Teachers

Jeannine Hall Gailey is a poet with multiple sclerosis who served as the 2nd Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She's the author of six books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, Field Guide to the End of the World, winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and the Elgin Award, and the upcoming Flare, Corona from BOA Editions. She has a B.S. in Biology and M.A. in English from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Pacific University. Her work appeared in The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Her web site is www.webbish6.com. Twitter and Instagram: @webbish6.

Kate Gale is the co-founder and Managing Editor of Red Hen Press. She is the author of several books of poetry and of the libretto Rio de Sangre which was performed at the Florentine Opera.

Matt Gano is a Seattle based poet, MC, and Teaching Artist currently writing, recording, and performing as, "ENTENDRES." He is the author of Suits for the Swarm, a poetry collection from MoonPath Press, co-founder of the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Program, and was the principle bricklayer/Program Director of Abbey Arts' NEXT STAGE program—a career training program for emerging artists. He works as a writer-in-residence for Seattle Arts and Lectures: Writers in the Schools program, and as a guest teaching artist for the Skagit River Poetry Foundation. Gano made waves nationally as a spoken word poet and Slam champion in the early 2000’s while representing Seattle multiple years at the National Poetry Slam. With a voice rooted in and born of 90’s hiphop, Gano studied and built his craft in a rising era of the Seattle poetry and hiphop scene. Performing and writing alongside poets, Anis Mojgani, Buddy Wakefield, Tara Hardy, Iyeoka Okoawo, and many others, he completed multiple tours across the United States as a featured artist performing poetry on some of the world’s most legendary stages.

Angela Garbes is the author of Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change, called “a landmark and a lightning storm” by the New Yorker. Her first book, Like a Mother, was an NPR Best Book of the Year and finalist for the Washington State Book Award in nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Cut, New York, Bon Appétit, and featured on NPR's Fresh Air. Garbes is also a community advocate for reproductive justice, working families, and equity and inclusion. A first-generation Filipina American, lives with her family in Seattle. 

Alma Garcia is the author of All That Rises (University of Arizona Press, 2023). Her short fiction has appeared as an award-winner in Narrative Magazine, Enizagam, Passages North, and Boulevard; has most recently appeared in phoebe, Kweli Journal, Duende, and Bluestem; and appears in anthologies including Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century (Cutthroat Journal of the Arts). She is a past recipient of a fellowship from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. She is a fiction instructor and manuscript consultant at Hugo House.

Alma Garcia is the author of All That Rises (University of Arizona Press, 2023). Her short fiction has appeared as an award-winner in Narrative Magazine, Enizagam, Passages North, and Boulevard; has most recently appeared in phoebe, Kweli Journal, Duende, and Bluestem; and appears in anthologies including Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century (Cutthroat Journal of the Arts). She is a past recipient of a fellowship from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. She is a fiction instructor and manuscript consultant at Hugo House.

Cass Garison is a poet & artist. Their chapbook, Beauty Exasperated, was recently published through Common Meter Press. They have an MFA from University of Washington, Seattle, and host an annual retreat for poets & artists in Darrington, Washington. Find more about them, their paintings, & their poems at CassGarison.com

Reggie Garrett has been performing throughout the U.S. and Canada for a number of years. Based in Seattle, Washington he performs mostly original songs mixed with pop covers and more traditional style folk ballads. He is the purveyor of a unique urban strain of (mostly) acoustic music incorporating a number of diverse influences, including: Folk, Latin rhythms, Blues, Gospel, Celtic, Rock, Jazz and more. The result is a musical blend that has excited and touched audiences throughout the U.S. and Canada. 

He is the founder of Reggie Garrett & the SnakeOil Peddlers (his performing ensemble). The band travel and perform regularly as an acoustic trio (including Richard Middleton on lead guitar and Will Dowd on percussion) and as an acoustic/electric quartet with the addition of bassist Keith Lowe. From Pistol River, OR to Rock Island, IL; from Duncan, BC Canada to San Luis Obispo, CA the group has delighted audiences of all ages. 

Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His new poem, Be Holding, was released from the University of Pittsburgh Press in September of 2020. His collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released by Algonquin Books in 2019.

Ross is also the co-author, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, of the chapbook "Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens," in addition to being co-author, with Rosechard Wehrenberg, of the chapbook, "River." He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin', in addition to being an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press. Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He also works on The Tenderness Project with Shayla Lawson and Essence London. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University.

Darien Hsu Gee is the author of five novels published by Penguin Random House that have been translated into eleven languages. In 2022, she served as executive editor for Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World. In 2021, her collection of micro essays, Allegiance, received the Bronze IPPY award (Essays). Her poetry chapbook, Other Small Histories, won the 2019 Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship award, judged by Patricia Smith. In 2015, she received the Hawaiʻi Book Publishers’ Ka Palapala Poʻokela Award of Excellence for her nonfiction book, Writing the Hawaiʻi Memoir. Darien lives with her family on the island of Hawaiʻi.

Websites: dariengee.com and writer-ish.com

Darien Hsu Gee is the author of five novels published by Penguin Random House that have been translated into eleven languages. In 2022, she served as executive editor for Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World. In 2021, her collection of micro essays, Allegiance, received the Bronze IPPY award (Essays). Her poetry chapbook, Other Small Histories, won the 2019 Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship award, judged by Patricia Smith. In 2015, she received the Hawaiʻi Book Publishers’ Ka Palapala Poʻokela Award of Excellence for her nonfiction book, Writing the Hawaiʻi Memoir. Darien lives with her family on the island of Hawaiʻi.

Websites: dariengee.com and writer-ish.com

Nicole J. Georges is a writer, illustrator, podcaster, and professor. Her Lambda Award-winning graphic memoir, Calling Dr. Laura, was called “engrossing, lovable, smart and ultimately poignant” by Rachel Maddow. Nicole’s second graphic memoir, Fetch :How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home, is currently being developed for television. Nicole is the creator of the podcast Relative Fiction with Oregon Public Broadcasting, and hosts a weekly queer feminist art podcast, Sagittarian Matters. This is her third Sister Spit tour.

EMILY GIANGIULIO is a writer from Philadelphia currently working toward an MFA in prose at the University of Washington. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Bennington Review and Hayden’s Ferry Review, and has recently been nominated for the 2023 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and the Pushcart Prize. When not writing, she frequents the tide pools along the Washington coast and tends to her growing family of plants. You can find her at https://emilygiangiulio.com. 

Kaelie Giffel, Ph.D., is the author of the academic memoir, University for a Good Woman. She writes about feminism, literature, and travel. You can find her writing published and forthcoming in Public Books, Full Stop, Oh Reader, SOLO Travel, and other places. She currently lives in Helena, MT where you can find her lifting weights and visiting hot springs.

Describe your teaching style.

My classes revolve around discussion: while I prepare mini-lectures, discussion questions, and have destinations in mind, classes are at their best when everyone comes with thoughts about the reading and about their own writing. In that way, what you get out of the class is commensurate with what you put in. We also move between discussing craft and having broader conversations about the content of a work because you cannot separate the two. Finally, I always end class with writing prompts to help generate material related to our discussions that students can work up into more polished pieces.

Jessica Gigot is a poet, farmer, and coach. She lives on a little sheep farm in the Skagit Valley. Her second book of poems, Feeding Hour (Wandering Aengus Press, 2020), won a Nautilus Award and was a finalist for the 2021 Washington State Book Award. Jessica’s writing and reviews appear in several publications, such as Orion, The New York Times, The Seattle Times, Ecotone, Terrain.org, Gastronomica, Crab Creek Review, and Poetry Northwest. She is currently a poetry editor for The Hopper and a 2022 Jack Straw Writer. Her latest work is A Little Bit of Land, published by Oregon State University Press.