Teachers

Poet and educator Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book of poetry, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Previous books include Like a Beggar, a finalist for The Paterson Poetry Prize, The Publishers Triangle Award, The Milt Kessler Poetry Award, The Lambda Literary Award, and the Northern California Book Award; The Human Line; and Mules of Love, which won The Lambda Literary Award. Bass has also written works of nonfiction, including, with Laura Davis, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, which has sold over a million copies and has been translated into twelve languages. The New Yorker has published ten of Bass’s poems throughout the years, and two have been chosen for The New Yorker podcast. In 2021, Bass was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at Pacific University and lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Kaveh Bassiri is a writer and translator. He is the author of 99 Names of Exile, winner of the Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, and Elementary English, winner of the Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize. His poems have been published in a number of journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2020, Best New Poets 2020, The Heart of a Stranger, and Somewhere We Are Human. Bassiri is the recipient of the 2022 & 2023 Tulsa Artist Fellowship and a 2019 translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Arkansas and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. He teaches creative writing at the University of Tulsa.

Website: kavehbassiri.com

Natalie Baszile's debut novel Queen Sugar has been adapted into a TV series by the same name, which was recently renewed for its sixth season on Oprah Winfrey's OWN cable network. Queen Sugar was named one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of 2014, was long-listed for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Natalie has a M.A. in Afro-American Studies from UCLA and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. Her nonfiction work has appeared in The Rumpus.net, Mission at Tenth, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 9, and O: The Oprah Magazine. Her second book, a work of nonfiction titled We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy was released just last month by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Gabrielle Bates is the author of Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023). A Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship finalist and recipient of support from Artist Trust, her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she currently lives in Seattle, where she helps out at Open Books: A Poem Emporium and—with Luther Hughes and Dujie Tahat—co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon. On Twitter (@GabrielleBates).

Janée J. Baugher is the author of the groundbreaking guidebook, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020), as well as two poetry collections, Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada, 2010) and The Body’s Physics (Tebot Bach, 2013). Baugher holds degrees from Boston University and Eastern Washington University, and her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have been published in over 125 journals, including Saturday Evening Post, Tin House, The Southern Review, Nano Fiction, Boulevard, Rattle, Verse Daily!, The American Journal of Poetry, Nimrod International Journal, and The Writer’s Chronicle.  A two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and Bread Loaf Conference participant, Baugher held a two-year post as a Humanities Washington Inquiring Minds Speaker in which she lectured across Washington State on writers and visual artists of the Lost Generation. Her performance-art projects include collaborations with choreographers, dancers, and composers. Baugher’s writing has been adapted for the stage and set to music at University of Cincinnati–Conservatory of Music, Contemporary Dance Theatre in Ohio, Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, Dance Now! Ensemble in Florida, The Salon at Justice Snow’s in Colorado, Otterbein University, and University of North Carolina-Pembroke. As a spoken-word artist, Baugher has performed in Seattle at Arts Edge Arts Festival, Bumbershoot Arts Festival, the Moore Theatre, and Folklife Arts Festival. She’s also been featured on Seattle Channel TV and at the Library of Congress.

 Baugher has taught creative writing for 20 years and is currently an assistant editor at Boulevard literary journal. www.JaneeBaugher.com, (Instagram) @ekphrastic_writer.

Niccolo Bechtler (he/him) is a poet from central New Jersey. He currently studies in the MFA program at the University of Washington, Seattle (on unceded Coast Salish lands), where he also teaches undergraduate writing courses. Before moving to Seattle, he studied journalism and creative writing at American University in Washington, DC. His poetry has appeared in Glassworks, American Literary, and elsewhere. Prior to beginning graduate school, he worked for several years as a bicycle mechanic. In his free time, he enjoys skateboarding, bicycling, and playing guitar. Find him on Instagram @niccolobec

Mitchell Beck is an active performer and enjoys performing in a wide variety of musical contexts. As an orchestral performer, he has performed professionally with orchestras throughout Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Washington, and Idaho. As a chamber musician, he has performed at multiple Percussive Arts Society events, universities, and high schools around the country. Mitchell also keeps an active schedule performing and recording with a variety of bands in the Pacific Northwest and Midwest. Currently, he is working on commissions for people around the country that range from solo contemporary classical music to soundtracks for visual and interactive media. Mitchell has a specific interest in creating electro-acoustic music through the use of loop pedal technology as well as composing contemporary works involving electronic accompaniment and live sound manipulation.

