Teachers

Katherine E. Standefer is the author of Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life (Little, Brown Spark 2020), which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction, an NYT Book Review Editor’s Choice, and shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Lightning Flowers was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, on the goop podcast, and in O, The Oprah Magazine, and People Magazine. Standefer earned her MFA at the University of Arizona. Her writing appeared in The Best American Essays 2016 and won the 2015 Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction. Standefer was a 2018 Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good and a 2017 Marion Weber Healing Arts Fellow at the Mesa Refuge. She currently lives in the Tetons. 

Website: www.KatherineStandefer.com

Social Media: @girlmakesfire

Sasha Stiles is a first-generation Kalmyk-American poet, artist, and transhuman translator working at the intersection of text and technology. The poetry mentor of A.I. BINA48 and inventor of “cursive binary,” Stiles recently exhibited her art and read her work at Art Basel Miami and SXSW. 

Emma Stockman is a Seattle-based writer and educator with an MFA in Fiction from the University of Oregon. In 2023, she moved to Seattle to pursue greater literary opportunities. She writes short fiction and is currently working on a novel.

Describe your teaching style.

I believe the best teachers are the ones who create the most spacious, curious, and playful containers out of their classrooms, no matter the subject. I strive to bring this philosophy to every class I teach, no matter the age or experience-level of my students. I do this by setting clear community guidelines at the beginning of class, and by fostering connections between students, so there's a collective sense of exploration and acceptance.

When it comes to teaching fiction more technically, I believe there is no one or best way to tell a story; the most successful art will be made out of spiritual and emotional alignment between the writer and the piece. Concepts of craft are often taught from an overly intellectualized and (predominantly white) academic perspective, but I aim to make literature feel approachable and accessible. It’s important to me that students learn to recognize elements of craft by their own reading experience, rather than by some external assessment of what’s “good.” If you can read by feel, you can learn to write that way, too.

Cara Stoddard holds an MFA from the University of Idaho and a BA from the College of Wooster. Their work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Terrain, and Ninth Letter, among others, and has been nominated for Pushcart. Learn more at Cara's website.

Describe your teaching style.

I promote and celebrate growth mindset in my students – that is students who see their own writing practice as one they are in the process of honing. I do not believe a good creative writer is someone with innate raw talent.

Ray Stoeve is the author of the young adult novels Between Perfect and Real (2021) and Arden Grey (2022), both Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections. They also contributed to the young adult anthology Take The Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance. They received a 2016-2017 Made at Hugo House Fellowship and created the YA/MG Trans and Nonbinary Voices Masterlist, a database that tracks all books in those age categories written by trans authors about trans characters. When they’re not writing, they can be found gardening, making art in other mediums, or hiking their beloved Pacific Northwest.

They enjoy fiction of all age categories and genres, especially historical and contemporary realist works about queer and trans characters. They are best equipped to provide sensitivity reads and consult on young adult novels. In addition to being a full-time writer, they also work with authors and publishers seeking sensitivity reads for queer and trans characters.

J. Ryan Stradal is the author of the New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest, the national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota, and the forthcoming novel Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club. He lives in California. 

Katharine Strange specializes in questioning received wisdom with a wink and a smirk. She writes personal essays, short stories, novels, and now, memoir! Her work has appeared in The Seattle Times, The Stranger, OC87 Diaries, Literary Yard, ScaryMommy, and anthology The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: Gen X Women on the Brink. She was a 2021 Mainstage Storyteller for The Moth. Formerly she wrote a column for Fundamentally Free, a blog for Exvangelicals and heretics. She lives in south Seattle with her family and is represented by Savannah Brooks of Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. As a rule, she never turns down champagne.

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 (she/her) is the editor of That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It: Prose and Poetry by Artists Teaching in Carceral Settings (New Village Press, 2023). She has taught courses and workshops at the Institute for Justice and Opportunity, NYU, Poetry Foundation, Hugo House, Justice Arts Coalition, and other sites, both in person and online. Her work ap- pears in POETRY, jubilat, Split this Rock, and more. An associate producer for Commonplace, Leigh holds an MFA in poetry from NYU and a Master of Public Administration specializing in Criminal Justice Policy, from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. A University of Michigan Hopwood Writing Awardee, Leigh lives in Michigan with her pup.

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of the novel Elita and the forthcoming short story collection Outer Stars, which won the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. Her three previous collections of short fiction are What We Do With the Wreckage (2017 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction winner), This Life She’s Chosen, and Swimming With Strangers. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Conjunctions, The Sun, Prairie Schooner, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, and One Story, among other publications. Kirsten has been the recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize and fellowships from MacDowell and the Sewanee 

Writers Conference. She teaches creative writing and literature and lives with her family near Seattle, Washington.

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.