Teachers

Amanda Hosch (she/her) is the author of the middle grade mystery, Mabel Opal Pear and the Rules for Spying. An English as a Second/Foreign Language teacher by profession, she taught abroad for almost a decade. A fifth-generation New Orleanian, Amanda now lives in Seattle with her family, two rescue cats, and a ghost cat. Currently, she writes copy for tech companies and volunteers with refugees as ESL Talk Time Facilitator.

Jenne Hsien Patrick is a writer and artist based in Seattle. She writes poetry, hybrid text/image works and comics, often incorporating textiles and papercutting. They are currently writing about motherhood, family history, self-preservation and survival as an inheritance from the matriarchal lines of their family. Jenne is a Tin House Workshop alum, and their work has appeared in publications such as Hayden’s Ferry Review, wildness/Platypus Press, and Honey Literary among others.

Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of a short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, and the novel, A River of Stars, which O, The Oprah Magazine calls "a marvel" and The Economist says is "delightful." For two decades, she has been writing, in journalism and in fiction, about Asia and the Asian diaspora. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, as well as honors from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post. She works and teaches at the San Francisco Writers' Grotto.

Intisaar is a Seattle-based Palestinian-American singer/songwriter/guitarist. She is most known for her emotive and unique melody lines, powerful vocal range, and interesting chord progressions. When playing live, she is an acoustic/electric powerhouse that commands the room with the vulnerability and charm of a 90s female icon, and can still lighten the mood with humor and grace between songs. She has played famed Seattle venues like The Crocodile, The Moore, Neumos, The Sunset, and The Nectar Lounge, and toured across the US with her 2015 debut album, Borrowed Ground.

Ramón Isao is a recipient of the Tim McGinness Award for Fiction, as well as fellowships from Artist Trust and Jack Straw Cultural Center. His stories appear in such journals as The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, Moss, and Hobart, and his screen credits include ZMD and Dead Body. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and serves as Fiction Editor at New Orleans Review.

The Go Janes feature ukulele, guitar, and generous doses of delicious harmony vocals. 

We have decades of experience as creative artists, community organizers, educators and inquisitive consumers of life. Arni and Patrice are members of the satirical trio Uncle Bonsai; Kathleen Tracy is an accomplished solo artist and community chorus director. Patrice has produced the Wintergrass Festival almost from its inception. Arni and Patrice are also visual artists. and Arni and Kathleen are both sought after educators and coaches working with children, adults and the differently-abled. 

Our writing ranges from tender and sweet love tributes to the simple act of being human with each other, to how weird it is that magicians used to (pretend to) saw women in half for entertainment. From monkey-infested golf courses in India, and what that teaches us about how to greet life’s challenges, to letting go of our independent children, and losing those we love in more lasting ways. Along the way we pay homage to our ancestors and to each others’ most idiosyncratic selves. And there are knife-throwers, and howling dogs, and how the pandemic made us fight with each other (and ourselves).