2013 Readings

January 25, 2013 — Wendy and Joe Wahman (children’s literature)

Wendy Wahman is the author and illustrator of the children’s books Don’t Lick the Dog and A Cat Like That, from Henry Holt, and the illustrator of Snowboy 1, 2, 3, also from Holt. Don’t Lick the Dog was selected as a 2010 Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, starred for outstanding merit, and accepted to the Society of Illustrators original art show. For many years, Wendy worked as a staff artist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Her editorial illustrations have appeared in various publications, including Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. Joe Wahman has published both fiction and nonfiction. He is currently working in very short forms, including songs and children’s books. He wrote Snowboy 1, 2, 3.

February 22, 2013 — Dan Raphael (poet)

Dan Raphael’s 18th book, The State I’m In, came out in March 2012. The previous year saw the publication of Impulse & Warp: The Selected 20th Century Poems, and the release of his first CD, Children of the Blue Supermarket, from live performances with saxophonist Rich Halley and drummer Carson Halley. Current poems appear in Caliban. Otoliths, Istanbul Review, Blue and Yellow Dog, and Rattapallax. Dan’s known for his engaging, high-energy performances, as at Wordstock, the Cascadia Poetry Festival, Powell’s Books, Bumbershoot, Eastern Oregon University, and the Portland Jazz Festival. Currently curating the Market Day Reading Series, Dan has edited NRG magazine and 26 Books as well as creating Poetland, where 80 poets read in eight venues over an eight-hour period.

March 29, 2013 — Don Kentop (poet)

Don Kentop’s diverse poetry has appeared in Mute Note Earthward, Tattoos On Cedar, Cascade, the 2004 Jack Straw Anthology, Chrysanthemum, Many Trails To The Summit, and Limbs of the Pine, Peaks of the Ridge, as well as the last three issues of Drash. He was a Seattle Poet Populist finalist in 2005 and in 2008 was selected as a finalist for Garrison Keillor’s Bed of Roses Sonnet Contest. In 2004, Rose Alley Press published his chapbook, On Paper Wings. Don has poems pending publication in Changing Times. For the past five years he has curated a popular reading at the Fremont Public Library for the Washington Poets Association, and is currently working on a documentary poem of the 1911 Triangle Factory fire.

April 26, 2013 — Dennis Caswell (poet)

Dennis Caswell lives outside Woodinville and works as a software engineer in the aviation industry. He holds degrees in computer science from UC Berkeley and UCLA and spent the eighties and nineties designing and programming computer games and educational software in Northern California, where he grew up, while his artsy friends kept giving him books about poetry. He moved to Washington with his family in 1997. His work has appeared in Floating Bridge Review, Crab Creek Review, Burnside Review, Monarch Review online, and assorted other journals and anthologies. His first full-length collection, Phlogiston (FLOW-ji-stahn), was published in 2012 by Floating Bridge Press. You can visit him online at denniscaswell.com.

May 31, 2013 — Kathleen Alcalá (stories, essays)

Kathleen Alcalá grew up surrounded by stories. She is the author of a short story collection, three novels set in 19th-century Mexico and the Southwest, and a collection of essays based on family history. Her work has received the Western States Book Award, the Governor’s Writers Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award. She received an Artist Trust Fellowship in 2008. Kathleen teaches creative writing at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and is a member of the nonprofit group, Seattle7, whose website is http://seattle7writers.org/. Kathleen has recent work in four anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. More at www.kathleenalcala.com. bio.

June 28, 2013 — Monique Franklin (poet)

Monique Franklin, also known as Verbal Oasis, is a poet and artist from Seattle, Washington. She is a member of African American Writers’ Alliance and is published in their latest anthology, Threads. She has published two volumes of poetry, Acoustic Accolades and Erotic Annals of a Poet. She currently cohosts and coproduces the Afrodisiac Erotic Poetry Show, celebrating the diversity and sexuality of people of color (Afrodisiac Seattle on Facebook). The subject matter of her poetry stems from the rich spectrum of her life experiences. Monique’s website is verbaloasis.com.

