2020 Readings

January 31, 2020 — Chris Fagan (adventure memoirist)

Adventure memoirist Chris Fagan and her husband became the first American married couple to ski without guide or resupply to the South Pole. Chris’ story comes alive through photos, stories, and a reading from her new book, The Expedition: Two Parents Risk Life and Family in an Extraordinary Quest. Riveting and inspiring, the story is about the power of family and community, the adventurous spirit that dwells within us all, and breaking through to feel fully alive. Learn more at www.chrisfagan.net and on the Seattle Times website.

February 28, 2020 — Julie U. Brown

Julie U. Brown is the author of Little Rocks, a poetry collection, Angry Housewife Fights Tyranny, a journal of political activism, and Church Chat, An Awkward Spiritual Journey. Her work has appeared in places such as Pack and Paddle, Real Change, The Snoqualmie Valley Record, and The Argonaut. She lives with her husband and son along a winding highway in the Pacific Northwest.

March 27, April 24, May 29, 2020 — Salon Style Reading

We had such a good time at our November salon-style reading that we’re going to do it again. We’ll arrange our chairs in a circle and take turns reading a single poem or other piece, in no particular order. Then we’ll invite spontaneous discussion (not critique) about what the piece means or evokes or prompts. Another person reads and we repeat. We keep taking turns as time allows, whether we read a longer or shorter poem or story, or work by another writer. We hope this will be a relaxed and inviting way to orchestrate some of our future meetings. [The preceding description did not entirely apply, since we met on Zoom.]

June 26, 2020 — Armin Tolentino (poet)

Armin Tolentino is the author of the poetry collection We Meant to Bring It Home Alive (Alternating Current Press, 2019). He earned an MFA at Rutgers University-Newark and his poetry has appeared in numerous journals including Common Knowledge, Arsenic Lobster, Hyphen Magazine, and Raven Chronicles. He is a phenomenal clapper, a passable ukulele player, and a bumbling, but enthusiastic, fisherman. More info at www.armintolentino.com.

August 28, 2020 — Dawn-Marie Oliver (poet)

Dawn-Marie Oliver is gloriously eccentric, adhering to no single aesthetic, but rather, follows the wending of inclination and intuition. She has degrees in computer science and clinical psychology, teaches technical writing and computer programming, is a 10-year veteran of the 3:15 Experiment, and writes poetry to suit herself rather than to publish. Hailed as the Purple Goddess of Oversexed Poetry for years of odes to unrequited longing, she is currently exploring witchy archetypes in verse.

September 25, 2020 — Jack Straw Writers: Wryly T. McCutchen, Arianne True, and Helen K. Thomas (poetry, poetry, fiction)

Wryly T. McCutchen is a hybrid writer, community educator, and interdisciplinary performance artist. They are trans, queer, and crazy. Recipient of the Lil Elbe scholarship, Wryly attended Lambda Literary’s Emerging Writers Retreat in 2018. Their debut poetry collection, My Ugly and Other Love Snarls, came out in 2017. Wryly conjures multimedia, visceral experiences that challenge harmful boundaries imposed by cisgender and heterosexual gatekeepers, resurrecting trans ancestors and making space for deep queer healing.

Arianne True is a queer poet and folk artist from Seattle and from the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. Arianne has taught and mentored with Writers in the Schools (WITS), YouthSpeaks Seattle, and the Richard Hugo House, and is a proud alum of Hedgebrook and the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She can be found playing banjo with her rats near the edge of the woods.

Helen K. Thomas is from Seattle by way of Lagos, Nigeria. She writes Young Adult fiction that illuminates the interiority of black girls as they navigate joy and pain and love and loss while living in the Pacific Northwest. Recently, she was part of the inaugural Tin House YA fiction workshop and is thrilled to be a 2020 Jack Straw Writers fellow.

November 20, 2020 — 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 2010 young adult novel Epitaph Road was a nominee for the 2013–2014 Nebraska Golden Sower Book Award. His 2018 alternative history/sci-fi young adult novel Fast Backward has garnered much praise. When he’s not in a coffee shop writing, or at a school or library or conference discussing writing, or on the trail thinking about writing, he’s home in Woodinville, Washington with his wife Judy, a retired middle school librarian. Visit his website at http://www.patneaude.com/.

December 18, 2020 — RASP Holiday Hoppin’ Hoopla: Purging of 2020!
With David Berger (nonfiction)

Tired of drab, dull, drawn-out Zoom meetings? Looking for an enlivening and enlightening escape from the dumpster fire that has been 2020? Wear a silly hat (seriously) and join a motley crew of poets, writers, and word lovers at RASP’s Holiday Hoppin’ Hoopla as we slam the door on 2020 and jump into 2021 by celebrating the power of spoken word.

David Berger is an author, visual artist, and poet, and was visual arts critic at The Seattle Times. In addition to Persimmon and Frog: My Life and Art (Chin Music Press, 2020), about Fumiko Kimura, he wrote Razor Clams: Buried Treasure of the Pacific Northwest (University of Washington Press, 2017). He lives in Seattle.