Seattle Arts & Lectures Presents: Local Voices
Hugo House welcomes back Local Voices, our monthly reading series in celebration of the brilliance of Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools (WITS) cohort.
This event will showcase work from Amy Hirayama, Clara Olivo, Greg Stump, Ann Teplick, and Acca Warren. These acclaimed creative powerhouses come together to read from their own works-in-progress, inspiring the same craft and performance skills they teach in the classroom.
SAL’s Writers in the Schools (WITS) program connects professional writers with public school classrooms throughout the Puget Sound region to elevate the expressions of all students as they discover and develop their authentic writing and performance voices. Through WITS, students become authors of their own lives.
This event is occurring in-person at Hugo House's Lapis theater, and will be live-streamed on SAL's website.
Greg Stump
Greg Stump has been a regular contributor to The Stranger for more than a decade. He is the co-creator of the comic book series Urban Hipster, a former writer and editor for The Comics Journal, and the creator of the weekly alternative-newspaper comic Dwarf Attack. He teaches comics through a variety of schools and organizations in the Seattle area and recently completed his first graphic novel, Disillusioned Illusions.
Ann Teplick
Ann Teplick is a poet, playwright, and prose writer with an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. For twenty-three years, she’s been a teaching artist in Seattle public schools; Hugo House; Coyote Central; and Pongo Teen Writing, at King Co. juvenile detention and the Washington State psychiatric hospital. She has received funding from Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, 4 Culture, Artist Trust, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She is also a Hedgebrook and Jack Straw alumna.
acca warren
imagine it written in cursive, a water-wave like palindrome – acca (they/them/y’all) is a trans poet, educator and practitioner of abolitionist values and care work through daily actions and play. They facilitate creative interdependence through art and outdoor time since transitioning from ‘able-bodied’ to ‘no longer living that illusion’. They live into the queer disabled poc legacies of ferocity through tenderness, believe crying is a vital technology and have deep reverence for rest. They bring authenticity, adaptability and responsibility to unwinding our collective bodies into something more free. Our capacity to heal is not in question, it is only the matter of remembering ‘how’ together. and so, they write.
Clara Olivo
Clara Olivo (she/her/ella) is an Afro-Salvi poet living in diaspora. Born and raised in South Central L.A. to Salvadorean refugees, Clara weaves history and lived experience, creating transcendental poetry that amplifies ancestral power and pride. Writing for her lost inner child, Clara steps into her poetry with the intention of healing the hurts of her past and inspiring hope for the future. Since finding her voice, she has performed in open mics and art receptions from Seattle to Washington D.C., is a 2022 Pushcart nominee and has been featured in publications such as The South Seattle Emerald, Valiant Scribe, and Quiet Lightning’s Literary Mixtape.
Amy Hirayama
Amy Hirayama is a UW Bothell Creative Writing and Poetics MFA candidate who is currently working on her thesis. She is a former middle school teacher who worked in South Seattle for seven years. Amy uses writing as a way to explore her mixed-race Hapa identity, imagine spaces of belonging for herself and connect across difference. Born in the Pacific Northwest, she finds inspiration in the beauty of this region. Amy is a 2021-2022 Imagining America PAGE Fellow. Her poetry can be found in the fall/winter 2021 issue of Strait Up magazine as well as the forthcoming chapbook Hariboetry.
