Teachers

Greg Stump has been a regular contributor to The Stranger for more than a decade. He is the co-creator of the comic book series Urban Hipster, a former writer and editor for The Comics Journal, and the creator of the weekly alternative-newspaper comic Dwarf Attack. He teaches comics through a variety of schools and organizations in the Seattle area and recently completed his first graphic novel, Disillusioned Illusions.

Leigh Sugar is a multidisciplinary artist from Michigan. She currently teaches writing at the Institute for Justice and Opportunity at John Jay College in New York City, and holds an MFA in Poetry from New York University, where she studied on fellowship. Poems appear in POETRY, jubilat, Pigeon Pages, and more. Leigh has taught in a variety of settings to folks ages 0 through older adulthood, including undergraduate creative writing at NYU, facilitating writing workshops in state prisons through the Prison Creative Arts Project, and teaching academic and professional writing to justice-system involved individuals. A disabled and chronically ill artist, Leigh aims to foster accessible arts spaces and invites active feedback from participants in order to make workshop as safe and supportive as possible. We are all responsible to ourselves and each other, and poetry workshops are such a sacred place to practice this system of community care. Find out more (and say hello!) at www.leighksugar.com.

Social Media: @lekasugar

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of three collections of short fiction, most recently What We Do With the Wreckage, which won the 2017 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and was published by UGA Press in 2018. Her earlier collections are Swimming With Strangers (Chronicle, 2008) and This Life She's Chosen (Chronicle, 2005). Her short fiction has been published in Ploughshares, McSweeney's, One Story, and North American Review, among other journals, and she has been the recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize. Kirsten teaches fiction writing at Hugo House and 9th–12th grade English at a small independent school near Seattle.

Nicole (Nikki) Suyama is an accomplished singer, actress, teaching artist, and currently serves as Artistic Director for Red Eagle Soaring (RES) Native youth Theatre Program. RES is a Seattle-based 501(c)(3) non-profit that exists to empower Indigenous youth to express themselves with confidence and clarity through cultural & contemporary performing arts; a group which Nikki has been part of for the last 20 years, beginning as a student herself in the program. Inupaiq on her mother’s side, RES provided her a space to connect with other urban Indigenous youth, many of whom work in the Seattle Native community today. A graduate from Central Washington University with her BA in Communication Studies and Minor in Business, Nikki feels blessed to work in the arts for a living, even outside of her work with RES. Nikki is the reigning World Karaoke Tour North American Champion since 2019, sings back-up for Seattle-based soul band Eric Blu & The Soul Revue, works as a Karaoke Host part-time (The Cove & Who’s On First) and performs acoustic shows with her partner, Logan Ulavale. She has starred in a variety of Theatre Productions and films in the Seattle area, dating back to Longhouse Media's 2007 short film “FISH”, written by co-creator of Reservation Dogs, Sterlin Harjo. More recently, she starred in “Master Control”, winner of Best Film In City for the 2018 Seattle 48 hour horror film project. A lover of Seattle Theatre, she also serves as a board member for both Copious Love, and Intiman Theatre.

Aimee Suzara is a Filipino-American poet, playwright, and performer based in Oakland, CA whose mission is to create, and help others create, poetic and theatrical writing about race, gender, and the body to provoke dialogue and social change. Her debut poetry book, Souvenir (WordTech Editions 2014) was a finalist for the WILLA Award 2015, and her plays A History of the Body and Tiny Fires were finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2015 and 2016. A YBCAway awardee and Spirited Woman Fellow (AROHO), her theater and performance work has been presented nationally and staged at Berkeley Repertory Theater, CounterPULSE, the World Theater, and Bindlestiff Studio and selected for PlayGround, United States of Asian America Festival, Emerging Performance Festival, The National One-Minute Play Festival, Utah Arts Festival, and APAture; she collaborated as a writer-performer with Deep Waters Dance Theater in 2007–2011 and with other groups such as the San Francisco State University University Dance Theater. She is a 4th season member of the Playground SF Writer's Pool at Berkeley Repertory Theater. An advocate for arts education, she has taught composition at Bay Area Colleges and Universities since 2006 and has offered workshops and coaching in creative writing since 2003. Visit www.aimeesuzara.net for more information.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aimeesuzarapoet/

Instagram: @aimeesuzara.artist

Mathias Svalina is the author of seven books, most recently America at Play, a collection of absurdist instructions for children's games published by Trident Books. His latest poetry collection, Thank You Terror, is forthcoming in winter of 2024, & his first short story collection, Comedy, will be published later in 2024. Svalina was a founding editor of Octopus Books & has led writing workshops in universities, libraries, community spaces, & in prison. Since 2014 he has run a dream delivery service, traveling around the country to write & deliver dreams to subscribers. With the Dream Delivery Service, he has worked with the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Poetry Foundation, & the University of Arizona Poetry Center, & has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition & the BBC World News. 

Anca L. Szilágyi is the author of Daughters of the Air, which Shelf Awareness called “a striking debut ,” and Dreams under Glass, which Buzzfeed Books called "a novel for our modern times." Her writing appears in Newsweek, Los Angeles Review of Books, Orion Magazine, and Lilith Magazine, among other publications. She is the recipient of awards from Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust, Hugo House, Jack Straw, 4Culture, and elsewhere. Originally from Brooklyn, she has lived in Montreal, Seattle, and now Chicago.

