Teachers

Jen Soriano (she~they) is a Filipinx writer and movement builder who has long worked at the intersection of grassroots organizing, narrative strategy, and art-driven social change. Jen has won the International Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Fugue Prose Prize, and fellowships from Hugo House, Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust, and the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. Jen is also an independent scholar and performer, and has served as poet in residence with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. Jen is author of the chapbook “Making the Tongue Dry,” and co-editor of Closer to Liberation: A Pina/xy Activist Anthology. She received a BA in History and Science from Harvard and an MFA in fiction and nonfiction from the Rainier Writing Workshop. Originally from a landlocked part of the Chicago area, Jen now lives with her family in Seattle, near the Duwamish River and the Salish Sea. Her debut book, Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing, is now available from Amistad/HarperCollins.

Elizabeth Sotelo is a Ph.D. candidate, researcher, teacher, and writer. She was born and raised in Lima, Perú, before settling in California and Oregon. She holds an M.A. in Hispanic Studies from the University of California Riverside and a B.A. in Spanish (Literature and Linguistics) from California State Polytechnic University Pomona (CPP). Her main interest, recent research, and writing have been in literary chronicles. Her work can be read in Textos Híbridos, Latin American Literary Review, +Memoria(s), Litera, Cuadernos Literarios, Hermēneus, and Eugene Weekly. In 2015, she was granted the Spanish Short Story Award from CPP. Currently, she is working on her non-fiction book project, Lethal Footprints: Chronicles About Individuals Affected by the Wood Treatment Plant J.H. Baxter.

Elizabeth Sotelo es candidata a doctora, investigadora, docente y escritora. Nació y creció en Lima, Perú, antes de establecerse en California y Oregón. Tiene una Maestría en Estudios Hispánicos por la University of California Riverside y una licenciatura en español (Literatura y Lingüística) por la California State Polytechnic University Pomona (CPP). Su principal interés, investigación reciente y escritura ha sido la crónica literaria. Su trabajo puede leerse en Textos Híbridos, Latin American Literary Review, +Memoria(s), Litera, Cuadernos Literarios, Hermēneus y Eugene Weekly. En 2015 recibió el Short Story Award en CPP. Actualmente, está trabajando en su proyecto de libro de no ficción, Huellas Letales: crónicas sobre personas afectadas por la planta de tratamiento de madera J.H. Baxter.

Hailey Spencer is, in the words of her wife Elizabeth, an absolute cloud of a girl. She is the author of the poetry collection Stories for When the Wolves Arrive. She lives and writes in Seattle, Washington.

Katherine E. Standefer is the author of Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life (Little, Brown Spark 2020), which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction, an NYT Book Review Editor’s Choice, and shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Lightning Flowers was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, on the goop podcast, and in O, The Oprah Magazine, and People Magazine. Standefer earned her MFA at the University of Arizona. Her writing appeared in The Best American Essays 2016 and won the 2015 Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction. Standefer was a 2018 Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good and a 2017 Marion Weber Healing Arts Fellow at the Mesa Refuge. She currently lives in the Tetons. 

Website: www.KatherineStandefer.com

Social Media: @girlmakesfire

Sasha Stiles is a first-generation Kalmyk-American poet, artist, and transhuman translator working at the intersection of text and technology. The poetry mentor of A.I. BINA48 and inventor of “cursive binary,” Stiles recently exhibited her art and read her work at Art Basel Miami and SXSW. 

Emma Stockman is a Seattle-based writer and educator with an MFA in Fiction from the University of Oregon. In 2023, she moved to Seattle to pursue greater literary opportunities. She writes short fiction and is currently working on a novel.

Describe your teaching style.

I believe the best teachers are the ones who create the most spacious, curious, and playful containers out of their classrooms, no matter the subject. I strive to bring this philosophy to every class I teach, no matter the age or experience-level of my students. I do this by setting clear community guidelines at the beginning of class, and by fostering connections between students, so there's a collective sense of exploration and acceptance.

When it comes to teaching fiction more technically, I believe there is no one or best way to tell a story; the most successful art will be made out of spiritual and emotional alignment between the writer and the piece. Concepts of craft are often taught from an overly intellectualized and (predominantly white) academic perspective, but I aim to make literature feel approachable and accessible. It’s important to me that students learn to recognize elements of craft by their own reading experience, rather than by some external assessment of what’s “good.” If you can read by feel, you can learn to write that way, too.

Cara Stoddard holds an MFA from the University of Idaho and a BA from the College of Wooster. Their work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Terrain, and Ninth Letter, among others, and has been nominated for Pushcart. Learn more at Cara's website.

Describe your teaching style.

I promote and celebrate growth mindset in my students – that is students who see their own writing practice as one they are in the process of honing. I do not believe a good creative writer is someone with innate raw talent.

Ray Stoeve is the author of the young adult novels Between Perfect and Real (2021) and Arden Grey (2022), both Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections. They also contributed to the young adult anthology Take The Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance. They received a 2016-2017 Made at Hugo House Fellowship and created the YA/MG Trans and Nonbinary Voices Masterlist, a database that tracks all books in those age categories written by trans authors about trans characters. When they’re not writing, they can be found gardening, making art in other mediums, or hiking their beloved Pacific Northwest.

They enjoy fiction of all age categories and genres, especially historical and contemporary realist works about queer and trans characters. They are best equipped to provide sensitivity reads and consult on young adult novels. In addition to being a full-time writer, they also work with authors and publishers seeking sensitivity reads for queer and trans characters.

J. Ryan Stradal is the author of the New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest, the national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota, and the forthcoming novel Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club. He lives in California. 

Katharine Strange specializes in questioning received wisdom with a wink and a smirk. She writes personal essays, short stories, novels, and now, memoir! Her work has appeared in The Seattle Times, The Stranger, OC87 Diaries, Literary Yard, ScaryMommy, and anthology The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: Gen X Women on the Brink. She was a 2021 Mainstage Storyteller for The Moth. Formerly she wrote a column for Fundamentally Free, a blog for Exvangelicals and heretics. She lives in south Seattle with her family and is represented by Savannah Brooks of Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. As a rule, she never turns down champagne.