Teachers

Co-owner of Speculatively Queer, Isabela Oliveira has been a professional editor for years, from technical documents to pop culture content. While attending college, she kept busy as the poetry editor and later the editor-in-chief of her university’s literary journal, the Salmon Creek Journal. Isabela started speaking on panels at fan conventions in 2016 and has been at it ever since. These days, she’s working as an editor by day, and an occasional podcast co-host, a crafter and maker, and an aspiring voice actress in her free time.

Nikkita Oliver (they/them) is a Seattle-based creative, community organizer, abolitionist, educator, and attorney. Working at the intersections of arts, law, education, and community organizing Nikkita strives to create experiences which draw us closer to our humanity and invites us to imagine what we hope to see in the future.

Nikkita has opened for Cornel West and Chuck D of Public Enemy, featured on the Breakfast Club, KUOW's The Week in Review, Cut Stories, and performed on The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert. Nikkita's writing has been published in the South Seattle Emerald, Crosscut, the Establishment, Last Real Indians, The Seattle Weekly, and The Stranger. Nikkita organizes with No New Youth Jail, Decriminalize Seattle, Covid-19 Mutual Aid – Seattle, and the Seattle Peoples Party.

Nikkita is the executive director of Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration and a healing engaged youth-led community-based program.

Nikkita was the first political candidate of the Seattle Peoples Party running for Mayor of Seattle in 2017 narrowly missing the general election by approximately 1,100 votes; coming in third of 21 candidates.

Nikkita speaks and performs for events, at universities and conferences, and facilitates trainings on equity, law and justice, education, and arts activism all over the United States.

Follow on IG and Twitter @nikkitaoliver

Clara Olivo (she/her/ella) is an Afro-Salvi poet living in diaspora. Born and raised in South Central L.A. to Salvadorean refugees, Clara weaves history and lived experience, creating transcendental poetry that amplifies ancestral power and pride. Writing for her lost inner child, Clara steps into her poetry with the intention of healing the hurts of her past and inspiring hope for the future. Since finding her voice, she has performed in open mics and art receptions from Seattle to Washington D.C., is a 2022 Pushcart nominee and has been featured in publications such as The South Seattle Emerald, Valiant Scribe, and Quiet Lightning’s Literary Mixtape.

Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route and two previous collections of poems. He teaches at Dartmouth College and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Sara Marie Ortiz is a Seattle-based writer of creative nonfiction, poetry, and mixed-genre work. She is an enrolled citizen of the Pueblo of Acoma, a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts (BFA in creative writing) and Antioch University Los Angeles (MFA in creative writing). She has studied formally writing, law, Native studies, theater, and film. She has published widely, has been featured in such publications as the Kenyon Review, the Florida Review, Ploughshares, and she has presented widely from her beloved birthplace in New Mexico, throughout the Pacific Northwest, and all the way to Johannesburg, South Africa. Sara Marie is also a passionate Native educator and advocate in the realm of Native arts, culture, literature, tribal languages, education, and community. She currently serves as the Native Education Program Manager for Highline Public Schools in Burien, Washington, loves watching movies and listening to all kinds of music (especially chilled electronic, old timey blue grass, neo-Americana, folk, and hip hop), and has a fluffy orange cat named Mr. Pickles.

Esteban Ortiz-Villacorta (he/him/his) is from Sammamish, WA and is studying Theatre and History at Northwestern University. When not on-stage, Esteban can be found writing and recording original music with his band not alone, catching up on cartoons, perusing vinyl shops, or just sitting outside under the sun. 

The grandson of Filipino immigrants and the great-grandson of Japanese immigrants, Troy Osaki is a poet, organizer, and attorney. Osaki is a three-time grand slam poetry champion and has earned fellowships from Kundiman, Hugo House, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. He was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2022. A 2022-2023 Critic-at-Large for Poetry Northwest, his poetry has appeared in Crazyhorse, the Margins, Muzzle Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Seattle University School of Law where he interned at Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration for youth in King County. He lives in Seattle, WA. 

Jéhan Òsanyìn (they/them) is a somatic abolitionist and futurist facilitator who is also an Equity actor and Gregory Award nominated playwright. They studied theatre in Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India, Kenya, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and Venezuela. Jéhan produces their art through their experimental experiential art studio, earthseed, where studio research and performance explores the stories our bodies tell with and without our consent. Earthseed offers individual coaching, workshops, and lots of opportunities to investigate racialized identity development through experiential education and liberation.

Madeline Ostrander is an environmental journalist, nonfiction writer, and author of At Home on an Unruly Planet. The former senior editor of YES! Magazine, her work has appeared in the NewYorker.com, The Nation, Sierra Magazine, and numerous other outlets.

Monique Ouk is a Cambodian-American writer. Her poetry appears in Diode Poetry Journal, The Margins, and The Seventh Wave.

Michael Overa was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and completed his MFA at Hollins University. He is a former Writers In The Schools Resident and Jack Straw Fellow. He's the author of two collections of short stories, This Endless Road and The Filled In Spaces. His work has appeared in the Portland Review, East Bay Review, and Inlandia, among others.

Jeffrey Overstreet is the author of the film-focused memoirs Through a Screen Darkly and the upcoming Lost and Found in the Cathedral of Cinema, as well as the fantasy series The Auralia Thread. In 2024, he was voted Undergraduate Professor of the Year by the students of Seattle Pacific University, where he teaches creative writing and film studies. His essays have appeared in Image, Christianity Today, and Bright Wall Dark Room. His reviews, spanning more than 25 years, are published at JeffreyOverstreet.com.

Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest, whose books have garnered international acclaim for their ability to integrate issues of science, technology, religion, environmental politics, and global pop culture into unique, hybrid, narrative forms.

Her new novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness, tells the story of a young boy who, after the death of his father, starts to hear voices and finds solace in the companionship of his very own book. The Book of Form and Emptiness has been shortlisted for the UK Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Her first two novels, My Year of Meats (1998) and All Over Creation (2003), have been translated into 11 languages and published in 14 countries. Her third novel, A Tale for the Time Being (2013), won the LA Times Book Prize, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has been published in over thirty countries.

Her work of personal non-fiction, The Face: A Time Code (2016), was published by Restless Books as part of their groundbreaking series called The Face.

Shin Yu Pai is the author of several books of poetry, including Virga, ENSŌ, Sightings: Selected Works (2000-2005), Aux Arcs, Adamantine, and Equivalence. She served as the fourth poet laureate of the City of Redmond, Washington, from 2015 to 2017. She is a three-time fellow of MacDowell and has completed residencies at Taipei Artist Village, Centrum, and The Ragdale Foundation. She writes, hosts, and produces the podcast The Blue Suit for KUOW Public Radio. For more information, visit shinyupai.com