Teachers

Descended from ocean dwellers, Ching-In Chen is a genderqueer Chinese American writer, community organizer and teacher. They are author of The Heart's Traffic: a novel in poems (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2009) and recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry winner) as well as chapbooks to make black paper sing (speCt! Books) and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, Leslie Scalapino Finalist). Chen is co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press, 1st edition; AK Press, 2nd edition) and Here Is a Pen: an Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets (Achiote Press). They have received fellowships from Kundiman, Lambda, Watering Hole, Can Serrat, Imagining America, Jack Straw Cultural Center and the Intercultural Leadership Institute as well as the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers. A community organizer, they have worked in Asian American communities in San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside, Boston, Milwaukee, Houston and Seattle and are currently a core member of the Massage Parlor Outreach Project. They currently teach at University of Washington Bothell in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and the MFA program in Creative Writing and Poetics. www.chinginchen.com

Olivia Cheng is an MFA student in fiction at the University of Michigan. Her fiction has appeared in The Boston Review and The Georgia Review. Her other work has appeared in Electric Literature and Ploughshares Blog.

Wancy Young Cho is a Pushcart Prize nominee and appears in the New Orleans Review, NBC’s THINK, The Stranger, and Salon. He holds an MFA from Columbia University, Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Award, and Written Image Screenwriting Award.

Ansley is the author of Bloodline (MoonPath Press 2024) and the chapbook Geography (dancing girl press 2015). Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Colorado Review, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. She is the director of the Writing Center at The Evergreen State College and teaches composition, rhetoric, and creative writing classes at various organizations around the Pacific Northwest. She currently lives in Olympia, Washington.

Tara Conklin is a writer and former lawyer whose first novel, The House Girl, (William Morrow) was a New York Times bestseller, #1 IndieNext pick, Target book club pick and has been translated into 8 languages. Her second novel, The Last Romantics (William Morrow) was published in 2019 to wide acclaim. An instant New York Times bestseller, The Last Romantics was a Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick, IndieNext Pick, and was selected by Jenna Bush Hager as the inaugural read for The Today Show Book Club. Her latest novel Community Board is out now and available in stores and online in all the usual places. The recipient of an Artist Trust grant, her writing has appeared in Vogue, the Berkshire Eagle and elsewhere. 

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Before turning to fiction, Tara worked for an international human rights organization and at corporate law firms in London and New York. She was born in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands and grew up in western Massachusetts. She holds a BA in history from Yale University, a JD from NYU School of Law and a Master of Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Tara now lives in Seattle with her family where she writes, teaches at Hugo House and works with private clients on manuscript development. 

Corinna Cook is the author of Leavetakings, an essay collection (University of Alaska Press 2020). She is a former Fulbright Fellow, an Alaska Literary Award recipient, and a Rasmuson Foundation awardee. Corinna’s creative work appears in Flyway, Alaska Quarterly Review, Alaska Magazine, Brink, and elsewhere; her journalism appears in Yukon North of Ordinary and GlacierHub; her critical articles appear in Assay, New Writing, and Essay Daily; and she writes about teaching for Pedagogy and American Literary Studies. Corinna holds a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. More at corinnacook.com.

Kristi Coulter is author of Nothing Good Can Come From This and the forthcoming Exit Interview. Her work appears in The Paris Review, New York Magazine, Elle, and elsewhere. She has taught at Hugo House and the University of Washington. Go to www.kristicoulter.com for more information.

Social Media: @KristiCCCoulter (Twitter and Instagram) 

Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher. A lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and The Institute of American Indian Arts. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Artist Trust, Hugo House, and the Jack Straw Writers Program. Her first book, Tributaries, won the 2016 American Book Award. Her newest book is Instruments of the True Measure (University of Arizona Press, 2018). Go to www.laurada.com for more information.

Instagram: @lauralouiseda

Twitter @Laura_L_Da

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lauralda

Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher. A lifetime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Da’ studied creative writing at the University of Washington and The Institute of American Indian Arts. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Artist Trust, Hugo House, and the Jack Straw Writers Program. Her first book, Tributaries, won the 2016 American Book Award. Her newest book is Instruments of the True Measure (University of Arizona Press, 2018). Go to www.laurada.com for more information.

