Teachers

Janée J. Baugher is the author of the groundbreaking guidebook, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020), as well as two poetry collections, Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada, 2010) and The Body’s Physics (Tebot Bach, 2013). Baugher holds degrees from Boston University and Eastern Washington University, and her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have been published in over 125 journals, including Saturday Evening Post, Tin House, The Southern Review, Nano Fiction, Boulevard, Rattle, Verse Daily!, The American Journal of Poetry, Nimrod International Journal, and The Writer’s Chronicle.  A two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and Bread Loaf Conference participant, Baugher held a two-year post as a Humanities Washington Inquiring Minds Speaker in which she lectured across Washington State on writers and visual artists of the Lost Generation. Her performance-art projects include collaborations with choreographers, dancers, and composers. Baugher’s writing has been adapted for the stage and set to music at University of Cincinnati–Conservatory of Music, Contemporary Dance Theatre in Ohio, Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, Dance Now! Ensemble in Florida, The Salon at Justice Snow’s in Colorado, Otterbein University, and University of North Carolina-Pembroke. As a spoken-word artist, Baugher has performed in Seattle at Arts Edge Arts Festival, Bumbershoot Arts Festival, the Moore Theatre, and Folklife Arts Festival. She’s also been featured on Seattle Channel TV and at the Library of Congress.

 Baugher has taught creative writing for 20 years and is currently an assistant editor at Boulevard literary journal. www.JaneeBaugher.com, (Instagram) @ekphrastic_writer.

Niccolo Bechtler (he/him) is a poet from central New Jersey. He currently studies in the MFA program at the University of Washington, Seattle (on unceded Coast Salish lands), where he also teaches undergraduate writing courses. Before moving to Seattle, he studied journalism and creative writing at American University in Washington, DC. His poetry has appeared in Glassworks, American Literary, and elsewhere. Prior to beginning graduate school, he worked for several years as a bicycle mechanic. In his free time, he enjoys skateboarding, bicycling, and playing guitar. Find him on Instagram @niccolobec

Mitchell Beck is an active performer and enjoys performing in a wide variety of musical contexts. As an orchestral performer, he has performed professionally with orchestras throughout Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Washington, and Idaho. As a chamber musician, he has performed at multiple Percussive Arts Society events, universities, and high schools around the country. Mitchell also keeps an active schedule performing and recording with a variety of bands in the Pacific Northwest and Midwest. Currently, he is working on commissions for people around the country that range from solo contemporary classical music to soundtracks for visual and interactive media. Mitchell has a specific interest in creating electro-acoustic music through the use of loop pedal technology as well as composing contemporary works involving electronic accompaniment and live sound manipulation.

Elizabeth Beechwood is your typical scarf-knitting, bird-feeding tree hugger who lives on the western fringes of Portland, Oregon. When she writes, she starts with regular people with regular lives…but then something strange happens. Whether it’s fiction, fantasy, magical realism, or genre-bending, you can count on something just a little peculiar from her stories. Her Pushcart-nominated fiction has been published in Nightscape Press’s award-winning anthology Nox Pareidolia, Third Flatiron’s Hidden Histories, Not a Pipe Publishing’s The Year of Publishing Women’s Short Stories series, Crossed Genres, and Every Day Fiction. Elizabeth earned an MFA in Popular Fiction at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Copyediting Certificate from UC San Diego Extension’s Copyediting Certificate Program. She’s a member of SWFA and ACES. You can keep up with her shenanigans at www.elizabethbeechwood.com

Andrew Bell is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and educator from the Pacific Northwest. His short film work has played at festivals worldwide and is broadcast internationally on ShortsTV, BloodydisgustingTV, and streaming on CryptTV. He is currently working on his first feature film and doing what he loves most—mentoring young writers, actors, and filmmakers. He holds an MFA from Columbia University.

