Teachers

Omar El Akkad is an award-winning journalist and author whose debut novel, American War, was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, NPR, Esquire, and was selected by the BBC as one of a hundred novels that changed our world. His second novel, What Strange Paradise, won the Giller Prize and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award.

Allison Ellis’ writing has been published in The New York Times, The Ploughshares blog, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, Amazon Original Stories, SELF, Marie Claire, Redbook, and The Washington Post. In 2016, her essay, “Hold On” won the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Award in the short nonfiction category, and her forthcoming memoir, Ready About is the 2021 recipient of the First Pages Prize/Sandra Carpenter Prize for Creative Nonfiction. She holds an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars (2021) and a BA from Smith College in American Studies. Read more of her work at allisonellis.com

Jonathan Escoffery is the author of If I Survive You, a debut collection of linked stories forthcoming in September 2022 from MCDxFSG, as well as the forthcoming novel, Play Stone Kill Bird. Both books will be published in the UK and Commonwealth by 4th Estate Books, in Canada by McClelland and Stewart, and will be published in translation in France by Albin Michel and in Germany by Piper Verlag.

Escoffery is the winner of The Paris Review’s 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and is the recipient of a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts (Prose) Literature Fellowship. His story “Under the Ackee Tree” was among the trio that won the Paris Review the 2020 ASME Award for Fiction from the American Society of Magazine Editors, and was subsequently included in The Best American Magazine Writing 2020. His most recent stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Zyzzyva and American Short Fiction.

 Escoffery has taught creative writing and seminars on the writer’s life at Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, the Center for Fiction, Tin House, Writers in Progress, and at GrubStreet in Boston, where, as former staff, he founded the Boston Writers of Color Group, which currently has more than 2,000 members. He has received support and honors from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, Aspen Words, Kimbilio Fiction, the Anderson Center, and elsewhere. 

 For Writers of the World, Jonathan reflected on his love of the short story form: “I first fell in love with story’s ability to transport, to expand the borders of my reality. I recall crouching beneath my parents’ kitchen counter as a child, losing Sunday afternoons reading. That words printed between book covers could take me to far off worlds, on journeys that left me forever changed, was, to me, nothing short of magic. I also sensed perfection in the economy of these world-altering journeys; their being beautifully bound to fit in my palms. Later, I came to understand that great literature does not simply transport, but that it also helps me understand myself, and that—at its best—it helps me to better articulate my experiences and helps me further understand those of others.”

 He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Creative Writing MFA Program (Fiction) and attends the University of Southern California’s Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature Program as a Provost Fellow. He is a 2021-2023 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Melanie Figg is a poet and essayist, currently working on a hybrid memoir. Her award-winning poetry collection, Trace, was named one of the year’s "Best Indie Books" by Kirkus Reviews. She's received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and others, and has had work published in dozens of literary journals, including The Iowa Review, Nimrod, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, and the American Journal of Poetry. As a certified professional coach, Melanie offers women’s writing retreats and works remotely with writers on their manuscripts as well as their creative process.

Website: melaniefigg.net

Karen Finneyfrock is a poet and novelist. She is the author of two young adult novels: The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door and Starbird Murphy and the World Outside, both published by Viking Children’s Books. She is one of the editors of the anthology Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls, and the author of Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, both released on Write Bloody press. She is a former Writer-in Residence at Hugo House. Learn more on her website: http://www.karenfinneyfrock.com.

Marissa Flaxbart is a writer, filmmaker, and podcaster based in Los Angeles. She holds a BA in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Screenwriting from Chapman University. Early in her professional life, she produced and directed a feature-length documentary, SHOW/CHOIR, while leading a team of technology lecturers at one of the first flagship Apple stores. Since relocating to Los Angeles, she has worked as a writer and developer for film and television. She is the host of the culture podcast Sweet Valley Diaries and a writer/producer for Twenty Thousand Hertz. Her first narrative feature will be released in 2021.

Gail Folkins often writes about her deep roots in the American West. She is the author of two creative nonfiction books from Texas Tech University Press: a Pacific Northwest memoir titled Light in the Trees (2016), and Texas Dance Halls: A Two-Step Circuit (2007), which was a popular culture finalist in ForeWord Review’s 2007 Book of the Year Awards. Folkins’ essay “A Palouse Horse” was a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2010. Her essays and poetry have appeared in publications such as River Teeth Journal – Beautiful Things, North Dakota Quarterly, Wisconsin Life, Texas Highways, and Wildflower Magazine. She has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, St. Edward’s University (Austin), and Austin Community College. Teaching philosophy: My goal is to further understanding of craft while also encouraging expression of students’ unique voices. Students have praised my workshop format and student-centered approach. Students learn to not only share a narrative, but to also explore their experiences and discoveries. I encourage students to read as writers, meaning focusing on elements of craft in addition to literary themes. Writers I return to: Edward Abbey, Julia Alvarez, Margaret Atwood, Kim Barnes, Rick Bass, Dennis Covington, Louise Erdrich, Ernest Hemingway, Pico Iyer, and Jhumpa Lahiri. Favorite writing advice: Find the extraordinary in the everyday.

