Teachers

José Luis Montero is a technologist by trade and a bilingual writer by choice. Born and raised in México but having spent most of his adulthood in Seattle, his passion for storytelling transcends any medium, leading him to explore radio, photography, and filmmaking before directing his artistic focus to the written word. In addition to holding a BS in computer science and an MBA, he earned a certificate in Literary Fiction from the University of Washington and a Masters in Narrative and Poetry from Escuela de Escritores in Madrid. After returning from Spain, he interned at Copper Canyon Press and served as an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine before joining the Jack Straw Writers Program in 2021. He was president of the board for Seattle Escribe, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting Spanish literature, and he currently serves as president for the board of Seattle City of Literature, the nonprofit that manages Seattle’s designation as a UNESCO City of Literature.

Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet & a daughter of immigrants. She received her MFA from Drew University in Poetry & Poetry in Translation. She is Canto Mundo graduate fellow and a 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow. Her work has been published in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast and in Best of American Poetry 2021 & 2022. Her translation work can be found most recently in the Climate Futurism an exhibit at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY. In 2019 her Poem Maps was part of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw’s oratorio The Listeners. Her first collection The Pink Box is published by Willow Books & was longlisted for a PEN Open Book award. Her second collection Muse Found in a Colonized Body published by Four Way Books was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She currently teaches poetry at The Juilliard School and lives in Harlem, NY. Find her at www.yeseniamontilla.com

Liezel Moraleja Hackett (she/her) is a Filipino American writer and choreographer whose work often dwells in the space between dance and illness, culture and captivity. Liezel has an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from the University of Washington Bothell. She is a contributing writer for Write or Die Tribe, with works in The Minison Project, Sobbing in Seafood City Vol. 1 (Sampaguita Press), Clamor Literary Journal (2017, 2018), Storyboard: A Journal of Pacific Imagery (UOG Press), and The Friday Haiku (Ponyak Press).

Adriana Morales Marín was born in Mexico City and lives in Bellevue WA. 

She has a college degree in graphic design, is a visual artist and author and illustrator of children's books.

Her books are colorful and full of unique and endearing characters; Catrina’s Day of the Dead, Big Mess Jess, The weeping Lady and the Crybaby are some of her titles.

She has collaborated with many local authors illustrating and designing their books, most of them bilingual.

Is an art instructor for programs thru the kcls and the school district in Seattle and East side.

Adriana lives with her husband, mom, 2 kids and 3 cats. Loves to paint and create all sort of things.

Katherine D. Morgan is the author of the debut chapbook No Self-Respecting Woman. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming at Huffington Post, Bitch Media, LitHub, The Rumpus, and HelloGiggles, among others. Katherine’s work has been nominated for the two Best of Net awards. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she works at Powell’s Books.

Bethany C Morrow is an Indie Bestselling author who writes for adult and young adult audiences, in genres ranging from speculative literary to contemporary fantasy to historical. She is the author of the novels Mem and A Song Below Water, which is an Audie, Ignyte, and Locus finalist. She is editor/contributor to the young adult anthology Take the Mic, the 2020 ILA Social Justice in Literature award winner. Her work has been chosen as Indies Introduce and Indie Next picks, and featured in The LA Times, Forbes, Bustle, Buzzfeed, and more. She is included on USA TODAY's list of 100 Black novelists and fiction writers you should read.

Karla K. Morton has fifteen poetry collections. A National Heritage Wrangler Award Winner, Foreword Book of the Year Award winner, twice a Next Generation Indie National Book Award winner, Betsy Colquitt award winner, E2C Grant recipient, and shortlisted for the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize, she’s published in journals such as American Life in Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review, Arkansas Review, Southword, descant, Boulevard, Comstock Review, Lascaux Review, Grub Street, Right Hand Pointing, New Ohio Review, and many more. Her poetry book with fellow laureate Alan Birkelbach about the National Parks “The National Parks: A Century of Grace” (TCU Press) has just entered its second printing in less than one year of release. It is very historic, as there has never been a book of poetry written about all 62 National Parks in-situ to help culturally preserve and protect them for the next seven generations. 

Her most recent book, “Politics of the Minotaur” won the 2022 Firebird Book Award for Poetry, the poetry Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and is short-listed for the International Rubery Book Award. She was named Texas Poet Laureate in 2010. 

Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (2012 Washington State Book Award in fiction), and The Dismal Science (a NYT editor's choice). His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Southern Review, The Atlantic, The Sun, Granta, and The Missouri Review. He is currently on faculty at Sierra Nevada University's MFA program, teaches at Creative Nonfiction, Hugo House, and is a writing coach and developmental editor. Peter's former students and clients have gone on to publish numerous books and stories and articles, and include two NYT best-selling novelists (Tara Conklin and Rachel Griffin).

Teaching Style and Philosophy: I believe the best I can do for students is help free them from the tyranny of talent and the whims of inspiration, which are fair-weather friends. Instead, I want you to hone your personal aesthetic, and to develop an authorial voice, and most importantly develop fluency with the elements of craft. One you can control what's happening on the page with ease, producing publishable work is no longer a mysterious fluke, but a familiar and non-scary process.

Website: petermountford.com

Charles Tonderai Mudede is a Zimbabwean-born writer, filmmaker, and cultural critic. He writes about film, books, music, crime, art, economics, and urban theory for The Stranger. Mudede has made three films, two of which, Police Beat and Zoo, premiered at Sundance, and one, Zoo, was screened at Cannes. Mudede has written for the New York Times, Arcade Journal, Cinema Scope, Ars Electronica, the Village Voice, Radical Urban Theory, and C Theory. Mudede is also on the editorial board for the Black Scholar, which is based at the University of Washington, and between 1999 and 2005, lectured on post-colonial theory at Pacific Lutheran University, and in 2003 published a short book, Last Seen, with Diana George. Mudede has lived in Seattle since 1989.

PETER MUNRO was born in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1957. He was raised in small fishing towns, going through his biggest changes in Sitka, Alaska. This has left him permanently afflicted with a love of fishing. Munro used to conduct research fishing in the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. The data were to help estimate annual harvest levels of commercially important demersal fishes. When not at sea, the sad poet was chained to a computer in Seattle, mis-underestimating abundance parameters, failing to write papers, and making poems by night.  Now retired, Munro makes poems by day, out in the open, without fear of being found out. This now-happy poet studies in the MFA program at the UW. His poems have been published here and there. 

Twenty-one year old Somtochukwu is a theatre educator and performer from Nigeria and Florida. She's excited to share this production with you as it is her debut performance in the Puget Sound area.

Abby E. Murray's first poetry collection, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize in 2019. She is currently the editor of Collateral and lives near Washington DC. Check out more information by going to www.abbyemurray.com or go to Facebook: facebook.com/abbyemurray. Other social media handles are @abbyemurray.

Irish-American writer William Murray was born during the 1962 Century 21 Exposition—a Seattle World’s Fair baby. He is obsessed with the histories of Ireland and Seattle, and the place in them of his family, who came to Seattle in 1880 to work in the mines and railroads. Murray’s work includes pieces in Northern Ireland’s The Magpie of Kilcoo; the anthology Visually Uplifting; and the self-published chapbook se do bheatha bhaile (Welcome Home). He is currently working to become a seanchai, a traditional Gaelic storyteller, and on 99 Blocks, a ten-year study of Seattle’s Highway 99. Seeking to illustrate the past and speak truth to power, Murray is grateful to Hugo House, where he attends Works in Progress and takes classes.