In truth, Melany is all things in small parts: a Functional Nutritional Therapist Practitioner, an Artist, a Black-Indigenous, Queer Female who prioritizes meditation & radical transformation through Pentecostalism. She came from The Church, y'all. Most recently their ritual work rendered 2 in-production, Spoken Word Performance pieces: ’AWOKEN’ & 'On Receiving The Holy Ghost – UNJEALOUSED'. Both inspired by the George Floyd Massacres, and center polarizing issues of gender & race-based violence. With the creation of their current works, Melany has exorcised the will to hide from an offending world to realize it as Art. The current work is sponsored by: SHUNPIKE- 'STOREFRONTS’, 4Culture, UAAC, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, NW Film Forum, & Collective Power A Member of The African American Writers Alliance, as Co-Secretary, Diversity Consultant, and Spoken Word Artist. Melany is a newly Published Author. "Everything I See is Me, Vol 1" is NOW Available on Amazon.

Jeff Bender is a graduate of Columbia's MFA program and winner of Hugo House's New Works Competition. His fiction and humor have appeared in McSweeney's, Electric Literature, The Iowa Review, Guernica, Points in Case, Slackjaw, and Little Old Lady Comedy.

Soumeya Bendimerad Roberts is a literary agent and VP, Foreign Rights, at HG Literary. 

In fiction, Soumeya is seeking literary and upmarket novels and collections, and also represents realistic young-adult and middle-grade. She likes books with vivid voices and compelling, well-developed story-telling, and is particularly interested in narratives by people of color and fiction that reflects on the post-colonial world. She's currently on the hunt for narratives set in enclosed settings, stylized literary takes on genre (especially literary thriller and suspense), novels set in other countries or shot through with elements of travel, family sagas, historical narratives (especially those that intertwine with the present), honest, updated, politically charged takes on the domestic family novel, and unconventional love stories. A lover of craft, she is drawn to observant writing that illuminates dynamic relationships between complex but sympathetic characters, intelligent experiments with form, and stories that enchant and transport the reader in authentic and inventive ways. In non-fiction, she is primarily looking for idea-driven or voice-forward memoirs, personal essay collections, and approachable narrative non-fiction of all stripes: politics, current events; popular culture, (especially anything that deals with subcultures – the more minute the better), unconventional business, popular science, adventure, psychology, and more. She also represents practical nonfiction in the areas of cooking, design, craft, gardening, travel and the outdoors, humor, health, and parenting.

Scott Bentley (he/they) received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Poetics at the University of Washington, Bothell. He’s been a curator of the Gamut literary series, a Mineral School resident, Hugo House Fellow, and editor at Clamor, Ghost Town, and Pacific Review. His writing and art have appeared in Paperbark, Abalone Mountain Press, Under A Warm Green Linden, and elsewhere.

JESSICA RAE BERGAMINO is the author of UNMANNED, winner of Noemi Press' Poetry Prize, as well as chapbooks from dancing girl press and Sundress Publications. Once she files some paperwork, she'll hold a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Utah. These days, she calls Seattle home. 

Kate Berreth is a lifelong prolific songstress and natural mystic of Music.

Misha Berson is a freelance writer and teacher. From 1991-2016 she was the drama critic for the Seattle Times, after 10 years writing for the SF Bay Guardian. She has written four books on theater, including "Between Worlds: Asian American Playwrights" and "Something's Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination." Her work has also appeared in American Theatre, crosscut.com, oregonartswatch.com, Variety, the SF Chronicle and many other publications. She has been a Pulitzer Prize juror several times, most recently in 2019 when she was chair of the drama committee, and she is a juror for the annual Steinberg/ATCA playwriting award. She has taught arts and journalism courses at UW, Seattle University, SF State University, UC Davis, Richard Hugo House and The Eugene O'Neill Center Theatre Critics Conference.

Carrie Beyer is a poet and essayist. A mother of three school-aged children, she grew up in rural Kansas and now lives in the Pacific Northwest where she works as a bookseller at Eagle Harbor Book Company. Carrie holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University. Her poems have been published in Prairie Schooner, Apeiron Review, and as a contest finalist in Iron Horse Literary Review.

Grace Bialecki is a writer, spoken word poet, and workshop facilitator. She has performed at KGB Bar and as the featured poet at Paris Lit Up, and her work has appeared in various publications including Catapult and Epiphany Magazine. Bialecki is the co-founder of the storytelling series Thirst, and the author of the novel Purple Gold (ANTIBOOKCLUB). 

For more information check out Grace's website (www.graciebialecki.com) or Twitter (www.twitter.com/graciebialecki).