✨Spend an evening with poet & dream deliverer Mathias Svalina on Thurs. April 4th! Get your tickets here. ✨

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Programs & Events

Community Event, Party/Social

  • This event has passed.
  • Date: October 22
  • Time: 7:00pm - 11:00pm PT
  • Location: Lapis Theater
    1634 11th Ave.

The House Party: A 25th Anniversary Community Celebration

Presented by the Lee and Claudia Brooke Foundation

You're invited to celebrate Hugo House's 25 years as Seattle's beloved community literary hub, and to help kick off the next 25 years to come! Enjoy activities and reading throughout the House, plus drinks, desserts, and a dance party to finish off the festive evening!

We're excited to announce some of the marvelous friends of The House who will be with us to cheers to 25 years in the books and 25 years (and more) to come. Taking the Hugo House stage at The House Party:

– Sonora Jha, essayist, novelist, researcher, and Hugo House instructor

– Amber Flame, interdisciplinary creative, activist, and Hugo House instructor

– Nicole Hardy, memoirist, poet, and Hugo House instructor

– Janae Johnson, poet, performer, and educator

But wait, there's more! 

Works in Progress open mic will be happening throughout the evening in the Salon. Plus Janae Johnson will keep the vibes going into the night with a dance party, spinning as DJ SummerSoft.

Admission is offered on a sliding scale, from $0-$250. Revenue from ticket sales directly supports Hugo House's mission to provide space for all to read words, hear words, and make their own words better. We encourage you to pick a ticket price that is right for you.

Tickets will be available for sale online until 4 pm on Friday, October 20. A limited number of tickets will be available day-of at the door starting at 7 pm. Be sure to arrive early to snag your tickets.

Janae Johnson

Janae Johnson

Janae Johnson is an award-winning poet, performer, and educator. Her writing celebrates and centers on Black queer masculinity, kinship, and belonging. She is a former National Poetry Slam Champion, Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, and a founder of two nationally recognized poetry venues: The Root Slam (Oakland, CA) and The House Slam (Boston, MA). Janae’s full-length poetry collection Lessons on Being Tenderheaded is forthcoming in Spring 2022 by Write Bloody Publishing. Janae currently resides in Tacoma, WA. 

Amber Flame

Amber Flame

Amber Flame is an artist and performer, whose work has garnered artistic merit residencies with Hedgebrook, The Watering Hole, Wa Na Wari, Vermont Studio Center, and Yefe Nof. Flame served as the 2017-2019 poetry Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House in Seattle, and is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks. 

Nicole Hardy

Nicole Hardy

Nicole Hardy is the author of the memoir Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin and the poetry collections This Blonde and Mud Flap Girl's XX Guide to Facial Profiling — a chapbook of pop-culture inspired sonnets.

Sonora Jha

Sonora Jha

she/her/hers

Sonora Jha is the author of the novels The Laughter (2023) and Foreign (2013) and the memoir How To Raise A Feminist Son: A Memoir and Manifesto (2021). After a career as a journalist covering crime, politics, and culture in India and Singapore, she moved to the United States to earn a Ph.D. in media and public affairs. Sonora’s OpEds, essays, and public appearances have featured in The New York Times, on BBC, and elsewhere. She is a professor of journalism and lives in Seattle. She teaches fiction and essay writing for Hugo House, Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat, and Seattle Public Library.