Teachers

KIMBERLY KING PARSONS is the author of the debut novel We Were the Universe. She won the 2020 National Magazine Award for Fiction, and her short story collection, Black Light, was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. Her fiction has been published in The Paris Review. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner and children.

Parsons is the recipient of fellowships from Columbia University, Yaddo, Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Oregon Arts Commission, Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation; her fiction has been published in New York Tyrant, Black Warrior Review, No Tokens, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Parsons’ collection Black Light was a finalist for the 2020 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, the 2020 Texas Institute of Letters Best Work of First Fiction Award, and the 2020 Oregon Book Award.

Born in Lubbock, Texas, Parsons earned a BA in English and an MA in Literary Studies (emphasis on the works of William Faulkner) from the University of Texas at Dallas. She later moved to New York, where she earned an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and served as the editor-in-chief of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art. Parsons’s book reviews and interviews have appeared in Bookforum, BOMB, Time Out New York, The Millions, and elsewhere. She has been awarded residencies from Yaddo, Hermitage Artist Retreat, Tasajillo Writers Residency, Dairy Hollow, Baltic Writing Residencies, San Ysidro Ranch, the Gullkistan Center for Creativity, the Lillian E. Smith Center, Hypatia-in-the-Woods, and PLAYA. She received the Indiana Review Fiction Prize, placed second in the Joyland Open Border Fiction Prize, and was runner-up in both the Black Warrior Review Fiction Contest and the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest. 

Savannah Kinzer, activist and actor, is proud to take part in her third Baker Theater Workshop. After a hiatus from the stage, she is thrilled to be back studying acting at Freehold theater and actively pursuing stage/film opportunities in Seattle. 

Award-winning Bharti Kirchner has published nine critically acclaimed novels (historical, literary, and mystery), four nonfiction books, and hundreds of articles and short stories. Most recent novel: Murder at Jaipur: A Maya Mallick Mystery (Book 3) has been published in 2023. 

Nari Kirk holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of New Mexico. She has published work in Hobart, Plume, the anthology All the Women in My Family Sing, and elsewhere.

Katie Kitamura‘s most recent novel, A Separation, was a finalist for the Premio Gregor von Rezzori and a New York Times Notable Book. It was named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications and translated into sixteen languages, and is being adapted for film. Her two previous novels, Gone to the Forest and The Longshot, were both finalists for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. A recipient of fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and Santa Maddalena Foundation, Katie has written for publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Granta, BOMB Magazine, Triple Canopy, and Frieze. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.

Greta Kline is a professional musician known as Frankie Cosmos. She has spent the majority of the past decade playing music all over the world, as well as writing and recording.

Alyse Knorr is a queer poet, associate professor of English at Regis University, co-editor of Switchback Books, and co-producer of the Sweetbitter podcast. She is the author of three poetry collections, two nonfiction books, and four poetry chapbooks.

Kim Kogane is a multi-passionate artist who aspires to write the kind of book you might like to buy at the airport. She dives deeply inward, exploring the depths of self through her work. When she’s not writing, you can find her developing conscious marketing strategies for brands, teaching barre, or exploring with her dog, Cauchy.

E. J. Koh is the author of the memoir The Magical Language of Others (Tin House Books, 2020), Washington State Book Award Winner, Pacific Northwest Book Award Winner, Association of Asian American Studies Book Award Winner, and PEN Open Book Award Longlist. Koh is the author of the poetry collection A Lesser Love (Louisiana State U. Press, 2017), Pleiades Editors Prize for Poetry Winner. She is the co-translator of Yi Won’s poetry collection The World’s Lightest Motorcycle (Zephyr Press, 2021) and the librettist for the opera adaptation of Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden supported by Opera America. Koh is the recipient of the 2022 Artistic Achievement Award from the Korean American Coalition. Koh has received fellowships from the American Literary Translators Association, MacDowell, and Kundiman. Her poems, stories, and translations have appeared in AGNI, The Atlantic, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry, Slate, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. Koh earned her MFA at Columbia University in New York for Creative Writing and Literary Translation. Koh is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington in English Literature studying Korean American literature, history, and film. Her debut novel The Liberators is forthcoming fall 2023. 

Christine Kwon is the author of A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue (Southeast Missouri State University Press 2023), which won the Cowles Poetry Prize. She is literary editor of Tilted House and lives in New Orleans. Read more on christinekwonwrites.com.

Catherine Kyle is the author of Fulgurite (Cornerstone Press, forthcoming), Shelter in Place (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), and other collections. Her writing has appeared in Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. She was the winner of the 2019-2020 COG Poetry Award and a finalist for the 2021 Mississippi Review Prize in poetry. She is an assistant professor at DigiPen Institute of Technology, where she teaches creative writing and literature.

USAMA LALI is a Pakistani writer working with English, Urdu and Punjabi, currently finishing his second year at the UW MFA program on the prose track. He is a recipient of the David Guterson Award 2023 and a Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlistee whose Punjabi poetry translations have appeared in Pancham and fiction is forthcoming in Addastories. You can find him on instagram @usamalali and twitter @usamalali_