Teachers

Michael Shilling is the author of Rock Bottom, a novel published by Little, Brown. The musical adaptation of the book was staged in 2014 by the Landless Theater Company. His stories have appeared in The Sun, Fugue, and Other Voices. He has taught at Seattle University, University of Puget Sound, and Cornish College of the Arts.

Gina Siciliano is an artist, writer, historian, and bookseller living in Seattle, WA. Her award-winning graphic novel I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi was published by Fantagraphics in 2019.

J.M. Sidorova was raised in the USSR, Singapore, and Germany, and spent most of her adult life in the United States, where she has been working as a biomedical research scientist and writing speculative fiction. Her novel The Age of Ice, two parts history, one part magic realism, received an honorable mention in Tor.com’s best fiction of 2013 list. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Cedar Sigo was raised on the Suquamish Reservation in the Pacific Northwest and studied at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute. He is the author of eight books and pamphlets of poetry, including All This Time (Wave Books, 2021), Stranger in Town (City Lights, 2010), Expensive Magic (House Press, 2008), two editions of Selected Writings (Ugly Duckling Press, 2003 and 2005) and most recently the Bagley Wright Lecture Series book Guard the Mysteries (Wave Books, 2021). He has taught workshops at St. Mary’s College, Naropa University and University Press Books. He is currently a mentor in the low residency MFA program at The Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Lofall, Washington.

Darina (Dasha) Sikmashvili was born in Lubny, Ukraine, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan and has been working in film production for over a decade.

Martha Silano is the author of five poetry books, including Gravity Assist, Reckless Lovely, and The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, all from Saturnalia Books. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, American Poetry Review, and Paris Review, among others, and in four dozen print anthologies, including American Poetry: The Next Generation and ?Best American Poetry 2009. She also co-authored, with Kelli Russell Agodon, The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice. Martha received Yaddo's 2017 Martha Walsh Pulver Residency. She teaches at Bellevue College.

Marcie Sillman is an award-winning radio journalist. For more than three decades, she covered arts for Seattle’s KUOW and NPR. She is now co-host of the arts podcast doublExposure.

Suzanne Simard is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia and the author of the book, Finding the Mother Tree.

She is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; and has been hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls in James Cameron’s Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.

Suzanne is known for her work on how trees interact and communicate using below-ground fungal networks, which has led to the recognition that forests have hub trees, or Mother Trees, which are large, highly connected trees that play an important role in the flow of information and resources in a forest. Her current research investigates how these complex relationships contribute to forest resiliency, adaptability and recovery and has far-reaching implications for how to manage and heal forests from human impacts, including climate change.

Suzanne has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and presented at conferences around the world. She has communicated her work to a wide audience through interviews, documentary films and her TEDTalk “How trees talk to one another”.

Michele L. Simms-Burton is a writer and a retired university professor living in metro DC. Her recent writings appear in DownBeat, DCMTA, Auburn Avenue, and the Crisis Magazine.

Since 1960 I've worked in Seattle after two years learning my trade on Madison Avenue. By 1975 after writing PR for the Pacific Science Center which gained international publications, understood it was time to work for myself on my poetry, to stay independent and pen my deepest feelings. Later covered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence out of Nova Scotia for a Seafood Journal covering the decline of cod, with international distribution.  

Early on it may be said I earned a Phd in couch surfing, but survived! Many readings followed. Early years in Seattle,including a great moment at the Blue Moon Tavern, prior to its sale, finally working out of Montana for years, integrated with the Salish- Courtney Flathead tribes. 

I came to your door, in the process, because I understand the effect of Theodore Roethke and Seattle's poetry movement and Hugo's contribution in Montana.

When Richard Hugo was appointed Poet Laureate for Montana, I learned from his students the shaping of poetry in the state, mostly from Tom Davis, with whom I shared readings, in Spokane and Western Montana.  

In Montana readings always spoke with kindness for his contribution to the State of Montana, not intruding on copyrights, but on the person. What I hope to bring to your door is an essay on Richard, with a mix of my work, an original script. I'll leave a copy with you. This will be my last public reading, 'cause age that cold hearted thief has wrinkled the spirit within.  

Leonora Simonovis is the author of Study of the Raft, winner of the 2021 Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in Gargoyle, Kweli Journal, Diode Poetry Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The Rumpus, among others. Her poems have also been featured in Verse Daily, Sims Library of Poetry, and CIACLA (Contemporary Irish Center, Los Angeles). She has been the recipient of fellowships from Women Who Submit (WWS), VONA, and the Poetry Foundation. A Venezuelan American poet, Leonora grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently lives in San Diego, CA, where she teaches Latin American literature and creative writing in Spanish at the University of San Diego. Website: leonorasimonovis.com Instagram: @leosimonovis Twitter: @lsimonovis

Elsa Sjunneson is a Deafblind author and editor living in Seattle, Washington. Her fiction and nonfiction writing has been praised as "eloquence and activism in lockstep" and has been published in dozens of venues around the world. She has been a Hugo Award finalist seven times and has won Hugo, Aurora, and BFA awards for her editorial work. When she isn't writing, Sjunneson works to dismantle structural ableism and rebuild community support for disabled people everywhere. Her debut memoir, Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, released in October of 2021 from Tiller Press.