Reading: “When Home Is Not Safe: Writings on Verbal, Emotional, and Physical Abuse”
The anthology When Home Is Not Safe: Writings on Verbal, Emotional and Physical Abuse (McFarland, 2021) features work from several Seattle area poets, as well as writers from the US, Canada, and around the world. We welcome the community to this reading and discussion for an evening of vulnerability and healing.
Lillo Way
Lillo Way's new collection Lend Me Your Wings was published by Shanti Arts. Her chapbook, Dubious Moon, won the Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest. Her poems have won the E.E. Cummings Award and a Florida Review Editors’ Prize. Her writing has appeared in New Letters, Poet Lore, Tampa Review, Louisville Review, Poetry East, and many anthologies. Way has received grants from the NEA, NY State Council on the Arts, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for her choreographic work involving poetry. www.lilloway.com
Linera Lucas
Linera Lucas is the co-editor of When Home is Not Safe: Writings on Domestic Verbal, Emotional, and Physical Abuse, published by McFarland. Her poetry has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Briar Cliff Review, Clover, Eclectica, PageBoy, Quartet, Redactions, River Mouth Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. She won the Crucible Fiction Prize. Lucas has a BA from Reed College, an MFA from Queens University, and has taught at The University of Washington Women’s Center and Hugo House. www.lineralucas.com
Mary Ellen Talley
Mary Ellen's poems have been published in over 100 journals and anthologies. Her poems have received three Pushcart nominations and her chapbook, Postcards from the Lilac City, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020. After earning both her BA and MSPA at the University of Washington, she spent four decades serving students with communication disabilities in Federal Way and Seattle public schools as a speech-language pathologist (SLP). Her reviews of poetry collections appear widely.
Susan Landgraf
Susan Landgraf was awarded an Academy of American Poets’ Laureate award in 2020. Books include The Inspired Poet from Two Sylvias Press, What We Bury Changes the Ground, and Other Voices. More than 400 poems have been published in journals and magazines, most recently Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Calyx, The Meadow, and Tar River. She’s given more than 150 writing workshops and served as Poet Laureate of Auburn, Washington, from 2018 to 2020.
Carolyne Wright
Carolyne Wright’s new book is Masquerade, a memoir in poetry (Lost Horse Press, 2021). Previous books include This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse, 2017), whose title poem won a Pushcart Prize and also appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009; and the anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse, 2015), which received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. Carolyne has also received NEA and 4Culture grants, and a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award. Visit https://carolynewright.wordpress.com for more information.
Heidi Seaborn
Heidi Seaborn thought she’d grow up to be a writer. And eventually, she did. But first, she had a long global business career, raised three children, divorced, remarried, and then finally, in her late 50’s took a class at the Hugo House that helped launch her second act as a poet, essayist, and editor. Since 2016, Heidi’s authored two full-length collections of poetry, including PANK Books 2020 Poetry Award winner An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe (2021), Give a Girl Chaos (C&R Press, 2019), and three chapbooks of poetry including the 2020 Comstock Review Prize Chapbook, Bite Marks (2021), as well as Finding My Way Home (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Once a Diva (dancing girl press, 2021), as well as a poetic political pamphlet Body Politic (Mount Analogue Press, 2017). She’s won or been shortlisted for over two dozen awards. Her poetry and essays have recently appeared in American Poetry Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Best American Poetry, Brevity, Copper Nickel, The Cortland Review, The Financial Times, The Greensboro Review, The Missouri Review, The Slowdown, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She is Executive Editor of The Adroit Journal and holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU and a BA from Stanford University. After living all over the world, she now resides in her hometown of Seattle.
Judith Skillman
Judith Skillman’s Oscar the Misanthropist, won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award, 2021. Her work has appeared in Cimarron Review, Threepenny Review, Zyzzyva, and other literary journals. She is the recipient of awards from Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust, and lead editor of When Home Is Not Safe, Writings on Domestic Verbal, Emotional, and Physical Abuse, McFarland. Skillman’s new book is Subterranean Address, New & Selected Poems 2014-2022, Deerbrook Editions. Visit www.judithskillman.com for more information.
