Teachers

Jordan Alam is a queer Bangladeshi American writer, performer, therapist, and former doula (forever #birthnerd). Their short stories and articles have been published in The Atlantic, SeattleMet, Autostraddle, CultureStrike Magazine, Entropy, and The Rumpus among others. They have performed on stage and facilitated workshops on embodied writing nationwide, most recently at Kundiman, Hugo House, and Town Hall Seattle. They are currently working on a debut novel about family secrets told from the points of view of four Bangladeshi American women in the aftermath of their mother's unexpected death. You can follow them on Instagram at @jordan_alam or find out more about their work at jordanalam.com.

Kathleen Alcalá is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction. Her work has received the Western States Book Award, the Governor’s Writers Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award. She received her second Artist Trust Fellowship in 2008, and in 2014 was honored by the national Latino writers group, Con Tinta. She has been designated an Island Treasure in the Arts on Bainbridge Island. Her work will be included with other Latinx writers in an audio archive at the Library of Congress called PAlABRA.

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, publisher, and New York Times Bestselling author of 36 books, including SWING, BECOMING MUHAMMAD ALI, co-authored with James Patterson, REBOUND, which was shortlisted for prestigious UK Carnegie Medal, The Caldecott Medal and Newbery Honor-winning picture book, THE UNDEFEATED, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and his NEWBERY medal-winning middle grade novel, THE CROSSOVER. A regular contributor to NPR's Morning Edition, Kwame is the recipient of numerous awards, including The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, The Coretta Scott King Author Honor, Three NAACP Image Award Nominations, and the 2017 Inaugural Pat Conroy Legacy Award. In 2018, he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana, as a part of LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy program he co-founded. He is the writer and executive producer of THE CROSSOVER TV series on Disney+. We are here to celebrate the release of book one of a new trilogy, THE DOOR OF NO RETURN.

K Allado-McDowell is a writer, speaker, and musician. They are the author, with GPT-3, of the books Pharmako-AI and Amor Cringe, and are co-editor of The Atlas of Anomalous AI. They record and release music under the name Qenric. Allado-McDowell established the Artists + Machine Intelligence program at Google AI. They are a conference speaker, educator and consultant to think-tanks and institutions seeking to align their work with deeper traditions of human understanding.  

Steve Almond [www.stevealmondjoy.org] is the author of a dozen books, including the NYT Bestsellers “Candyfreak” and “Against Football.” He’s the recipient of an NEA grant for 2022 and teaches at Harvard and Wesleyan. His work has been published in the Best American Short Stories, the Best American Mysteries, Best American Erotica, and the New York Times Magazine. His first novel, “Which Brings Me to You” was made into a major motion picture starring Lucy Hale. His second novel, “All the Secrets of the World,” is under development by 20th Century Fox. His new book, “Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow” is about craft, where stories come from, and the struggle to write.

Yasmine Ameli is an Iranian American writer. Her work appears in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Sun, BWR, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing and works independently as a holistic writing coach.

Website: yasmineameli.com

Instagram: @yasmineameli

Helen Anderson is a fiction writer and software designer living in Seattle. Originally from Austin, Texas, she holds a B.S. in Science, Technology & Society and an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction.

Sini Anderson is an award-winning film director, producer, video art maker, and feminist art activist. Her films , The Punk Singer, a documentary about Kathleen Hanna &  Catherine Opie b. 1961 have won Anderson several directing awards, for example for The Punk Singer, The Lena Sharpe Persistence of Vision from SIFF, Seattle International Film Festival & ARCA Best Director Award from Distrial Film Festival in Mexico City. Awards for the Opie film include, HBO’s Best Documentary Short at Provincetown International Film Festival, Excellence in American Profiles Award at the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, & the VIMEO Staff Award at OutFest Los Angeles. Andersons current project, So Sick, is a seven part documentary series that she’s been making since 2014.

DuWayne Andrews Jr., a Seattle native, joins the cast of THE KINGS GO SOUTH as Martin Luther King Jr., following extensive work on stage and as a chorus leader – including in the Seattle Opera’s The Elixir of Love, and roles as Neil Armstrong (Moon Landing 'United States premiere'-The Museum of Flight), Pontius Pilate (Jesus Christ Superstar-Tacoma Little Theatre), Bert Healy (Annie-Seattle Musical Theatre), and Eddie Souther (Sister Act-Tacoma Musical Playhouse). He will be next seen in the chorus for Seattle Opera's La Traviata in May. DuWayne would like to thank God and his family for their never-ending support.

Raymond Antrobus (he/him) was born in London to an English mother and Jamaican father. He’s a Cave

Canem Fellow and the author of 'To Sweeten Bitter' (UK, Out-Spoken Press), ‘The Perseverance’ (UK, Penned In The Margins / US, Tin House) and ‘All The Names Given’ (US, Tin House / UK, Picador) as well as children’s picture book ‘Can Bears Ski?’ (UK, Walker Books / US, Candlewick). He is the 2019 recipient of the Ted Hughes Award as well as the Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award, and became the first poet to be awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize. His first full-length collection, ‘The Perseverance’ was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and The Forward Prize, ‘All The Names Given’ was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize and the Costa Award. Also in 2021 his poems ‘The Perseverance’ and ‘Happy Birthday Moon’ were added to the UK’s Oxford, Cambridge and RSA ‘GCSE’ syllabus. He divides his time between London and New Orleans. Learn more at www.raymondantrobus.com.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Aoki is a poet, short story writer and game producer. Her first poetry collection, Breakpoint, was a 2019 National Poetry Series Finalist and received Tebot Bach’s Patricia Bibby First Book Award. Its signature poem, “Slouching like a velvet rope,” was selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown as the winner of the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize.

She has received fellowships/grants from the City of Seattle, Artist Trust, Jackstraw Writers Program and residencies at Hedgebrook and Clarion West Writers Workshop. She currently serves as an assistant poetry editor at terrain.org and on the board of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Learn more at betsyaoki.com or follow her on twitter at @baoki.

Meredith Arena is a queer writer and interdisciplinary teaching artist from New York City with 18 years of teaching experience with youth ages 5-15, both in afterschool and school-day arts integration. She likes to challenge authority, play theater games, garden, draw and wander. Her work can be found in various journals including Longleaf Review, Entropy, Lunch Ticket, and Peatsmoke. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She hopes her students tune into their inherent creativity so they can access it when they most need it.

Rob Arnold is a Chamoru poet whose work has appeared in Ploughshares, Hyphen, Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, RED INK, Yes Poetry, The Ocean State Review, Peripheries, and The Volta, among others. His poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and have received support from the Somerville Arts Council, the Jack Straw Cultural Center, and Artist Trust. Rob has two decades of experience in literary publishing and related positions, most recently as the Interim Executive Director for Hugo House. Previously, he co-founded Memorious, and has worked with Ploughshares, Fence Books, Beacon Press, PEN New England, The National Poetry Series, the National Endowment for the Arts, Grid Books, and as a literary agent for Aevitas Creative Management.

Daemond Arrindell is a writer and teaching artist. Adjunct Faculty at Seattle University and Cornish College for the Arts; a 2013 Jack Straw Writer; and a 2014 VONA/Voices Writer’s Workshop fellow.
He has performed across the country and has been repeatedly commissioned by Seattle and Bellevue Arts Museums.