines, short story dispensers and an anthology. Lake Effect, her debut collection of stories was chosen by Lauren Groff as the winner of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction and will be published by Sarabande Books in 2026. Groff praised Lake Effect as a book of “great moral power and heart” by “an author of extraordinary grace.” Hillary is a recipient of the Chris O’Malley Prize in Fiction from The Madison Review. She has an MFA in fiction from Pacific University and was a participant in fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. She’s been a writer in residence at the National Willa Cather Center and an artist in residence at the Vashon Artist Residency. Hillary lives and writes in Seattle where she raised two kids and worked as a children’s civil rights lawyer and public defender. She’s excited to be a part of the Jack Straw Writers Program and is working on her first novel.
Monique Ouk
Monique Ouk is a Cambodian-American writer. Her poetry appears in Diode Poetry Journal, The Margins, and The Seventh Wave.
