Teachers

Jordynn Paz is from the Apsaalooke (Crow) Nation of southeast Montana. Growing up on the reservation, she regularly attended powwows and other cultural/ceremonial events, often with a book in hand. Jordynn received her Bachelor of Arts in journalism and Native American Studies from the University of Montana. As a journalist she covered Indigenous issues including the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement, blood quantum, and the complexities of Indigenous identity.

Jordynn was a production assistant for the docuseries Murder in Big Horn which covered MMIW cases within her home community. Jordynn plans to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing in the future. Her focus on fiction and narrative nonfiction allows her to tell stories of her community in an accessible way. Growing up an avid reader she rarely saw her people in modern fiction or classic literature. She hopes to contribute to the amazing work of Indigenous writers of today. 

Michelle Peñaloza is the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019). She is also the author of two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). The recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon and Kundiman, Michelle has also received support from Lemon Tree House, Caldera, 4Culture, Literary Arts, VONA/Voices, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among others. The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She now lives in rural Northern California.

Francesca Penchant (she/her) is a designer, writer, and publisher who teaches editing at the University of Washington. She has an MFA with a concentration in book arts and creates books and ephemera for Rachilde & Co., an independent micropress. Francesca lives with her husband in Seattle.

Saleem Hue Penny (him/friend) is a Black, disabled poet expanding the pastoral tradition of the Southern Black Belt using a "rural hip-hop blues" aesthetic. Drum loops, field sounds, gouache, and birch bark commonly punctuate his poetry; these hybrid audio/mixed media pieces are released under the moniker h.u.e (hope – uplifts – everything).

Saleem is the 2021 Poetry Coalition Fellow at Zoeglossia, an Assistant Poetry Editor at Bellevue Literary Review, a member of Obsidian’s Inaugural “O|Sessions Black Listening” 2022 cohort, and a proud Cave Canem Fellow. Across poetic mediums, he explores how young people of color traverse wild spaces and define freedom on their own terms.

A mutual aid advocate and disability justice activist, he practices cultivating "Ecosystems of Care" centering

"Melanistic Wonderment". Saleem regularly collaborates on community engagement activities, particularly for teen parent-headed families, long-term pediatric patients, and families affected by incarceration.

He is compiling his first full-length poetry collection and pursuing archival research for ‘The Happy Land Liniment’ Project: an oral history, digital field guide, and chapbook-length lyric essay set in Reconstruction-era “Affrilachia”.

Alejandro Pérez-Cortés was born in Colima, Mexico.  

His poems and short stories have been published in newspapers in his home state since 1996. 

Year 2000. His work was included in the Anthology “Cage of Verses/ Jaula de Versos” published by the literary workshop “Chessboard / Tablero”, that was coordinated by the local poet Efrén Rodríguez. 

Year 2002. His manuscript won first place in the XVI Literary Creation Contest of ITESM -Zacatecas, Mexico. (19 poems)

Year 2018. Alejandro’s first English poems are included in the anthology “Soundings from the Salish Sea, A Pacific Northwest Poetry Anthology” (Edmonds, Washington) 

Year 2021. My manuscript "Ima and Coli are the tree that was never a seed" won the Octavio Paz Poetry Prize organized by the National Poetry Series and the Miami Book Fair at Miami Dade College. (Spanish – English bilingual edition)

He currently teaches Spanish in Washington State. 

Alejandro Pérez-Cortés nació en Colima, México.

Sus poemas y cuentos han sido publicados en periódicos de su estado natal desde 1996.

Año 2000. Sus poemas fueron incluidos en la Antología “Jaula de Versos/ ” editada por el taller literario “Tablero”, que coordinado por el poeta local Efrén Rodríguez en Colima, México.

Año 2002. Su manuscrito obtuvo el primer lugar en el XVI Concurso de Creación Literaria del ITESM -Zacatecas, México. (19 poemas)

Año 2018. Los primeros poemas en inglés de Alejandro se incluyeron en la antología “Soundings from the Salish Sea, A Pacific Northwest Poetry Anthology” (Edmonds, Washington)

Año 2021. Mi manuscrito "Ima y Coli son el árbol que nunca fue semilla" ganó el Premio de Poesía Octavio Paz organizado por National Poetry Series y la Feria del Libro de Miami en el Miami Dade College. (Edición bilingüe español – inglés)

Actualmente enseña español en el estado de Washington.

