2014 Readings

January 31, 2014 — David Patneaude (young adult fiction)

David Patneaude began writing seriously (more or less) in the 1980s. His first novel, Someone Was Watching, was published in 1993. His books have been named to dozens of state young readers’ lists and honored by the New York Public Library, the Society of School Librarians International, the Winnetka (Illinois) Public Library’s “One Book, Two Villages” program, and the Washington State Public Library. His latest novel is Epitaph Road, a nominee for the 2013–2014 Nebraska Golden Sower Book Award. When he’s not in a coffee shop writing, at a school or library or conference discussing writing, or on the trail thinking about writing, he’s home in Woodinville with his wife Judy, a junior high librarian. His website is www.patneaude.com.

February 21, 2014 — Jesse Minkert (poet, dramatist)

Jesse Minkert lives in Seattle. He has written plays for theater and radio, short stories, novels, and poems. Wood Works Press published a letterpress collection of his microstories, Shortness of Breath & Other Symptoms, in 2008. His work appears in Randomly Accessed Poetics, Subprimal Poetry Art, Limestone, Confrontation, Paper Nautilus, Mount Hope, Naugatuck River Review, Floating Bridge Review, Harpur Palate, Raven Chronicles, and other publications. He operates a nonprofit organization called Arts and Visually Impaired Audiences. In the summer Minkert works with visually impaired school kids to produce radio plays and public service announcements dealing with their experience. His website is www.jesse-minkert.com.

March 28, 2014 — Paul Hunter (poet)

Paul Hunter is a poet, musician, instrument-maker, teacher, editor, and publisher. For more than a decade, he has produced letterpress books and broadsides under the imprint of Wood Works Press http://www.woodworkspress.com/, located in Seattle. His poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Bloomsbury Review, Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry, and Poetry Northwest. He has been a guest on PBS as a poet, and is the author of several chapbooks and four books of poetry: Ripening (2006) and Breaking Ground (2005, Washington State Book Award), both published by Silverfish Review Press, Mockingbird (1981, Jawbone Press) and Pullman (1976, University of Washington Press). His latest project is a book of prose poems called Clownery, which is kind of a closet autobiography with a laugh track.

April 25, 2014 — Eva Moon (writer)

Eva Moon is a writer, composer, and performing artist whose music and theatrical works have appeared on stages from Seattle to London. Her work has appeared in the movie soundtracks of You May Not Kiss the Bride (2011) and Plunder (2009). She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. In 2011 she learned she carried the BRCA1 genetic mutation and underwent a hysterectomy and double mastectomy to avoid almost certain odds of cancer. She returned—and turned her creative energies to a solo show to tell this very personal story in The Mutant Diaries: Unzipping My Genes, recently released on DVD. She is in early production stages of a new show, First You Jump. Her website is http://evamoon.net/.

May 30, 2014 — Carolyne Wright (poet)

Photo by E. Rucker

Carolyne Wright has published nine books of poetry, four volumes of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali, and a collection of essays. Most recent are Mania Klepto: The Book of Eulene (Turning Point, 2011), A Change of Maps (Lost Horse Press, 2006), and Seasons of Mangoes & Brainfire (Carnegie Mellon UP/EWU Books, 2nd ed., 2005), which won the Blue Lynx Prize and the American Book Award. A poem of hers appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009 and the Pushcart Prize XXXIV (2010). Wright is a contributing editor for the Pushcart Prizes and a senior editor for Lost Horse Press. In 2005 she returned to her native Seattle, where she is on the faculty of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts’ Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program. She received a 2013 4Culture Art Projects Award for Mother-of-Pearl Women, a section of a book in progress of new and selected poems, This Dream the World. This reading is supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture.

June 27, 2014 — Anne Leigh Parrish (novelist)

Anne Leigh Parrish’s debut novel, What Is Found, What Is Lost, is forthcoming in October 2014 from She Writes Press. Her second story collection, Our Love Could Light The World (She Writes Press, 2013) is a Kirkus Reviews recommended Indie title and a finalist in both the International Book Awards and the Best Book Awards. Her first story collection, All The Roads That Lead From Home (Press 53. 2011) won a silver medal in the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards. She is the author of thirty published short stories, both in print and online, and the fiction editor of Eclectica Magazine. She lives in Seattle. Follower her on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/AnneLParrish; on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/AnneLeighParrish, and on her website at www.anneleighparrish.com.

July 25, 2014 — Amy Raby (novelist)

Amy Raby is literally a product of the U.S. space program, since her parents met working for NASA on the Apollo missions. After earning her Bachelor’s in computer science from the University of Washington, Amy settled in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s always looking for life’s next adventure, whether it’s capsizing tiny sailboats on Lake Washington or riding dressage horses. Amy was a finalist in the 2011 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest with her fantasy romance Assassin’s Gambit, which sold to Penguin in 2012. She also won the 2012 Daphne du Maurier award with a different novel, Flood and Fire. Her blog is http://amyraby.wordpress.com/.