July 26, 2013 — Peggy Barnett (poet)

Peggy Barnett was born in 1945 and grew up in Queens, New York. After receiving a BA in fine art from The Cooper Union, she opened a photography studio in New York in 1968 and became a successful corporate still-life and portrait photographer. In 2006, she moved to Woodinville. Her book On Your Left! is a poetic memoir dwelling on the specifics of unending change. You can view her photographs on her website at www.prbarnett.com.

September 27, 2013 — Jack Straw Writers:
Daemond Arrindell, Jeannine Hall Gailey, and Chelsea Werner-Jatzke (poetry, stories)

These three featured readers are all 2013 Jack Straw Writers. The 2013 series is curated by Stephanie Kallos.

Daemond Arrindell is a teaching artist, workshop facilitator, community organizer, and wants to be a poet when he grows up. He is producer and curator of the Seattle Poetry Slam, the longest running weekly poetry show in Seattle; eight-time coach of the Seattle National Slam Team; faculty member of the Freehold Theatre; Writer-in-Residence with SAL’s Writers in the Schools; and facilitates residencies at Monroe Correctional Complex and Echo Glen Children’s Center.

Jeannine Hall Gailey is the poet laureate of Redmond and the author of three books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006), She Returns to the Floating World (Kitsune Books, 2011), and Unexplained Fevers (New Binary Press, 2013). Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, and Indiana Review. She volunteers for Crab Creek Review.

Chelsea Werner-Jatzke holds an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, where she completed a collection of linked short stories, 1742 Second Avenue, pieces of which have been published in Guideword, The Conium Review, and ListenParty.com. Her writing has appeared in Performer Magazine, The Stranger, The Brooklyn Rail, threeimaginarygirls.com, and Release Literary Journal. Chelsea teaches a continuing education creative writing course at Seattle Central Community College and coorganizes Lit.mustest, a biannual reading series at Richard Hugo House.

October 25, 2013 — Jim Hopkins (storyteller)

Jim Hopkins is a storyteller, questioner, reader, and undertaker. He also likes to call himself a self-made man. Born into a huge family of tall-tale spinners, exaggerators, fibbers, urban-legend spreaders, and white liars, those same folk say he fell in love with words as soon as he could talk. He took to reading at an early age, composing his first “books” soon after, and never leaves a good story unembellished. He escaped his homeland of Texas in 1997 when he came to Washington State to vacation, fell in love, and never left.

November 22, 2013 — Peter Ludwin (poet)

Peter Ludwin is the recipient of a literary fellowship from Artist Trust and the W.D. Snodgrass Award for Endeavor and Excellence in Poetry. His most recent book, Rumors of Fallible Gods, was twice a finalist for the Gival Press Poetry Award. He is also a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. For the past twelve years, he has been a participant in the San Miguel Poetry Week in Mexico, where he has studied under some of America’s most notable poets, including Mark Doty, Tony Hoagland, Joseph Stroud, and Robert Wrigley. An avid traveler, he spent a month in China and Tibet in 2011.

December 6, 2013 — Holiday Celebration (i.e., a party!)

An island-style evening holiday celebration with a party snack potluck . . . and an Island-Style Slam poetry contest! An Island Style Slam presents three words (or six, or nine, depending on the host) for a nominal “price” that goes into the prize kitty. As fast as competitors can, they write a poem that contains all three/six/nine words and conforms to any poetic form. Or participants can join together in teams to share creation of the poems. The Slam has been a regular feature at RASP since our beginnings, and it’s always a rewarding experience, in the sense of being fun, or—for winners—a few dollars more than you started with.

December 27, 2013 — “Big” Reading Open Mic

The first 10 writers who sign up will have 10 minutes to read. People have been asking for extra time to read longer fiction work. Well, RASP is listening—here’s your opportunity to share your extended pieces. To do this, we won’t have a featured reader this one night—instead, you’ll all be our featured readers. BTW, if some readers take less time, we may have time to squeeze in more than 10, so be sure to bring something to read—and stay ’til the end.