Elizabeth Beechwood is your typical scarf-knitting, bird-feeding tree hugger who lives on the western fringes of Portland, Oregon. When she writes, she starts with regular people with regular lives…but then something strange happens. Whether it’s fiction, fantasy, magical realism, or genre-bending, you can count on something just a little peculiar from her stories. Her Pushcart-nominated fiction has been published in Nightscape Press’s award-winning anthology Nox Pareidolia, Third Flatiron’s Hidden Histories, Not a Pipe Publishing’s The Year of Publishing Women’s Short Stories series, Crossed Genres, and Every Day Fiction. Elizabeth earned an MFA in Popular Fiction at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Copyediting Certificate from UC San Diego Extension’s Copyediting Certificate Program. She’s a member of SWFA and ACES. You can keep up with her shenanigans at www.elizabethbeechwood.com

Andrew Bell is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and educator from the Pacific Northwest. His short film work has played at festivals worldwide and is broadcast internationally on ShortsTV, BloodydisgustingTV, and streaming on CryptTV. He is currently working on his first feature film and doing what he loves most—mentoring young writers, actors, and filmmakers. He holds an MFA from Columbia University.

In truth, Melany is all things in small parts: a Functional Nutritional Therapist Practitioner, an Artist, a Black-Indigenous, Queer Female who prioritizes meditation & radical transformation through Pentecostalism. She came from The Church, y'all. Most recently their ritual work rendered 2 in-production, Spoken Word Performance pieces: ’AWOKEN’ & 'On Receiving The Holy Ghost – UNJEALOUSED'. Both inspired by the George Floyd Massacres, and center polarizing issues of gender & race-based violence. With the creation of their current works, Melany has exorcised the will to hide from an offending world to realize it as Art. The current work is sponsored by: SHUNPIKE- 'STOREFRONTS’, 4Culture, UAAC, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, NW Film Forum, & Collective Power A Member of The African American Writers Alliance, as Co-Secretary, Diversity Consultant, and Spoken Word Artist. Melany is a newly Published Author. "Everything I See is Me, Vol 1" is NOW Available on Amazon.

Jeff Bender is a fiction and comedy writer whose work has appeared in McSweeney's, The Hard Times, Electric Literature, Sports Riot, Fence, The Iowa Review, and a lot of places. In 2023 he co-wrote McSweeney's 8th most-read article.

Describe your teaching style.

I have a plan but try to listen to the group as much as possible and let the personality of the class influence what we do.

Soumeya Bendimerad Roberts is a literary agent and VP, Foreign Rights, at HG Literary. 

In fiction, Soumeya is seeking literary and upmarket novels and collections, and also represents realistic young-adult and middle-grade. She likes books with vivid voices and compelling, well-developed story-telling, and is particularly interested in narratives by people of color and fiction that reflects on the post-colonial world. She's currently on the hunt for narratives set in enclosed settings, stylized literary takes on genre (especially literary thriller and suspense), novels set in other countries or shot through with elements of travel, family sagas, historical narratives (especially those that intertwine with the present), honest, updated, politically charged takes on the domestic family novel, and unconventional love stories. A lover of craft, she is drawn to observant writing that illuminates dynamic relationships between complex but sympathetic characters, intelligent experiments with form, and stories that enchant and transport the reader in authentic and inventive ways. In non-fiction, she is primarily looking for idea-driven or voice-forward memoirs, personal essay collections, and approachable narrative non-fiction of all stripes: politics, current events; popular culture, (especially anything that deals with subcultures – the more minute the better), unconventional business, popular science, adventure, psychology, and more. She also represents practical nonfiction in the areas of cooking, design, craft, gardening, travel and the outdoors, humor, health, and parenting.

Scott Bentley (he/they) received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Poetics at the University of Washington, Bothell. He’s been a curator of the Gamut literary series, a Mineral School resident, Hugo House Fellow, and editor at Clamor, Ghost Town, and Pacific Review. His writing and art have appeared in Paperbark, Abalone Mountain Press, Under A Warm Green Linden, and elsewhere.