“Pacific Northwest Womxn of Color Reading” hosted by Anne Liu Kellor and Kalehua Kim
Please join 18 women and nonbinary writers of color in what promises to be a dynamic, inspiring evening. Each of these writers was a student in Anne Liu Kellor’s Hugo House classes, and many are taking the stage for the first time. Come to listen, come to engage.
Readers include Auzin Ahmadi, Portia Botchway, Aleyda Marisol Cervantes, Dawn Noel Chen, Rebecca Delacruz-Gunderson, Alayna Erhart, Tasha Essen, Rasheena Fountain, Jessica Han, Elisabeth Vasquez Kikuchi, Kim Kogane, Nan Ma, Adrienne Matthews, Claudia Alexander Paras, Stephanie Tayengco, and Melissa Watkinson-Schutten.
Dawn Noel Chen
A maker of fiction and memoir, Dawn Noel Chen claims the mixed-race heritage of Filipino, Scandinavian, and Scotch-Irish. Taking Anne Liu Kellor's class gave her the guts to write about her race, and her life.
Rebecca Delacruz-Gunderson
Rebecca Delacruz-Gunderson is a mixed Filipina & White Washingtonian. Since graduating from Williams College in 2018, she has served as Field Director for State Senator T’wina Nobles’ campaign, worked at The Bush School, lived in Singapore, and taught writing classes. Currently working toward a Masters in English at UBC, she will be returning to Bush as an English teacher & college counselor this fall. Her work has been published in Entropy.
Jessica Han
Jessica Han is a writer, investment manager and mountaineer in Seattle.
Claudia Alexandra Paras
Claudia Alexandra Paras is a mixed-race writer, born and raised in the Philippines who immigrated to the U.S. when she was 18. Writing has been her most patient and challenging life-long friend. She loves trees, bike rides, chocolate, and thinking slowly.
Stephanie Tayengco
The following could all apply to Stephanie Tayengco—technologist, writer, visual artist, excavator, historian, taxonomist, cartographer, motorcyclist, mariner, angler, and dog fancier. She endeavors to apply these modes of being to understanding her own Filipino-American identity, filling in ontological and historic holes, and making her own creative outlets for useful obsessions.
Melissa Watkinson
Melissa Watkinson-Schutten is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She calls the Salish Sea home and works to ensure equitable access to the marine environment. Her most published work is within academia, including a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Indigenous Sociology. Melissa grew up visiting the printing rooms of the newspaper where her mother worked. Her dream to become a writer was reignited throughout the pandemic.
Portia Botchway
Portia Botchway is a Halfrican and a lifelong learner, athlete, and explorer. She immersed herself in writing while attending a public, boarding, arts high school in South Carolina; and takes inspiration from the lyricism of Taiye Selasi, Khadijah Queen, Ken Liu, Colleen McCullough, and Pat Conroy. She collects clouds.
Aleyda Cervantes
Aleyda Marisol Cervantes is a self-identified third-world woman. She is also a TEDx presenter and an advocate for immigrant communities. Her work appears in PALABRITAS, Acentos Review, and We Need a Reckoning. She tries to make time to enraizar herself in her body by writing and imagining a better world is possible.
Alayna Erhart
Alayna Erhart is a biracial Chinese American artist based in Seattle, Washington. Her mediums of filmmaking, photography, music, and writing are guided by her conviction to celebrate the bold, brave, and tender truths that make us human. She is currently developing the manuscript for her memoir.
Tasha Essen
Tasha Essen is a multiracial Asian with family roots in Korea, Russia, and China. Tasha was born in Seattle to an immigrant/refugee family. She’s been on a journey of healing from intergenerational trauma arising from war, occupation, and displacement. Her therapy includes writing, chanting, meditating, and doting on her small dogs.
Rasheena Fountain
Rasheena Fountain is an essayist and poet from Chicago's west side communities Austin and K-Town. She has been published in Hobart, Crazyhorse, Penumbra Online, Jelly Bucket, The Roadrunner Review, and more. She currently studies and teaches at the University of Washington Seattle and is working on a multi-genre memoir about nature, environmental justice, decolonization, land, and Blackness.
Elisabeth Kikuchi
Elisabeth Vasquez Kikuchi is a second-generation Filipina American photographer and poet. Her art explores her identity as the daughter of an immigrant, and the impact of a migratory upbringing on her sense of belonging. She lives in Seattle with her husband, daughter and two cats. Elisabeth is a Capricorn.
Kim Kogane
Kim Kogane is a multi-passionate artist who aspires to write the kind of book you might like to buy at the airport. She dives deeply inward, exploring the depths of self through her work. When she’s not writing, you can find her developing conscious marketing strategies for brands, teaching barre, or exploring with her dog, Cauchy.
Nan Ma
Nan Ma is a mother, teacher, and contributing book reviewer for The International Examiner. She writes creatively in both Chinese and English.
Adrienne Matthews
Adrienne Matthews is a Los Angeles-born, Seattle-based visual artist, writer, and designer. Her multidisciplinary practice is inspired by ancestral stories, intersectional identities, and the interior lives of people of color. She is currently developing a collection of visual art and creative nonfiction inspired by Black women at work.
Auzin Ahmadi
Auzin is a writer from the Pacific Northwest who strings words together because there are creations inside her which clamor to get out. She has published with Nowruz Journal, Rogue Agent Journal, and Agapanthus Collective. She is the former Managing Editor at Hecate Magazine and a current submissions reader for Variant Lit and The Jupiter Review. Her work can be found at byauzin.com.
Kalehua Kim
Kalehua Kim is a poet living in the Seattle area. Born of Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, and Portuguese descent, her multicultural background informs much of her work. A finalist for the James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poetry, her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Calyx, and ‘Ōiwi, A Native Hawaiian Journal.
Anne Liu Kellor
Anne Liu Kellor is a mixed-race Chinese American writer, editor, and teacher. Her memoir, Heart Radical: A Search for Language, Love, and Belonging, is a 2021 Independent Publisher’s Book Award Winner and a Foreword Indie Book of the Year Finalist in multicultural nonfiction. Anne teaches writing workshops and facilitates a year-long creative nonfiction program for women and nonbinary writers. www.anneliukellor.com
