2022 Jack Straw Writers Program

Helen Anderson is a fiction writer and software designer living in Seattle. Originally from Austin, Texas, she holds a B.S. in Science, Technology & Society and an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction.

2022 Writers Program

Ally Ang is a gaysian poet living on occupied Duwamish and Coast Salish lands known as Seattle. Ally’s work has appeared in Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color, The Journal, Foglifter, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere, and their work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Bettering American Poetry. They are the co-editor of an anthology of Southeast Asian art and writing titled All the Oils: On Friendship, Sex, and Other Warmths (Ginger Bug Press 2021) and they are an editor for Game Over Books. Ally received their MFA from the University of Washington and they currently work at Hugo House, a Seattle-based literary arts nonprofit.

2022 Writers Program

Carrie Beyer is a poet and essayist. A mother of three school-aged children, she grew up in rural Kansas and now lives in the Pacific Northwest where she works as a bookseller at Eagle Harbor Book Company. Carrie holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University. Her poems have been published in Prairie Schooner, Apeiron Review, and as a contest finalist in Iron Horse Literary Review.

2022 Writers Program

Julie Feng is a poet, communications strategist, and scholar of stories. She holds a M.A. in Cultural Studies and is an incoming Ph.D. student in Communication at the University of Washington. Julie currently serves as the Director of Communications for Scholar Fund, supporting resources for communities of color and immigrant communities. Her work has appeared in Winter Tangerine, Pacifica Literary Review, Wildness, Quaint Magazine, and more.

2022 Writers Program

Jessica Gigot is a poet, farmer, and writing coach. She lives on a little sheep farm in the Skagit Valley. Her second book of poems, Feeding Hour (Wandering Aengus Press, 2020) was a finalist for the 2021 Washington State Book Award. Jessica’s writing and reviews appear in several publications, such as Orion, The New York Times, The Seattle Times, Ecotone, Terrain.org, and Poetry Northwest. Her award-winning memoir, A Little Bit of Land, was published by Oregon State University Press in September 2022.

Artist Support Program 2024: Her Deepest Ecologies podcast

2022 Writers Program

Danielle Hayden is a writer from Detroit. Her work has appeared in Seattle magazine, The Dillydoun Review, The Cleveland Review of Books, Ampersand, SELF, and elsewhere. Outside of writing, she finds additional ways to fill her life with words: as a polyglot with an insatiable appetite for learning languages, as an amateur calligrapher, and recently as creator of the website 3pistolary.com, which encourages people to send letters. Some of her volunteer work includes assisting language preservation-based nonprofits such as Our Golden Hour and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. Danielle also volunteers as a court-appointed child advocate and dabbles in photography.

2022 Writers Program

Erin Langner is an essayist whose work focuses on art, architecture and identity. She is a regular contributor to Hyperallergic and METROPOLIS magazines. Her writing has also appeared or is forthcoming in december, The Offing, The Normal School, Hobart, The Stranger, and ARCADE. She lives in Seattle and works on exhibitions and publications at the Frye Art Museum. Her debut collection, Souvenirs from Paradise, will be published by Zone 3 Press in 2022.

2022 Writers Program

Jory Mickelson’s (they/them) first book Wilderness//Kingdom, was the winner of a 2020 High Plains Book Award. Their second and third books, All This Divide (Spuyten Duyvil Press) and Picturing (End of the Line Press) are out in 2024. They received their BA in English from Western Washington University and their MFA in poetry from the University of Idaho. Their work can be found in Court Green, Painted Bride Quarterly, Jubilat, Sixth Finch, Ninth Letter, Diode, and The Rumpus.  They are currently working on poems that explore the intersection of visual art, queerness, erasure, gender, and history.

They received fellowships from the Port Townsend Writers Conference, Lambda Literary Foundation, Winter Tangerine, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico. They write in the moss and mud of the Pacific Northwest.

2024 Jack Straw Alumni Poetry Series:

All This Divide is a poetry collection which investigates the contemporary world in crisis: pandemics, environmental collapse, and unfettered capitalism. These poems articulate and examine the history and legacy of the West. Cutting into one reveals the other, each story touching those that come before and after.

Plunder: revolver

Your right hand has grasped for
me; now the gate may not

be shut. I loosen the mouth
and quicken the heart in

its shadowed chest. Equip you
to break the best and worst;

to me, there is no difference.
I make well-being & create

calamity. I do not cause
this darkness, but draw it forth

from within you, spring the lock
of desire or dread. My six hot

stars are a constellation called
surety. I am the lord of this

place, an idol weeping tears
of lead, the spoiled fruit

of all your reaching.

2022 Writers Program

Emily Parzybok is a writer, political consultant and teacher from Seattle. She serves as the Executive Director of Balance Our Tax Code advocating for progressive solutions to balance the tax code at the state legislature and on the ballot. She is a writer and an MFA candidate at New York University’s low residency program. Her work has been published in Poetry Northwest, The Syndrome Mag and Points in Case. She has work forthcoming in the Uncertain Girls, Uncertain Times anthology, a collection of inspiration and encouragement for young women. Above all else, she is a dedicated reader who can often be found in bed with her three cats, a cup of breakfast tea and a book. You can write with her at A Very Important Meeting!

2022 Writers Program

Vincent Antonio Rendoni (he / him / his) is a Seattle-based poet and writer. He is the winner of Blue Earth Review’s 2021 Annual Flash Fiction Contest. He is a contributor to What They Leave Behind: A Latinx Anthology. His work has appeared / will be appearing in the Texas Review, Juked, Fiction Southeast, Sky Island Journal, Door is a Jar, and more. He received his BA from Western Washington University and MFA in Creative Writing from Chatham University. He has previously taught poetry and fiction in the Allegheny County Jail as part of the Words Without Walls program in Pittsburgh, PA. His work focuses on the intersection of family, truth, death, and the mixed-race/Latinx experience.

2024 Jack Straw Alumni Poetry Series:

This award-winning debut looks at a family of swindlers, low-rent mystics, and used car salesmen as they attempt to outrun the inevitable. Taking place over a century across Mexico, Texas, and Washington State, it blends the Latin-American folktale tradition with breakbeat poetics to deliver a fresh take on culture, death, and the joy to be had in joyless times.

Sexually Explicit Skywriting (Excerpt)

But before you bring my life
to its ignoble end,
let me just say this:

There are only so many good years left in our bodies.

Think of what we’re able to do now.

The things we can’t later.

I know, I am so morbid!

So let’s say yes & shout our intentions
for when we are willing, when we can & say yes.

Take all the time you need to think.

But not too much.

Look up.

Nothing is written.

There’s time.

2022 Writers Program

Ruth Schemmel’s short fiction has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Fiction, and New Orleans Review, among other places. She has been a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open and a fifth-place overall winner in the NYC Midnight Short Fiction Challenge. A former Peace Corps volunteer, she works as a teacher of high school English language learners in the greater Seattle area, where she lives with her family.

2022 Writers Program

Katharine Strange specializes in questioning received wisdom with a wink and a smirk. She writes personal essays, short stories, novels, and now, memoir! Her work has appeared in The Seattle Times, The Stranger, OC87 Diaries, Literary Yard, ScaryMommy, and anthology The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: Gen X Women on the Brink. She was a 2021 Mainstage Storyteller for The Moth. Formerly she wrote a column for Fundamentally Free, a blog for Exvangelicals and heretics. She lives in south Seattle with her family and is represented by Savannah Brooks of Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. As a rule, she never turns down champagne.

2022 Writers Program