Twitter: @ancawrites

Instagram: @anca_szilagyi

Website: ancawrites.com

Kari Tai is founder of the artistic collective Home Ground. Her poetry and dancing inform the group’s artistic response. Kari grew up in Kalispell, Montana in a unique octagon house designed and built by her father. Her childhood experiences living on a rural, forested 20-acre lot under the Big Sky influence both her movement style and writing focus. “Choreopoetry” is how she likes to think of interplay between dancing and writing. Kari holds dual BA degrees in journalism and anthropology and a master’s degree in medical anthropology. Her dance experience ranges from her time as a professional dancer with the Spokane Ballet Company to sharing the joy of movement as a dance instructor with people with Parkinson’s Disease. Kari’s writing includes dance and book reviews for Flagstaff Live!, articles and essays in the Plateau Journal and the book The View from Here, and poetry in Spindrift as well as academic and professional writing. A proud mother of two young men, Kari lives near Lake Sammamish and has served as an art docent chair and on the Redmond Arts and Culture Commission. Connect with Kari at karimorehouse@hotmail.com, on Instagram @kari.tai, or www.taikari.com. 

Melissa Takai is an actor and artist based in Seattle. During the day, she works as a visual designer and by night, she studies acting at Freehold Theatre. Melissa is thrilled to be part of THE KINGS GO SOUTH cast!

Daniel Tam-Claiborne is a multiracial essayist and author of the short story collection What Never Leaves. His writing has appeared in Literary Hub, Off Assignment, The Rumpus, The Huffington Post, The Seventh Wave, and elsewhere. A 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, he has also received fellowships and awards from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Kundiman, Writing By Writers, the Jack Straw Cultural Center, and others. Daniel holds degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. 

Lucy Tan is the author of the novel What We Were Promised, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a Best Book of 2018 by The Washington Post, Refinery 29, and Amazon. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, Lucy is originally from New Jersey. She currently lives and writes in Seattle.

Danny Tayara is a mixed-race queer designer, filmmaker, animator, and illustrator. They received their B.A. in Film Studies from Seattle University, where they focused heavily on scientific film and XR. In addition to illustrating Clitaurus Chronicles, they also work in Seattle as Production & UX Research Director at VR Ulysses, a software startup company that develops technology solutions for cyber security and network operations. During their time as Festival Director of the Seattle Queer Film Festival, Danny founded Seattle Queer Filmmakers while also facilitating workshops and maintaining their creative practice making short films. Danny’s films have screened in fifteen countries, notable awards including Judge’s Pick at the UW Climate Change Film Festival, Most Controversial Film at Queersicht Film Festival, and Best Documentary at the Roving Eye International Film Festival.

The following could all apply to Stephanie Tayengco—technologist, writer, visual artist, excavator, historian, taxonomist, cartographer, motorcyclist, mariner, angler, and dog fancier. She endeavors to apply these modes of being to understanding her own Filipino-American identity, filling in ontological and historic holes, and making her own creative outlets for useful obsessions.

Tess Taylor, an avid gardener, is the author of five acclaimed collections of poetry including Work & Days, which was named one of the 10 best books of poetry of 2016 by the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Times Literary Supplement, CNN, and the New York Times. She has also served as on-air poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered for over a decade. Taylor is local to the Bay Area where she tends to fruit trees and backyard chickens.

Michelle Tea is the author of over a dozen books, including Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of My In/Fertility, forthcoming August 2022 from Dey Street/HarperCollins. She has been the recipient of awards from the Lambda Literary Foundation, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, the California Library Association, and PEN/America. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. Author of the popular tarot how-to, Modern Tarot, Tea is the host of the mystical podcasts Your Magic on Spotify and Ask the Tarot, on SpotifyGreenroom. 

Peter Temes is a writer, teacher and business advisor living in Seattle. He has taught writing, literature, and ethics at Harvard and Columbia Universities, and is an advisor to the University of Alabama. He lives in Seattle with his family.

Molly Tenenbaum is the author of five books of poems, most recently The Arborists (MoonPath, 2023); Mytheria (Two Sylvias, 2017); and The Cupboard Artist (Floating Bridge, 2012). Her chapbook/artist book, Exercises to Free the Tongue (2014), a collaboration with artist Ellen Ziegler, combines poems with archival materials about her vaudeville ventriloquist grandparents. Her recordings of old-time Appalachian banjo are Instead of a Pony and Goose & Gander. She lives in Seattle, having taught English at North Seattle College for 30+ years, currently teaching music in the backyard and at Dusty Strings Music School. Find her at www.mollytenenbaum.com. 

Ann Teplick is a poet, playwright, and prose writer with an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. For twenty-three years, she’s been a teaching artist in Seattle public schools; Hugo House; Coyote Central; and Pongo Teen Writing, at King Co. juvenile detention and the Washington State psychiatric hospital. She has received funding from Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, 4 Culture, Artist Trust, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She is also a Hedgebrook and Jack Straw alumna.