Teachers

Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad, 2023) which received 5 stars from Roxane Gay, editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell Colony, and Château de la Napoule among other foundations. For 10 years she curated Soul Sister Revue, a quarterly reading series that promoted poetry as storytelling and featured emerging poets, poet laureates, and Pulitzer prize winners. Manick’s poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems and debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. A storyteller at literary festivals, libraries, and museums, her work has also featured in VOICES, an audio play by Aja Monet and Eve Ensler’s V-Day, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Brooklyn Rail, the Rumpus and other outlets. She currently serves on the editorial board of Alice James Books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York but travels widely for poetry.

Corinne Manning's debut story collection We Had No Rules has received starred reviews from Booklist and Publisher's Weekly the latter noting it "exquisitely examines queer relationships with equal parts humor, heartache, and titillation." Corinne has taught for Hugo House since 2011.

Siwar Masannat is a Jordanian writer and the author of two books of poetry, cue: poems (University of Georgia Press, 2024) and 50 Water Dreams (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2015).

Describe your teaching style.

I typically begin by introducing the texts we are reading and offering some context to facilitate a well-informed collaborative reading experience. I like to ask questions and open up space for students to contribute their own observations, knowledge, and interests to the conversation.

Adrian Matejka grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and is a graduate of the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

He is the author of The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003) which won the New York / New England Award and Mixology (Penguin, 2009), a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series. His third collection of poems, The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), focuses on Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight champion of the world. The Big Smoke was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award, 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and 2014 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His fourth collection, Map to the Stars, was published by Penguin in 2017. His mixed media collection inspired by Funkadelic, Standing on the Verge & Maggot Brain (Third Man Books), and a collection of poems Somebody Else Sold the World (Penguin) were both published in 2021. Matejka’s first graphic novel, Last On His Feet, completes his project about Jack Johnson and will be published by Liveright in 2022.

Among Matejka’s other honors are the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and a Simon Fellowship from United States Artists. He is the Ruth Lilly Professor of Poetry at Indiana University Bloomington and served as Poet Laureate of the state of Indiana in 2018-19.

Go to elizabethmayorca.com for more information about Elizabeth.

Lish McBride is the author of funny and creepy young adult books such as Hold Me Closer, Necromancer; Necromancing the Stone; Firebug; Pyromantic; and the upcoming Curses. She has a BFA in creative writing from Seattle University and an MFA from the University of New Orleans.

Joy McCullough’s debut young adult novel, Blood Water Paint, won the Washington State and Pacific Northwest book awards, as well as honors including the National Book Award longlist, finalist for the ALA Morris Award, a Publishers Weekly Flying Start and four starred reviews. She has since written picture books and young adult and middle grade novels that have been Junior Library Guild Selections, Indie Next Selections, finalists for the Washington State Book Award, and a New York Time bestseller. Her most recent novel, Enter the Body, received six starred reviews. She writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her husband and two children. She studied theater at Northwestern University, fell in love with her husband atop a Guatemalan volcano, and now spends her days with kids and dogs and books.

Jennifer McGaha is the author of Flat Broke with Two Goats, Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out, and The Joy Document (Broadleaf Books, 2024). She currently coordinates UNC-Asheville's Great Smokies Writing Program.

Describe your teaching style.

My teaching practice is deeply rooted in this belief in the power of writing to be both radical and revelatory. I encourage my students to approach memoir writing with more questions than answers, more curiosity than certitude, and I invite them to appreciate and even enjoy writing as a process that involves multiple drafts, multiple attempts at reaching for the truth. For me, this hope of gaining new insights into the experiences that have shaped me brings me to the page time and time again, and I encourage my students to approach their craft with an openness to what might be versus what is. My teaching, like my writing, is accessible, joyful, celebratory, and I value the unique insights each writer brings to the classroom with the ultimate goal of helping students discover the stories they most want to tell.

Elise McHugh is a senior acquisitions editor for the University of New Mexico Press. She holds an MA in creative writing and has taught English 101, poetry, and publishing classes and workshops in a variety of settings.

Kelly McWilliams is the author of the YA novels Agnes at the End of the World (2020), Mirror Girls (2022), and the forthcoming Your Plantation Prom Is Not Okay (Spring 2023, Little, Brown Young Readers). She lives in Seattle. 

Maggie Mertens is a writer, journalist, and editor in Seattle. Her essays and reporting have appeared in numerous national publications. Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women (Algonquin Books, June 2024) is her first book.

