UW Castalia MFA Program Presents: Monthly Readings
Join Hugo House in welcoming back Castalia—University of Washington MFA program's monthly reading series featuring graduate students, faculty, and alumni. Showcasing published and unpublished drafts of work by authors from a variety of disciplines, professional backgrounds, and age demographics, Castalia offers authors a platform for community reading while putting their work in conversation with other voices, styles, concerns, and identities. The first half of the reading typically features three student authors, and the second half one alum and one faculty member.
Mac Collins
Mac Collins is a Texas born and Atlanta raised poet. He studied political science and public administration at the University of Miami. After becoming disillusioned with the circus that is politics, Mac decided to do something meaningful with his life and is now pursuing an MFA student at the University of Washington. In his free time he enjoys playing guitar, collecting records, and shooting pool.
Nanya Jhingran
Nanya Jhingran is a poet, scholar and teacher from Lucknow, India currently living by the coastal margin of the Salish Sea, on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish People (upon which the city of Seattle was built). She is an Associate Editor at Poetry Northwest, where she edits the book reviews section. Her recent work can be found or is forthcoming in Seventh Wave, Poetry Northwest, and Honey Literary, among others. You can find her online at nanyajhingran.com
J.D. Finnegan
J.D. Finnegan is a queer writer from Pennsylvania. They mainly write prose, and they most enjoy writing on an informal and interpersonal level about people and places that are extraordinary for no reason other than the fact that they exist. J.D. likes wizards, playing the harmonica, and the concept of public transportation. They have also seen probably three to four ghosts, if ghosts are real. If you want to contact them for any reason, feel free to imagine them in your head, then imagine them responding to your inquiry wisely and gracefully!
Niccolo Bechtler
Niccolo Bechtler (he/him) is a poet from central New Jersey. He currently studies in the MFA program at the University of Washington, Seattle (on unceded Coast Salish lands), where he also teaches undergraduate writing courses. Before moving to Seattle, he studied journalism and creative writing at American University in Washington, DC. His poetry has appeared in Glassworks, American Literary, and elsewhere. Prior to beginning graduate school, he worked for several years as a bicycle mechanic. In his free time, he enjoys skateboarding, bicycling, and playing guitar. Find him on Instagram @niccolobec
Laurel Wilkinson
LAUREL WILKINSON is a poet from Davis, California. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Washington, Seattle and a recipient of the Grace Milliman Pollock Scholarship and Nelson Bentley MFA Award in Creative Writing. Her recent work explores the subject of indeterminacy by drawing upon traditions of ecopoetry and the Asian American avant-garde. When not teaching or writing, she enjoys dancing, hiking, and drinking tea. You can find her on instagram @laurel__wilkinson
Gabrielle Bates
Gabrielle Bates is the author of Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023). A Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship finalist and recipient of support from Artist Trust, her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she currently lives in Seattle, where she helps out at Open Books: A Poem Emporium and—with Luther Hughes and Dujie Tahat—co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon. On Twitter (@GabrielleBates).
