Ingrid Wendt, Featured Artist: With over 200 poems published in journals and
anthologies, and more than 30 essays and reviews, Ingrid Wendt’s last three
books of poems have received the Oregon Book Award, the Yellowglen Award, and
the Editions Prize. Her most recent manuscript, A Gathering, is forthcoming from Truman University Press, and will be her fifth full-length volume of poetry. Her first book, Moving the House, was selected for BOA Editions by
William Stafford, who also wrote the introduction. Two of her poems were
recently read by Garrison Keillor on “The Writer’s Almanac.”
Winner of the Carolyn Kizer Award and the D. H. Lawrence Fellowship, and a three-time Fulbright Professor to Germany, Ingrid has taught poetry writing for more than 30 years at all educational levels, including the MFA program of Antioch University L.A., at teacher-training institutes throughout the United States, and in hundreds of public school classrooms and adult workshops in 26 locations throughout Oregon, in 8 other states, and abroad. A popular keynote speaker in Oregon and Utah, she recently delivered a keynote at the University of Reading, UK.
Ingrid's Starting with Little Things: A Guide to Poetry Writing in the Classroom (Oregon Arts Foundation), is now in its sixth printing. She co-edited In Her Own Image: Women Working in the Arts and From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry (OSU Press), and was on the editorial board of the Oregon Literature Series. The daughter of a Chilean, she is fluent in Spanish and has taught bi-lingually (Spanish-English).
Recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award from her alma mater, Cornell College, Wendt co-founded Oregon's Lane Literary Guild, has been Managing Editor of Northwest Review, and has long been on the advisory board of Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women. She has twice coordinated Eugene’s “Operation Paperback,” sending thousands of used books to troops overseas. She was “Featured Poet” in the Spring/Summer 2009 online journal Valparaiso Poetry Review.
An avid scuba diver, gardener, hiker, and grandmother, Ingrid sings with a 12-voice women's a cappella vocal group, The Motet Singers, who perform twice yearly and have cut two CDs. She and her writer husband, Ralph Salisbury, divide their time between Eugene and Seal Rock, Oregon.
Lawson Fusao Inada, the current Oregon Poet Laureate, is an emeritus professor of writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland. Inada is the author of five books: American Book Award Winner Legends from Camp, Oregon Book Award Winner Drawing the Line, as well as In this Great Land of Freedom, Just Into/Nations, and Before the War. He is the editor of three important volumes, including the acclaimed Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese-American Internment Experience. He is a winner of the Governor's Arts Award (1997) and the Pushcart Prize (1996) for poetry. On two previous occasions, in 1972 and 1985, Professor Inada won Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and his work has appeared in Best American Poetry. Inada has written critical introductions to a number of works, such as John Okada's No-No Boy. He is also a contributing editor for the Northwest Review and was the narrator for PBS specials on "Children of the Camps" and "Conscience and the Constitution." In 2004 he was one of only 185 artists, scholars and scientists chosen from a nationwide pool of 3,200 applicants to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is currently serving as the Steinbeck chair for the National Steinbeck Center, a forum established to promote a community-wide celebration of literature in the tradition of John Steinbeck. In 1997, he was awarded a Creative Arts Grant from the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund and his work has been the subject of a documentary titled "What It Means to Be Free: A Video about Poetry and Japanese-American Internment" and an award-winning animated film of "Legends from Camp" made in collaboration with his son, artist Miles Inada.
A. K. Mimi Allin (The Poetess at Green Lake) crafts experiences that profoundly affect the local environment. She's known for her hard-driving, unsanctioned, ritual-based style. Relying on invention to draw artists and communities together—by herding fresh eggs across a farm or spreading a fishing net out in a desert town or melting a hole in a 300-lb block of ice or cutting a labyrinth into a lawn—she transforms public space into shared memory. In January 2010, she became the nation’s first corporate poet, completing a month-long residency at NBBJ in Seattle. Allin also has a passion for curating. In 2009, she asked 100 poets to recline on The Grand Staircase in the Seattle Art Museum for An Impasse of Poets. She then used a pilot group of poets to “see” a blockbuster exhibit for a blind musician who prepared a musical composition in response. When Stauffer performed his music, the poets turned it back into poetry again. Allin’s goal is to challenge herself and those around her to live more fully. She recently had an unofficial bronze plaque cast for the Lenin Statue in Fremont. Look for her work with Studies in Everything (ongoing, quarterly) and at Project: Space Available where she’s the artist-in-residence from April--May 2010.
