Mix Tape: Poetry and Conversation with Former Hugo Fellows

Deirdre Lockwood

Deirdre Lockwood is a Seattle-based poet, fiction writer, and journalist. Her debut poetry collection, An Introduction to Error, was recently published by Cornerstone Press. She holds an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Washington.

Lauren Da’

Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher who studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is the author of Tributaries, American Book Award winner, Instruments of the True Measure, Washington State Book Award winner, and Severalty. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee and she lives in Washington with her family.

William Carty

Bill Carty is the author of Huge Cloudy (Octopus Books, 2019), which was long-listed for The Believer Book Award, and We Sailed on the Lake, published by Bunny Presse/Fonograf Editions in 2023. He has received poetry fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Artist Trust, Hugo House, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. He was awarded the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, and his poems have appeared in the jubilat, Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Iterant, Paperbag, The Kenyon Review, 32 Poems, and other journals. Originally from Maine, Bill now lives in Seattle, where he is Senior Editor at Poetry Northwest. He teaches at Hugo House, the UW Robinson Center for Young Scholars, and Edmonds College.

Shankar Narayan

Shankar Narayan explores identity, power, mythology, and technology in a world where the body is flung across borders yet possesses unrivaled power to transcend them. Shankar is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the winner of prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, Hugo House, Jack Straw, Flyway, and River Heron. He is a 4Culture grant recipient for Claiming Space, a project to lift the voices of writers of color, and his chapbook, Postcards From the New World, won the Paper Nautilus Debut Series chapbook prize. Shankar draws strength from his global upbringing and from his work at the intersection of civil rights and technology. In Seattle, he awakens to the wonders of Cascadia every day, but his heart yearns east to his other hometown, Delhi. Connect with him at shankarnarayan.net.

Describe your teaching style.

As a teacher, I aim to create an inclusive, respectful, courageous, open, mutually engaging, and joyful space that connects with each writer as a complete being and helps move them toward finding and strengthening their true voice. Creating a writing community is also an explicit aim of my classes — a space in which writers learn and explore together, inspire growth in one another's writing, and serve as resources for one another even after the class has ended.

I combine the following key elements:

+Courageous

I aim for an environment in which writers will feel empowered to engage deeply with the subject matter, connect it to their own experiences and themes, and create their best and most fearless writing.

+Open

I teach my classes in a structured but flexible way that strikes a balance between following a preset curriculum and allowing opportunities for new ideas to open up channels of learning. I create spaces where all writers can engage and explore together, understanding that everyone has valuable knowledge and perspectives to contribute.

+Engaging

Learning, for me, always goes both ways, and I continue to be humbled by how much I learn in every class I teach. My classes include lots of engagement and discussion, and build in in-class writing as well as courageous sharing. Writers are also encouraged to highlight questions or other needs so I can provide resources in response.

+Joyful

Writing classes should be fun! I aim to work with a range of emotions including humor and levity, which can help balance somber subject matter. I often work with subject matter that brings out strong emotions, which I try to recognize and create appropriate space to work through.

+Community

I believe teaching without connection is impossible. So I try to get to know and understand writers in my classes as complete human beings in the context of their writing goals, and to encourage them to get to know, understand, and learn from one another. Writers need other writers, and I see the project of strengthening the mutual bond between writers as being every bit as important as imparting knowledge of a particular subject matter.

=Voice

Ultimately, I aim to impact the lives of writers in my classes by helping them find and strengthen their voices and achieve their own writing goals, whatever those may be.