Teré Fowler-Chapman (he/they) is a poet, cultural worker, and youth advocate whose work focuses on mental health and their experience as a black, transgendered man. He is a Marsha P. Johnson Fellow, National Arts Strategies’ Creative Community Fellow, and Rocky Mountain Regional Emmy Award nominee. His first full-length poetry book, "M O O N S H i N E," was released by R&R Press in October. You can find Teré’s work in the Huffington Post, the University of Arizona’s VOCA, TEDxTucson, Tucson Weekly, Arizona Public Media’s PBS & NPR, AutoStraddle, and more. Website: terethepoet.com | Photo Credit: Zach Oren.

Describe your teaching style.

Relaxed and approachable.

Gabriela Denise Frank is a Pacific Northwest writer, editor, and creative writing instructor. Her essays, interviews, and fiction, explore identity, feminism, aging, belonging, creative practice, and ancestors. Her work appears in True Story, HAD, Poetry Northwest, Pembroke, DIAGRAM, Hunger Mountain, Bayou, Baltimore Review, The Normal School, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her essay “BAD DATE” was named a Notable Essay of 2020 by Best American Essays. Gabriela’s work is supported by grants, fellowships, and residencies from 4Culture, Artist Trust, The Civita Institute, Centrum, Invoking the Pause, Jack Straw Cultural Center, Marble House, Mineral School, Vermont Studio Center, and Willapa Bay. In 2009, she enrolled in her first Hugo House class, which reignited her writing life. Off the page, her literary art installations and performances transform stories into multisensory experiences. Her writing is rooted in place and landscape, a result of her career in architecture and urban design in the western United States. An advocate for public arts and artists, she serves as an arts commissioner for the City of Burien, on the arts advisory committee of 4Culture, and as creative nonfiction editor for Crab Creek Review. For more information go to gabrieladenisefrank.com.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/civitaveritas/  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CivitaVeritas

Describe your teaching style.

I center each class meeting on a theme matched with a constraint, a prompt, or a form. (Oftentimes, we'll do two or three writes per session.) As a prose writer of essays and creative nonfiction, I often draw poetry and poetic approaches into my classes because I believe the granular focus on language and form helps us craft stronger prose.

Camellia Han Freeman is a Seattle-based writer and community educator. Past honors include notable mention in Best American Essays, Image’s Milton Postgraduate Fellowship, Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and a summer residency in Provincetown.

Leora Fridman is author of My Fault, in addition to other books of prose, poetry, and translation. Work appears in the New York Times, the Rumpus, and the Believer, among others. She is currently faculty associate in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University, and Curator in Residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. For more information check out Leora's website: www.leorafridman.com

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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.

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.

Describe your teaching style.

My teaching style is energetic, enthusiastic, encouraging, supportive, and (hopefully!) fun.

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

Darien Hsu Gee is the author of five novels published by Penguin Random House, translated into eleven languages, and is currently in contract for an Object Lessons book, Fortune Cookie (Bloomsbury). In 2022, she served as executive editor for Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World. Her work has earned a Bronze IPPY award for her micro essay collection Allegiance (2021), a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Other Small Histories (2019), and a Hawaiʻi Book Publishers’ Ka Palapala Poʻokela Award for Writing the Hawaiʻi Memoir (2015). She teaches the art of micro on her Substack, Writer-ish, and lives with her family on the island of Hawaiʻi.

Websites: dariengee.com and writerish.substack.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.

Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet is the author of The Greenhouse (Frost Place Chapbook Prize) and Tulips, Water, Ash (Morse Poetry Prize). Her poems have appeared in journals including Plume, Zyzzyva, and Kenyon Review and anthologies including Nasty Women Poets and The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry. She holds a BA in contemporary American literature from Yale University and an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, where she was a Javits Fellow. Lisa lives in Portland, OR, where she reads, writes, edits, parents, and cohosts the literary reading series Lilla Lit. (lisagluskinstonestreet.com)

Veronica Golos is author of four poetry books: A Bell Buried Deep (Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize); Vocabulary of Silence (New Mexico Poetry Prize); Rootwork and GIRL (Naji Naaman Honor Prize for Poetry.) Her work has been extensively translated into Arabic; also Persian and Italian. She lives in Taos, New Mexico.

Laura Gonzalez is an editorial assistant at Catapult Books. Previously, she was a marketing assistant at Catapult, Counterpoint, and Soft Skull Press and a bookseller at The Strand. She lives in Philadelphia, where she likes to bake cookies and play with her cats.

Shana Graham is a Seattle-based writer, producer, and somatic sex and relationship coach. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Witness, The Los Angeles Review, CRAFT, West Trade Review, Rust & Moth, and others. She’s been anthologized in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival Literary Anthology and was the recipient of the SEAF Literary Foundation Award in Short Works. She is working on a memoir in essays. Shana also creates living stories in the form of events filled with music, artistry, and general mayhem. You can find her at www.supershana.com (writing) and www.shanagraham.com (coaching).