With 25+ years of experience coaching authors and teaching at four top-ranked universities, Susan V. Meyers currently directs the Creative Writing Program at Seattle University. She holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and a PhD from the University of Arizona, and has been a writer in residence at more than a dozen different arts centers nationally and internationally. Both her nonfiction book on immigration and her circus-centered historical novel, Failing the Trapeze, have won major awards, including the Nilsen Award and grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, 4Culture, Artist Trust, and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her essays and stories have likewise been nominated for The Best American Series and several Pushcart Prizes and have recently appeared in Creative Nonfiction, The Rumpus, Calyx, Hippocampus, and The Minnesota Review. You can find her at susanvmeyers.com

Annesha Mitha is a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. Her work is published or forthcoming in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, American Short Fiction, Catapult, The Margins, and The Offing. She has received fellowships from The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Kundiman, and Storyknife Writers Retreat. She currently works as a counsellor with Crisis Text Line and a content writer with the Bengali Mental Health Movement. She lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan with a hound named Flower.

Danielle Mohlman is a nationally produced playwright based in Seattle, WA. She is a company member at Dacha Theatre, where she serves as the Associate Producer of Literary Management, and a thought partner at The Trust.

Born in the North and raised in the South by native Dutch and Indian parents, Natasha Kochicheril Moni writes and resides in the Columbia River Gorge. Her poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews have been published in over 70 magazines, anthologies, and journals including DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, Verse, The Rumpus, and Entropy. Natasha's poetry collections include The Cardiologist's Daughter (Two Sylvias Press, 2014), Lay Down Your Fleece (Shirt Pocket Press, 2017), Nearly (dancing girl press, 2018), and A Nation (Imagined) (winner of the 2018 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Competition, 2018). As a former editor for Crab Creek Review, panelist for Artist Trust and Hedgebrook, and intern at Small Press Distribution Books, Natasha enjoys mentoring writers on their submission and publication journeys.

Website: natashamoni.com

Amanda is the author, most recently, of TOUCHED OUT: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, & Control, available now from Beacon Press. Her work has been featured at The New York Times, The Guardian, Elle, Time, The Cut, Mother Tongue, Slate, Electric Literature, Vox, Rumpus, Salon, The Believer, Ms. Magazine, Poetry Foundation, and in numerous literary journals. She was a 2020 Best American Essays notable.

She has taught, lectured and presented work at Stanford University, Columbia University, New York University, University of California Berkeley, University of Chicago, St. Mary's College of California, California State University East Bay, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, University of Virginia, State University of New York at Buffalo, Diablo Valley College, and many others. Amanda has been teaching for over a decade at the college level and at various arts organizations, including at Catapult, Corporeal Writing, Hugo House, Writing Workshops, and Write or Die. Her work has received support from In Cahoots, Riverrun Foundation, and Juniper Writer’s Institute.

She holds an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts and a PhD in English literature from SUNY at Buffalo. She runs the popular newsletter Mad Woman and lives in California.

Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet & a daughter of immigrants. She received her MFA from Drew University in Poetry & Poetry in Translation. She is Canto Mundo graduate fellow and a 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow. Her work has been published in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast and in Best of American Poetry 2021 & 2022. Her translation work can be found most recently in the Climate Futurism an exhibit at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY. In 2019 her Poem Maps was part of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw’s oratorio The Listeners. Her first collection The Pink Box is published by Willow Books & was longlisted for a PEN Open Book award. Her second collection Muse Found in a Colonized Body published by Four Way Books was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She currently teaches poetry at The Juilliard School and lives in Harlem, NY. Find her at www.yeseniamontilla.com

Adriana Morales Marín was born in Mexico City and lives in Bellevue WA. 

She has a college degree in graphic design, is a visual artist and author and illustrator of children's books.

Her books are colorful and full of unique and endearing characters; Catrina’s Day of the Dead, Big Mess Jess, The weeping Lady and the Crybaby are some of her titles.

She has collaborated with many local authors illustrating and designing their books, most of them bilingual.

Is an art instructor for programs thru the kcls and the school district in Seattle and East side.

Adriana lives with her husband, mom, 2 kids and 3 cats. Loves to paint and create all sort of things.

Bethany C Morrow is an Indie Bestselling author who writes for adult and young adult audiences, in genres ranging from speculative literary to contemporary fantasy to historical. She is the author of the novels Mem and A Song Below Water, which is an Audie, Ignyte, and Locus finalist. She is editor/contributor to the young adult anthology Take the Mic, the 2020 ILA Social Justice in Literature award winner. Her work has been chosen as Indies Introduce and Indie Next picks, and featured in The LA Times, Forbes, Bustle, Buzzfeed, and more. She is included on USA TODAY's list of 100 Black novelists and fiction writers you should read.

Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (2012 Washington State Book Award in fiction), and The Dismal Science (a NYT editor's choice). His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Southern Review, The Atlantic, The Sun, Granta, and The Missouri Review. He is currently on faculty at Sierra Nevada University's MFA program, teaches at Creative Nonfiction, Hugo House, and is a writing coach and developmental editor. Peter's former students and clients have gone on to publish numerous books and stories and articles, and include two NYT best-selling novelists (Tara Conklin and Rachel Griffin).

Teaching Style and Philosophy: I believe the best I can do for students is help free them from the tyranny of talent and the whims of inspiration, which are fair-weather friends. Instead, I want you to hone your personal aesthetic, and to develop an authorial voice, and most importantly develop fluency with the elements of craft. One you can control what's happening on the page with ease, producing publishable work is no longer a mysterious fluke, but a familiar and non-scary process.

Website: petermountford.com

Charles Tonderai Mudede is a Zimbabwean-born writer, filmmaker, and cultural critic. He writes about film, books, music, crime, art, economics, and urban theory for The Stranger. Mudede has made three films, two of which, Police Beat and Zoo, premiered at Sundance, and one, Zoo, was screened at Cannes. Mudede has written for the New York Times, Arcade Journal, Cinema Scope, Ars Electronica, the Village Voice, Radical Urban Theory, and C Theory. Mudede is also on the editorial board for the Black Scholar, which is based at the University of Washington, and between 1999 and 2005, lectured on post-colonial theory at Pacific Lutheran University, and in 2003 published a short book, Last Seen, with Diana George. Mudede has lived in Seattle since 1989.

Arlene Naganawa works with high school and middle school writers in poetry, fiction, and academic writing. Arlene's work appears in such journals as Crab Orchard Review, Crab Creek Review, Pontoon, Calyx, All the Sins, Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Caketrain, and others. Her poems have been featured on Poetry on Buses and in Washington 129, an anthology of Washington State poets curated by Tod Marshall. She is the author of three chapbooks and is currently part of the Pongo Publishing Teen Writing team and a Writing and Critical Thinking instructor with Minds Matter Seattle, a nonprofit organization that helps high school students from low income families to prepare for success in college.

Shankar Narayan explores identity, power, mythology, and technology in a world where the body is flung across borders yet possesses unrivaled power to transcend them. Shankar is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the winner of prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, Hugo House, Jack Straw, Flyway, and River Heron. He is a 4Culture grant recipient for Claiming Space, a project to lift the voices of writers of color, and his chapbook, Postcards From the New World, won the Paper Nautilus Debut Series chapbook prize. Shankar draws strength from his global upbringing and from his work at the intersection of civil rights and technology. In Seattle, he awakens to the wonders of Cascadia every day, but his heart yearns east to his other hometown, Delhi. Connect with him at shankarnarayan.net.

Describe your teaching style.

As a teacher, I aim to create an inclusive, respectful, courageous, open, mutually engaging, and joyful space that connects with each writer as a complete being and helps move them toward finding and strengthening their true voice. Creating a writing community is also an explicit aim of my classes — a space in which writers learn and explore together, inspire growth in one another's writing, and serve as resources for one another even after the class has ended.

I combine the following key elements:

+Courageous

I aim for an environment in which writers will feel empowered to engage deeply with the subject matter, connect it to their own experiences and themes, and create their best and most fearless writing.

+Open

I teach my classes in a structured but flexible way that strikes a balance between following a preset curriculum and allowing opportunities for new ideas to open up channels of learning. I create spaces where all writers can engage and explore together, understanding that everyone has valuable knowledge and perspectives to contribute.

+Engaging

Learning, for me, always goes both ways, and I continue to be humbled by how much I learn in every class I teach. My classes include lots of engagement and discussion, and build in in-class writing as well as courageous sharing. Writers are also encouraged to highlight questions or other needs so I can provide resources in response.

+Joyful

Writing classes should be fun! I aim to work with a range of emotions including humor and levity, which can help balance somber subject matter. I often work with subject matter that brings out strong emotions, which I try to recognize and create appropriate space to work through.

+Community

I believe teaching without connection is impossible. So I try to get to know and understand writers in my classes as complete human beings in the context of their writing goals, and to encourage them to get to know, understand, and learn from one another. Writers need other writers, and I see the project of strengthening the mutual bond between writers as being every bit as important as imparting knowledge of a particular subject matter.

=Voice

Ultimately, I aim to impact the lives of writers in my classes by helping them find and strengthen their voices and achieve their own writing goals, whatever those may be.