Teachers

The author is an accomplished international cabaret and jazz singer, celebrated for her flamboyant style, witty patter, and husky contralto

voice. Born in Seattle, she inherited from her SicilianNorwegian heritage an audacious spirit and a deep love of music. Upon returning to Seattle from Paris, she became a cherished fixture in the Pacific Northwest art scene, starring in "The Julie Cascioppo Experience" at clubs, events and television.

Elaine Castillo is the author of the widely acclaimed debut novel, America is Not the Heart (Viking, 2018), named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, the New York Public Library, and many others. In August 2022, Viking will publish her first work of nonfiction, How to Read Now, on the politics and ethics of our reading culture. Her writing has appeared in Freeman’s, The Rumpus, Lit Hub, Taste Magazine, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her short film, A Mukkbang, was commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Open Space. She is a VONA Foundation Fellow, and was a three-time recipient of the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize for prose while at UC Berkeley. She has also been nominated for the Pat Kavanagh Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a Gatewood Prize.

Claudia Castro Luna is the author of Cipota Under the Moon (Tia Chucha Press, 2022); One River, A Thousand Voices (Chin Music Press, 2020 & 2022); Killing Marías (Two Sylvias, 2017) finalist for the WA State Book Award 2018, and the chapbook This City (Floating Bridge, 2016). She served as Washington’s State Poet Laureate (2018-2021) and as Seattle's inaugural Civic Poet (2015-2017). She was named Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow in 2019. Her most recent non-fiction is in There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis (Vintage). Born in El Salvador, Castro Luna came to the United States in 1981. Living in English and Spanish, she writes and teaches in Seattle on unceded Duwamish lands where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and their three children. 

Ren Cedar Fuller's debut book, Bigger, won the 2024 Autumn House Press Nonfiction Prize and was a finalist for the 2024 Iron Horse Prize and the Santa Fe Writers Project 2023 Literary Awards Program.

Her creative nonfiction essays have won Under the Sun's Summer Writing Contest in 2022, been a finalist in the 2022 Terry Tempest Williams Prize for Creative Nonfiction at North American Review, and placed second in the 2022 Eunice Williams Nonfiction Prize. Ren’s essays have appeared in HerStry, Hippocampus, New England Review, North American Review, and Under the Sun, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays.

Ren is a parent facilitator at TransFamilies, an online hub for families with gender diverse children. She taught public school in California, Oregon, and Washington before founding a nonprofit early learning center in the Seattle area, where she continues teaching parent education.

Ren lives in Seattle with her husband, Jason, and loves to kayak on the Salish Sea. She is currently in the M.F.A. in Writing program at Pacific University.

Aleyda Marisol Cervantes is a self-identified third-world woman. She is also a TEDx presenter and an advocate for immigrant communities. Her work appears in PALABRITAS, Acentos Review, and We Need a Reckoning. She tries to make time to enraizar herself in her body by writing and imagining a better world is possible. 

Learn more on Kristin Chambers' website!

Jessamine Chan’s short stories have appeared in Tin House and Epoch. A former reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, she holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her first novel, The School for Good Mothers, is a New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club pick. She lives in Chicago with her husband and daughter.

JUSTINE CHAN is a writer and singer-songwriter from Chicago. Her debut poetry book, Should You Lose All Reason(s), is forthcoming from Chin Music Press in April 2023. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, Baltimore Review, Beecher’s, Booth, Poetry on Buses, and Midwestern Gothic among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington and has worked many seasons as a park ranger with the National Park Service. 

Celeste Chan is a writer and artist schooled by Do-It-Yourself culture and immigrant parents from Malaysia and the Bronx NY. She founded and directed Queer Rebels (a queer and trans people of color arts project), created and curated experimental films, joined Foglifter Literary Journal as an editor and board member, and toured with feminist literary road show, Sister Spit. She's grateful for support from Hedgebrook, Hugo House, Periplus, Ragdale, and Carolyn Moore House, among others. Celeste is now focused on writing her hybrid memoir.