Instagram: @lauralouiseda

Twitter @Laura_L_Da

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lauralda

Sarah Dalton is a Latina writer, editor, and teacher. She is an alumna of VONA, Macondo, and San Jose State. Her nonfiction has appeared in [pank], MUTHA Magazine, Reed, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, and The Sun's Readers Write.

Brian Dang (they/them) is a Vietnamese/Chinese playwright/poet/teaching artist based in Duwamish Territory (Seattle). For Brian, writing is an act of envisioning an eventual communing, an opportunity to freeze time as we know it, and a reaching for joy. They really like bread. Website: brianeatswords.com. 

Kimberly Dark is the author of Fat, Pretty, and Soon to be Old, The Daddies, Love and Errors, and Damaged Like Me. Her essays, stories, and poetry are widely published in academic and popular online publications alike. Visit www.kimberlydark.com for more information.

April Dávila is an award-winning author and certified mindfulness instructor. Writer's Digest listed her blog (at aprildavila.com) as one of their Best 101 Websites for Writers. She is the co-founder of A Very Important Meeting (averyimportantmeeting.com). She is a practicing Buddhist, half-hearted gardener, and occasional runner.

Lauren Davis is the author of The Milk of Dead Mothers (YesYes Books, forthcoming), and the poetry collections Home Beneath the Church (Fernwood Press) and When I Drowned (Aldrich Press). She holds an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars.

Holly Day has worked as a freelance writer for over 30 years, with over 7,000 articles, poems, and short stories published internationally, including in Analog SF, Harvard Review, and Maintenant. She has had several dozen books and chapbooks published by both major and independent publishers, most recently, the nonfiction books, Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Tattoo FAQ, and History Lover’s Guide to Minneapolis; and the poetry books, A Book of Beasts, The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body, Bound in Ice, and Cross-Referencing a Book of Summer. Her writing has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, a 49th Parallel Prize, an Isaac Asimov Award, multiple Pushcart awards, and a Rhysling Award, and she has received two Midwest Writer’s Grants, a Plainsongs Award, the Sam Ragan Prize for Poetry, and the Dwarf Star Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

Describe your teaching style.

My goal is for students to feel comfortable exploring the process of writing and making themselves happy with their writing, and not worry about making _me_ or anyone else happy with their writing. I try to help students find their own voice during the writing process.

Tamara Dean is passionate about helping writers tell their stories. Her work has appeared in The American Scholar, Creative Nonfiction, The Guardian, Orion, Seneca Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She's also the author of The Human-Powered Home. More at www.tamaradean.media

Writer and writing coach Stephanie Dethlefs helps people get their stories onto the page with ease and self-compassion. She is the author of the middle grade novel Unspoken, and her writing can be found in a variety of publications.

Cara Diaconoff is the author of Unmarriageable Daughters: Stories and a novel, I’ll Be a Stranger to You. Her fiction has appeared in Indiana Review, The Adirondack Review, and elsewhere. She teaches writing and literature at Bellevue College. For more information check out Cara's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/caradiaconoff/.

Cass Donish is author of the poetry collections Your Dazzling Death (Knopf, 2024), The Year of the Femme (University of Iowa Press, 2019), and Beautyberry (Slope Editions, 2018); and a nonfiction chapbook, On the Mezzanine (Gold Line Press, 2019).

Anna Dorn is an author, editor, and teacher living in Los Angeles. She has published three books: Exalted (Unnamed Press, 2022), Bad Lawyer (Hachette, 2021), and Vagablonde (Unnamed Press, 2020).

Mark Doty is the author of nine books of poetry, including Deep Lane (April 2015), Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2008 National Book Award, and My Alexandria, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the T.S. Eliot Prize in the UK. He is also the author of four memoirs: the New York Times-bestselling What Is the Grass, Dog Years, Firebird, and Heaven’s Coast, as well as a book about craft and criticism, The Art of Description: World Into Word. Doty has received two NEA fellowships, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, a Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Award, and the Witter Byner Prize.

Scott Driscoll is an award-winning instructor (UW, Educational Outreach Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Arts and Humanities 2006), and his debut novel, Better You Go Home, was selected as the Foreword Reviews First Book Contest winner. He was the 1989 winner of the University of Washington’s Milliman Award for Fiction.

Describe your teaching style!

We start by reading examples of the discussion subject for that day, then I go over that element of craft and we discuss it some more and look at further examples. This will usually be followed by a writing prompt or two for practice. Some classes will finish with workshopping and peer review for those who volunteer to submit.