Paulette Perhach’s writing has been published in the New York Times, Vox, Elle, The Washington Post, Slate, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, Yoga Journal, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Hobart, and Vice. She’s the author of two million-reader viral essays.

Her book, Welcome to the Writer's Life, was selected as one of Poets & Writers' Best Books for Writers.

She blogs about a writer’s craft, business, personal finance, and joy at welcometothewriterslife.com and leads meditation and writing sessions through A Very Important Meeting.

She serves writers as a coach,

Hugo House awarded her the Made at Hugo House fellowship in 2013.

Jennifer (JP) Perrine is the author of four award-winning books of poetry: Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. Perrine’s recent poems, stories, and essays appear in The Missouri Review, New Letters, The Seventh Wave Magazine, Buckman Journal, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. A resident of Portland, Oregon, Perrine co-hosts the Incite: Queer Writers Read series, teaches creative writing to youth and adults, and serves as a wilderness guide.

Website: jenniferperrine.org

Kathryn Petruccelli holds an M.A. in teaching English language learners. A former slam host, she's taught young people through California Poets-in-the-Schools and Mass Poetry. Kathryn was a Best of the Net nominee and finalist for the Omnidawn Broadside Poetry Prize.

Brenda is the award-winning author of The Rock Eaters. Her stories have won an O. Henry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award, and inclusion in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her novella, Time’s Agent, is forthcoming from Tor.com in 2024.

Jekeva Phillips is a writer, performer, and educator. She is Editor-in-Chief of Word Lit Zine, a based lit quarterly, and owner of Paradise Lost Publishing. Her forthcoming poetry chapbook, Les Amants, hit the shelves this spring; and she is currently hard at work on her first novel, Sovereign. You may have seen Jekeva lecturing at Hugo House, performing improv as a member of CSz Seattle, traveling through space with the improvised Star Trek group, Where No Man Has Gone Before, or twirling in aerial fabrics at The School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts. Jekeva is fascinated with storytelling in all of its many forms. Whether the story unfolds under stage lights or between the covers of a book, she loves falling into the unexpected journey.

“Deesha Philyaw uses the comic, the allegorical, and the geographic to examine Black intimacies and Black secrets. Her work is as rigorous as it is pleasurable to read.” –Kiese Laymon

“Tender, fierce, proudly Black and beautiful.” –Kirkus Reviews

Deesha Philyaw is the author of the debut short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (West Virginia University Press, 2020), which won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and a 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; the collection was also a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. Nine stories featuring four generations of characters who grapple with who they want to be in the world, the collection was praised as “luminous stories populated by deeply moving and multifaceted characters,” by Kirkus Reviews and “addictive while also laying bare the depth and vulnerability of Black women,” by Observer. Author Tara Campbell notes, “The love in Philyaw’s stories runs the gamut from sweet to bitter, sexy to sisterly, temporary to time tested, often with hidden aspects. The word secret in the title is earned, and some of the secrets are downright juicy.” The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is being developed for television by Tessa Thompson for HBO Max.

Philyaw’s work has been listed as Notable in the Best American Essays series, and her writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Brevity, dead housekeeping, Apogee Journal, Catapult, Harvard Review, ESPN’s The Undefeated, The Baltimore Review, TueNight, Ebony and Bitch magazines, and various anthologies.

Deesha is also a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and will be the 2022-2023 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is a past Pushcart Prize nominee for essay writing in Full Grown People. Philyaw lives in Pittsburgh, PA.

Felice Picano is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, fiction, memoirs, nonfiction, and plays. His work has been translated into many languages and several of his titles have been national and international bestsellers. He is considered a founder of modern gay literature along with the other members of the Violet Quill. Picano also began and operated the SeaHorse Press and Gay Presses of New York for fifteen years. His first novel was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Since then he’s been nominated for and/or won dozens of literary awards. Picano teaches at Antioch College, Los Angeles.