Teachers

Ever Jones is a queer/trans writer, artist & instructor. Their poetry collection, nightsong, published in 2020 (Sundress Publicatiins), is a transliberatory lyric, earthing & unearthing the body from gender, politics & identity. Ever’s work collapses binaries & resists social constructions, embracing intersections & celebrating and / & / or / both / also / multiple / question / etc. They won the Grand Prize for the Eco Arts Awards in 2014 & was a finalist for terrain.org’s 2013 poetry contest. Ever is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Washington in Tacoma & teaches at Richard Hugo House. You can find their work at POETRY, Tupelo Press, About Place and others. Visit everjones.com to view some art and writing.

Omi Osun Joni L. Jones is an artist/scholar/facilitator who employs Black Feminist aesthetics and theatrical jazz principles in her work. Her original performances include sista docta, a critique of academic life, and Searching for Ọ̀ṣun, an ethnographic performance installation around the Divinity of the River. Her most recent book is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power of the Present Moment, a collaborative ethnography focusing on three theatrical jazz practitioners. Omi has been shaped by Robbie McCauley’s activist art, Laurie Carlos’s insistence on being present, and Barbara Ann Teer’s overt union of Art and Spirit. She is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, a mother, a Queer wife, and a curious sojourner.  

JARED JONES is a recipient of the University of West Georgia’s Kay Magenheimer Poetry Prize and an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has work forthcoming in the Birmingham Poetry Review. In his spare time, Jared enjoys soccer, video games, and writing unfinished screenplays. 

Intisaar is a Seattle-based singer, composer, and acoustic/electric powerhouse.

M is a visual storyteller. Wired magazine called M a "filmmaker provocateur." She produced Neptune Frost which premiered at Cannes in 2021 and received the Audience Award at Indie Memphis in 2022 for her feature debut, ELEPHANT.

Beth Jusino has more than twenty years of experience helping writers navigate the complicated space between manuscript and final book. A former literary agent and marketing director, she’s now a writer, developmental editor, and publishing consultant for both traditional and self-publishing authors. She’s the author of the award-winning Walking to the End of the World: A Thousand Miles on the Camino de Santiago and The Author's Guide to Marketing, and she’s ghostwritten and collaborated on half a dozen additional titles for both large and small presses. Beth is a member of The Authors Guild and the Northwest Editors Guild, and has taught at writers’ conferences and book festivals around the world. Visit her online at www.bethjusino.com or on Twitter/Instagram @bethjusino.

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Ukraine and currently lives in New Jersey. He is the author of Dancing in Odessa and Deaf Republic which was a finalist for the National Book Award and received the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

Tim Keck is the co-founder of The Onion, Portland Mercury, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Stranger. He is currently working on a novel called "Balance Rock." He has told many people that it will be done soon.

Michael Keen (he/him) has an MFA from Syracuse University and an MSW from Columbia University. His first novel, Notes from the Trauma Party, was published by Tailwinds Press in 2023. He lives in Seattle with his dog, Desmond, and works as a hospice social worker. He is obsessed with karaoke.

In 1992, Megan Kelso was the first woman to receive funding from the Xeric Foundation to self-publish her comic, Girlhero. In 2007, she was invited by the New York Times to serialize her Watergate Sue comic in the magazine. In November 2022, Fantagraphics published Kelso's fourth book, a collection of graphic short stories called, Who Will Make the Pancakes.