Banana Chan is a Cantonese Canadian horror game designer and screenwriter living in Seattle. She is also the owner of the publishing company, Read/Write Memory. Her most notable work has been on Forgery, Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, Betrayal at House on the Hill: 3rd Edition and Chucky: The Board Game. She won Dicebreaker Awards' Game Designer of the Year 2022 and 2 Silver ENnie Awards in 2022.

Celeste Chan is a writer and artist schooled by Do-It-Yourself culture and immigrant parents from Malaysia and the Bronx NY. She founded and directed Queer Rebels (a queer and trans people of color arts project), created and curated experimental films, joined Foglifter Literary Journal as an editor and board member, and toured with feminist literary road show, Sister Spit. She's grateful for support from Hedgebrook, Hugo House, Periplus, Ragdale, and Carolyn Moore House, among others. Celeste is now focused on writing her hybrid memoir.

Victoria Chang’s new book of poetry is The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press and Corsair Books, U.K.). Her previous book of poetry, OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Must-Read Book, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and lives in Los Angeles and is a Core Faculty member within Antioch’s low-residency MFA Program.

Jos Charles is author of a Year & other poems (Milkweed Editions, 2022), feeld (Milkweed Editions, 2018), a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series selected by Fady Joudah, and Safe Space (Ahsahta Press, 2016). She is the founding-editor of THEM, the first trans literary journal in the US, and engages in direct gender justice work with a variety of organizations and performers. Charles's poetry has appeared in Poetry, PEN, Washington Square Review, BLOOM, Denver Quarterly, Action Yes, The Feminist Wire, The Capilano Review, and elsewhere. Among her awards are the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and a 2015 Monique Wittig Writer's Scholarship.

Richard (He/Him) has been involved in the performing arts since the age of 12. He started with school plays during his youth and moved on to performing skits in bars and parks, then became a central performer and producer of a Fantasy Rock Opera for over five years, and is currently a knighted member of a professional jousting troupe. With nearly two decades of experience in martial arts, dance, and stage acting, swinging swords for an appreciative audience at a Renaissance Faire feels like just another day to him, even six years later. Richard has also been playing and running tabletop RPGs for as long as he has been performing and has a regular gaming group that he runs every week.

Mayur Chauhan is an L.A-based immigrant, writer, actor, and comedian, originally from Delhi. Mayur is a Key West Literary Seminar and Bread Loaf scholar. His humor pieces have been published in McSweeney’s and many other publications.

Describe your teaching style.

My coaching is writer-centered and engaging. I encourage the participants to become more confident in their voice and their work while staying open to suggestions. If there's one thing I'd repeat at least 589 times in class is "You are the final decision maker."

I believe self-care and playfulness are as important as craft and marketplace. Also, I love to meet everyone's pets via Zoom.

j.chavez (they/them) is a Seattle-based playwright, educator, and all-around theatre maker. Through the power of RedBulls they earned a BA in Theatre from Western Washington University, concentrating in Directing, Dramatic Writing, and Education. They are the founder and artistic director of Haus of Hazard Theatre Productions which does free theatre in the PNW. They were crowned the unofficial title of Lil’ Miss Kennedy Center for their play how to clean your room (and remember all your trauma) which was awarded The KCACTF National Undergraduate Playwriting Award 2020 and the David Mark Cohen National Award in 2021. how to clean is featured in the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays, a first of it’s kind anthology of Trans plays written by Trans playwrights for Trans people. It’s been over two decades and Jay is still chasing the knowledge of how wind works. They are a teaching artist at Seattle Children’s Theatre. When they aren’t working, they love to drink coffee, write bad adaptations of classic plays, and cook delicious meals their mother describes as "too spicy." They are excited to teach with Hugo House.

Tim Chawaga writes speculative fiction and plays.

His short fiction has been featured in Interzone and Escape Pod and his work has been performed in New York and Philadelphia at many venues that have either closed or been converted into gyms. He has a BFA in Drama from the Tisch School of the Arts, is a 2019 graduate of Clarion West and the recipient of George R.R. Martin’s Worldbuilder Scholarship, and currently works in tech. He lives in a co-op in Brooklyn with his partner and dog.

His debut novel, SALVAGIA, is available now.