March 1, 2022 • SPEAKER SERIES • A Gathering of Voices from the Heart of Cascadia
7:00 PM EST
For Keep a Green Bough: Voices from the Heart of Cascadia, editor Holly J. Hughes invited sixty-four women writers and artists from the Northwest to reflect on what it means to live and write in the Cascadian bioregion at the end of 2020, a year that challenged our resilience on every level. Reaching out to national and regionally acclaimed poets and essayists from Alaska to Oregon, as well as new and emerging writers, she gathered a diverse chorus, including Indigenous voices. Along with Hughes as editor, the reading will feature Washington State Poet Laureate and enrolled member of the Lummi nation Rena Priest, who wrote the Preface, as well as five contributors: Jessica Gigot, Alicia Hokanson, Sandra Jane Polzin, Claudia Castro Luna and Carolyn Servid. Together, their voices reveal how writing about place can sustain us, affirming the beauty, strength, and resilience of Cascadia and her people.
Holly J. Hughes is the author of Hold Fast and Sailing by Ravens, coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and editor of Keep a Green Bough: Voices from the Heart of Cascadia, and the award-winning anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease. Her fine art chapbook Passings received an American Book Award in 2017. She’s a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program, where she served on the staff for 13 years, and taught writing at community colleges for several decades. She currently leads writing and mindfulness workshops in the Northwest, consults as a writing coach, and directs Flying Squirrel Studio, a residency program for women writers. Learn more at hollyjhughes.com
Rena Priest is an enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She has been appointed to serve as Washington State Poet Laureate for the term April 2021–2023. She is a 2020 Vadon Foundation Fellow and the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award. Her debut collection, Patriarchy Blues, was published by MoonPath Press and received an American Book Award. Her second collection, Sublime Subliminal, is available from Floating Bridge Press. Individual poems are featured at Poets.org, Poetry Northwest,A Dozen Nothing, and elsewhere. Learn more at renapriest.com
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
7:00 PM EST
For Keep a Green Bough: Voices from the Heart of Cascadia, editor Holly J. Hughes invited sixty-four women writers and artists from the Northwest to reflect on what it means to live and write in the Cascadian bioregion at the end of 2020, a year that challenged our resilience on every level. Reaching out to national and regionally acclaimed poets and essayists from Alaska to Oregon, as well as new and emerging writers, she gathered a diverse chorus, including Indigenous voices. Along with Hughes as editor, the reading will feature Washington State Poet Laureate and enrolled member of the Lummi nation Rena Priest, who wrote the Preface, as well as five contributors: Jessica Gigot, Alicia Hokanson, Sandra Jane Polzin, Claudia Castro Luna and Carolyn Servid. Together, their voices reveal how writing about place can sustain us, affirming the beauty, strength, and resilience of Cascadia and her people.
Holly J. Hughes is the author of Hold Fast and Sailing by Ravens, coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and editor of Keep a Green Bough: Voices from the Heart of Cascadia, and the award-winning anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease. Her fine art chapbook Passings received an American Book Award in 2017. She’s a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program, where she served on the staff for 13 years, and taught writing at community colleges for several decades. She currently leads writing and mindfulness workshops in the Northwest, consults as a writing coach, and directs Flying Squirrel Studio, a residency program for women writers. Learn more at hollyjhughes.com
Rena Priest is an enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She has been appointed to serve as Washington State Poet Laureate for the term April 2021–2023. She is a 2020 Vadon Foundation Fellow and the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award. Her debut collection, Patriarchy Blues, was published by MoonPath Press and received an American Book Award. Her second collection, Sublime Subliminal, is available from Floating Bridge Press. Individual poems are featured at Poets.org, Poetry Northwest,A Dozen Nothing, and elsewhere. Learn more at renapriest.com
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
7:00 PM EST
For Keep a Green Bough: Voices from the Heart of Cascadia, editor Holly J. Hughes invited sixty-four women writers and artists from the Northwest to reflect on what it means to live and write in the Cascadian bioregion at the end of 2020, a year that challenged our resilience on every level. Reaching out to national and regionally acclaimed poets and essayists from Alaska to Oregon, as well as new and emerging writers, she gathered a diverse chorus, including Indigenous voices. Along with Hughes as editor, the reading will feature Washington State Poet Laureate and enrolled member of the Lummi nation Rena Priest, who wrote the Preface, as well as five contributors: Jessica Gigot, Alicia Hokanson, Sandra Jane Polzin, Claudia Castro Luna and Carolyn Servid. Together, their voices reveal how writing about place can sustain us, affirming the beauty, strength, and resilience of Cascadia and her people.
Holly J. Hughes is the author of Hold Fast and Sailing by Ravens, coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World, and editor of Keep a Green Bough: Voices from the Heart of Cascadia, and the award-winning anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease. Her fine art chapbook Passings received an American Book Award in 2017. She’s a graduate of Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program, where she served on the staff for 13 years, and taught writing at community colleges for several decades. She currently leads writing and mindfulness workshops in the Northwest, consults as a writing coach, and directs Flying Squirrel Studio, a residency program for women writers. Learn more at hollyjhughes.com
Rena Priest is an enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She has been appointed to serve as Washington State Poet Laureate for the term April 2021–2023. She is a 2020 Vadon Foundation Fellow and the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award. Her debut collection, Patriarchy Blues, was published by MoonPath Press and received an American Book Award. Her second collection, Sublime Subliminal, is available from Floating Bridge Press. Individual poems are featured at Poets.org, Poetry Northwest,A Dozen Nothing, and elsewhere. Learn more at renapriest.com
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