August 22, 2014 — Jack Straw Writers:
Loreen Lilyn Lee, Susan V. Meyers, and Raúl Sánchez (memoir, poetry, fiction, poetry)

Loreen Lilyn Lee grew up in three cultures: Chinese, American, and Hawaiian. Her memoir, The Lava Never Sleeps: A Honolulu Memoir, tells the stories “I’m not supposed to tell.” She weaves together family secrets, childhood trauma, cultural confusion, and Hawaiian history, geology, and mythology in a journey to discover her authentic self. A Seattle resident since 1986, she graduated from the University of Washington in 1994 as a working adult and began writing her personal stories. Hedgebrook awarded her a fellowship, and Artist Trust accepted her into their EDGE Professional Development Program for Writers. Her writing community extends beyond the Pacific Northwest. Besides the Port Townsend Writers Conference, she has attended VONA in San Francisco, Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference in Mississippi, and Las Dos Brujas in New Mexico.

Susan V. Meyers has lived and taught in Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico. She earned an MFA from the University of Minnesota and a PhD from the University of Arizona, and she currently teaches creative writing at Seattle University. Her work has recently appeared in Calyx, Per Contra, Dogwood, Cold Mountain Review, and The Minnesota Review. She has received a Squaw Valley Community of Writers scholarship, a Monique Wittig scholarship, a 4Culture grant, and a Fulbright fellowship. Her novel, Failing the Trapeze, won the 2013 Nilsen Award for a First Novel. Her field study on education in rural Mexico, Del Otro Lado: Literacy and Migration Across the U.S.–Mexico Border, is forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press.

Raúl Sánchez comes from a place south where the sun shines fiercely, where indigenous and European cultures collided. He is a translator, a biotech technician, and an avid collector of poetry books, who occasionally volunteers as a DJ for KBCS 91.3 FM. His inaugural collection, All Our Brown-Skinned Angels, published by MoonPath Press, was nominated for the Washington State Book Award in Poetry for 2013. He has read the book from Vancouver, Washington to Bellingham since May 2012.

September 26, 2014 — Emily Dietrich (poet)

Emily Dietrich was born in Detroit and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When she was six, she wrote her first poems, one about her brother and one about a fish. Her previous publications include The Case of the Missing Mask and Other Stories (A book of puzzle mystery stories), as well as essays, poems, and articles in Ms. Magazine, Seattle Woman, Seattle’s Child, Historic Women of Michigan, and elsewhere. Emily has a BA in English from Mount Holyoke College, an MA in English from the University of Michigan, and a teaching credential from San Jose State University. After teaching high school and college English in Michigan, California, and Washington state, she started working on Holding True, her first novel. Emily lives in Redmond, Washington with her husband, daughter, and son, and a bossy rabbit named Sherlock.

October 24, 2014 — Lopez Poets: Ande Finley, Linda Barton, and Janet Yang (poets)

Ande Finley is thrilled to see her long-held dream of writing manifesting in her remote Lopez Island forest. Her English major in college morphed somehow into a professional life of crunching numbers and she guiltily filed her literary life away till all her kids left home. Mainly now she composes for herself, but her work has appeared in Uncapped, Satsang, and Shark Reef. With the help of her brilliantly creative family, she produced her first chapbook, Simply Love, to commemorate her mother’s 75th and her brother’s 50th birthdays.

Linda Barton was born in 1950 and grew up in the Chicago suburbs. She has many transcripts stretching coast to coast which patch together her two Bas, one in art history, the other in psychology. She received a Master of Social Work from Berkeley. “Poetry came to me late in life,” writes Barton, “which is fortunate because I could grow into it. It represents the perfect blend of brevity, humor, and truth. For me, poetry allows a focus that no other medium can.” She lives on Lopez Island with her dog, Lydia. Visit her website at www.lindaloubarton.com.

Janet Yang’s professional life began as a printmaker. Her work appears in the collections of the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums and other private and institutional collections in the United States, Japan, Korea, and Portugal. Currently her focus is on making art jewelry and some textile work. She also dabbles in various Asian craft techniques, woodcarving, basketry, mixed-media sculpture, and poetry.

November 21, 2014 — Deb Lund (children’s literature)

Deb Lund Deb Lund is the author of Fiction Magic: Card Tricks & Tips for Writers, All Aboard the Dinotrain, and several other books. She’s a creativity coach with a master’s project on teaching writing and a mission to get everyone claiming their creativity. She has taught writers and writing teachers for more than 25 years and is a frequent presenter in schools, libraries, workshops, retreats, and conferences. Her publishers include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. Learn more about Deb at www.deblund.com.

December 5, 2014 — Holiday Party

Are you ready to par-ty?!! Well, we’re awhirl with ideas for celebrating this season and know you’ll have a wonderful evening. The names are widely varied and include Geola, Yule, naël, midwinter, Goode’s Day, Hogswatch, and Festivus—but no matter what language and persuasion you choose, it’s a time to be merry. No matter what you believe in, it’s the season to take heart in the blessing of Saint Columba (the patron saint of poets), Saint Cecelia (patron of musicians), and Francis de Sales (patron of writers). Come to the party and share your favorite saint. Break out of the twilight of the year. Make merry and celebrate with RASP. Join us for the annual holiday . . . PAR-TY!