Teachers

Sierra Nelson is a poet, president of Seattle’s Cephalopod Appreciation Society, and co-founder of literary performance art groups The Typing Explosion and Vis-à-Vis Society. Her poetry books include The Lachrymose Report (PoetryNW Editions, 2018), lyrical adventure I Take Back the Sponge Cake made with visual artist Loren Erdrich (Rose Metal Press), and forthcoming Vis-à-Vis Society collaboration 100 Rooms: A Bridge Motel Project (Entre Rios Books). Recently Nelson’s poems accompanying ichthyologist Adam Summer’s fish skeleton photographs were exhibited at the Ljubljana Natural History Museum and Piran Aquarium in Slovenia.

Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of Writing Is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (And a Guide to How You Can Too) (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Crown, 2008). Nestor's essays have appeared numerous places including the New York Times, Seattle Times, and the Rumpus.

Website: theonestor.com

Instagram: @theonestor

Describe your teaching style.

Informative, practical, and empowering. I break down processes step-by-step.

Lindsay Newton is an editor and publishing consultant. Over her decade-long career, she worked for three of the top publishing institutions in the US—Simon & Schuster, Inc., Sourcebooks, and Writers House Literary Agency. There, she had the privilege of working with bestselling and award-winning authors such as Isabel Allende, Kevin Hart, Neil Gaiman, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Colleen Hoover, and others. She started Newton Literary Services with the goal of helping aspiring authors to obtain literary representation and fulfill their dreams of getting published. Her clients have garnered representation by preeminent literary agencies including Aevitas Creative Management, Levine Greenburg Rostan, Dystel Goderich & Bourret, Stephanie Tade Agency, and more.

Susan Nguyen's debut poetry collection Dear Diaspora won the Prairie Schooner Book Award, an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Association of Asian American Studies, and a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. She is the editor of Hayden's Ferry Review.

Nhatt Nichols is a poet and graphic journalist. A graduate of The Royal Drawing School, she uses comics to break down political and environmental issues, finding new ways to meet people where they are and ask them to reach deeper. Visit www.nhattnichols.com for more information. Or check out Nhatt's Instagram.

Tiana Nobile is a Korean American adoptee, Kundiman fellow, and recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. A finalist of the National Poetry Series and Kundiman Poetry Prize, she is the author of CLEAVE (Hub City Press, 2021). Her writing has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The New Republic, Guernica, Southern Cultures, and the Texas Review, among others. Tiana received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, MAT in Elementary and Special Education from the University of New Orleans, and MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Describe your teaching style.

I work to foster a space where everyone in the room feels comfortable to participate. I think it's so interesting when folks' reading of a work might be different and encourage lively discussion. I like to facilitate rather than lead and plan my classes as a balance between discussion of the reading, generative writing, and sharing new work.

Ethan Nosowsky is Editorial Director at Graywolf Press, where he, is responsible for shaping Graywolf’s prose lists; he acquires fiction and nonfiction titles. He began his career at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and was most recently editorial director at McSweeney’s. He has edited books by Jeffery Renard Allen, Hilton Als, Deborah Baker, David Byrne, Geoff Dyer, Dave Eggers, Stephen Elliott, J. Robert Lennon and Jenny Offill, among many others. He has taught in the creative writing program at Columbia University and contributed to Bookforum, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, and Threepenny Review.

Greg November is a short story writer, an English instructor at North Seattle College and Highline College, and a senior submissions reader for New England Review. He was a 2021 Jack Straw Writer, a finalist for the 2020 Curt Johnson Prose Award for Fiction, and runner-up for The Missouri Review's 2021 Miller Audio Prize. His stories have most recently appeared in Boulevard, Carve, Hawaii Pacific Review, Epiphany, 34th Parallel, 3Elements Review, and Juked, among other places. He has an MFA from UC, Irvine.

Kevin O’Rourke lives in Seattle, where he works in tech and writes about health. His first book, the essay collection As If Seen at an Angle, was published by Tinderbox Editions; he is currently working on several follow-up projects, including a book about surviving suicide. Other writing has appeared in the LA Review of Books, Kenyon Review, and Think Global Health, among others. Learn more at kforourke.com.

Co-owner of Speculatively Queer, Isabela Oliveira has been a professional editor for years, from technical documents to pop culture content. While attending college, she kept busy as the poetry editor and later the editor-in-chief of her university’s literary journal, the Salmon Creek Journal. Isabela started speaking on panels at fan conventions in 2016 and has been at it ever since. These days, she’s working as an editor by day, and an occasional podcast co-host, a crafter and maker, and an aspiring voice actress in her free time.

Nikkita Oliver (they/them) is a Seattle-based creative, community organizer, abolitionist, educator, and attorney. Working at the intersections of arts, law, education, and community organizing Nikkita strives to create experiences which draw us closer to our humanity and invites us to imagine what we hope to see in the future.

Nikkita has opened for Cornel West and Chuck D of Public Enemy, featured on the Breakfast Club, KUOW's The Week in Review, Cut Stories, and performed on The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert. Nikkita's writing has been published in the South Seattle Emerald, Crosscut, the Establishment, Last Real Indians, The Seattle Weekly, and The Stranger. Nikkita organizes with No New Youth Jail, Decriminalize Seattle, Covid-19 Mutual Aid – Seattle, and the Seattle Peoples Party.

Nikkita is the executive director of Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration and a healing engaged youth-led community-based program.

Nikkita was the first political candidate of the Seattle Peoples Party running for Mayor of Seattle in 2017 narrowly missing the general election by approximately 1,100 votes; coming in third of 21 candidates.

Nikkita speaks and performs for events, at universities and conferences, and facilitates trainings on equity, law and justice, education, and arts activism all over the United States.

Follow on IG and Twitter @nikkitaoliver

Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route and two previous collections of poems. He teaches at Dartmouth College and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Michael Overa was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and completed his MFA at Hollins University. He is a former Writers In The Schools Resident and Jack Straw Fellow. He's the author of two collections of short stories, This Endless Road and The Filled In Spaces. His work has appeared in the Portland Review, East Bay Review, and Inlandia, among others.

Morgan Parker’s visceral and provocative poetry has been heralded as “a riveting testimony to everyday blackness.” Audacious and essential, her work electrifies audiences and has been awarded with a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship. “Ignore Ms. Parker at your peril,” acclaimed poet Patricia Smith warns, and we second the sentiment. Grappling with the complications and considerations of contemporary black womanhood, pop culture, and personal history, Morgan’s poetry collections include There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night, and her latest, Magical Negro, for which she was the recipient of a 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of the young adult novel, Who Put This Song On?, which is loosely based on Morgan’s own teenage life and diaries. Morgan is the creator and host of the live talk show Reparations, Live! at the Ace Hotel and co-curates the Poets with Attitude (PWA) reading series. Her work has been awarded with a Pushcart Prize and a fellowship from Cave Canem. Morgan lives in Los Angeles with her dog Shirley and is currently at work on her forthcoming book of nonfiction.

Jaime Parker Stickle is an actor, writer, and podcast host. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside low residency program. She is the creator of the hilarious and poignant podcast, Make That Paper featured in VoyageLA magazine. She is the creator and host of the new storytelling series “Okay, You Guys…” in Los Angeles. Her published work can be seen in The Coachella Review and the Adelaide Literary Anthology, amongst other places. She is currently the fiction and nonfiction editor for the literary magazine – GXRL. She is the recipient of a Virginia G. Piper Desert Nights Rising Stars Fellowship.

Jaime is currently finishing work on her first novel and is represented by Dara Hyde at the Hill Nadell Literary Agency.

Alli is a prose writer with a Masters in Creative Writing from University of Glasgow. Her work is featured in Crab Fat Magazine, The Bookends Review, The Daily Drunk Mag, and others. Alli was accepted to the Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop Summer 2021. As well as writing, she spends her time making wheel-thrown pottery, reading, and drinking whisky—her favorite is Jura 10 year. She lives in Seattle with her spouse and two dogs.

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.

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

Daniel Pope is a writer and musician from Seattle. His work has been published in Narrative Magazine, the Bellevue Literary Review, MQR Mixtape, and Gulf Coast Journal.

Mary Lane Potter (PhD, University of Chicago; MFA, Warren Wilson) has deep experience writing, editing, and teaching fiction and creative nonfiction. She’s the author of the novel A Woman of Salt (Counterpoint), Strangers and Sojourners: Stories from the Lowcountry (Counterpoint), and the memoir Seeking God and Losing the Way. Her essays and stories have appeared in in Parabola, Witness, River Teeth, Still Point Arts Quarterly, The Ekphrastic Review, Minerva Rising, Women Studies Quarterly, Beloit Fiction Journal, North American Review, Tampa Review, Tiferet, SUFI Journal, Spiritus, Leaping Clear, and others. She’s received a Washington State Arts Commission/Artist Trust Fellowship and enjoyed writing residencies at MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Caldera, and the Collegeville Institute of Cultural and Ecumenical Studies. A dedicated and experienced teacher, she’s taught writing for years, most recently at Hugo House, The Loft Literary Center, and The Collegeville Institute. Website: http://members.authorsguild.net/marylapotter/.

Passionate about all aspects of writing, Potter is especially tuned in to voice, character development, and narrative structure—and to the challenges of writing women’s experiences, the body, and spirituality.

Favorite writers; John Keene, Audré Lorde, Clarice Lispector, Merce Rodoreda, Kazuo Ishiguro, Isaac Babel, James Welch, M. Scott Momaday, George Saunders, Leslie Marmon Silko, Barry Lopez. Octavia Butler, George Eliot.

Kamala Puligandla is a writer and editor in LA, who writes autobiographical fiction and essays on queer love and futures. She is well-known for her contagious laughter, her iconic hairstyle, and her easily undone heart. Her first novel, Zigzags, came out from Not A Cult in October 2020 and her novella You Can Vibe Me On My FemmePhone was released from Co-Conspirator Press in 2021. Find her at kamalapuligandla.com, and follow her on Instagram @thatkamala.