Lorraine Healy is an award-winning Argentinean poet who has been published extensively. Nominated for a Pushcart in 2004, she has a MFA from the New England College and a post-MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is the first poet to have received a green card solely on the merits of her work. The most recent winner of the Patricia Libby First Book Award, her book The Habit of Buenos Aires has just been published by Tebot Bach. She has two previous chapbooks published, The Farthest South by New American Press, and The Archipelago by Finishing Line. Lorraine has long made her home on Whidbey Island, where she teaches advanced poetry seminars and works as a fine arts photographer.
Father/Poet/Teacher Paul Nelson, is a Chicago native, Founder of SPLAB (SPokenword LAB), author of a book of essays on poetics, Organic Poetry (Oct. ‘08, VDM Verlag, Germany) & author of a serial poem re-enacting the history of Auburn, Washington, A Time Before Slaughter (Oct. ’09, Apprentice House.) Auburn was originally called Slaughter. Paul for 26 years in radio, interviewing Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Sam Hamill, Robin Blaser, Wanda Coleman, Eileen Myles, Jerome Rothenberg, George Bowering & others. He earned his M.A. from Lesley University in Organic Poetry, a study of North American poets writing (to different degrees) spontaneously, writes one American Sentence every day & lives in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood with his fiancée, the free-lance writer, Meredith Sedlachek.
Leonard Orr is Academic Director of Liberal Arts and Professor of English at the Tri-Cities campus of Washington State University. His first full-length book of poetry, Why We Have Evening, was published by Cherry Grove/WordTech in 2010. He is the author or editor of thirteen books of literary criticism or critical theory, including Joyce, Imperialism, and Postcolonialism (Syracuse University Press, 2008), and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (Continuum, 2009). He was named the Lewis E. and Stella G. Buchanan Distinguished Professor of English (2005-08). His poetry has appeared in many journals including Black Warrior Review, Fugue, Poetry International, Poetry East, Natural Bridge, Isotope, Midwest Poetry Review, Pontoon, Rosebud, and Rocky Mountain Review. His poetry chapbook, Daytime Moon, was published in 2005. He was a finalist for the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize and the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize and was a semifinalist for the Floating Bridge Chapbook Prize and the William Stafford Poetry Prize. He has been a featured reader in many venues throughout the state, and he has led poetry workshops at the Burning Word Poetry Festival and elsewhere. He hosts the open mic and featured poet events at Washington State University Tri-Cities and served as president of the Washington Poets Association for three years. In recent years, he has taken up painting abstracts and had his work featured in a solo-exhibition of fifty paintings in 2007. Both his poetry and painting utilize a similar aesthetic based in spontaneity, surprise, and passion.
Lyn Coffin is a widely published poet, fiction writer, playwright, and translator. Eight of her books have been published, three of her own work and five of translation. She is on the board of the World Academy of Poets, and has an honorary doctorate from the World Academy of Arts and Cultures (UNICEF), bestowed in recognition of her “poetic excellence and efforts on behalf of world peace.” This year, Lyn performed her "Channeling Camille Claudel" on Off Off Broadway, and two pieces at Boston’s Playwright Theatre, as part of their Russian Festival. Plays of hers were read or performed this past year in Singapore, New York, Boston, and Seattle. She has given readings at Elliott Bay Bookstore, Hugo House, Park Place Books, Magnolia Bookstore, the Nordic Museum (with Burt Kimmelman and Diane Simmons), the Frye Museum, and many other venues. Lyn is Executive Director of Circle of Friends for Mental Health, a non-profit group that runs arts programs in Seattle for persons with mental illness. In addition to performing at On The Boards’ “12 Minutes Max,” in Seattle, Lyn appeared in “Mr. Angelo” (at Odd Duck Studios) and “Gulag Mouse” (at the Erickson Theatre). More information about Lyn’s work can be found on Wikipedia.
Tara Hardy is the working class queer femme poet who founded Bent, a writing institute for LGBTIQ people in Seattle, WA. Her work focuses on class, race, sexuality, gender identity, and interpersonal violence. She views story and poem as means for bridging cultural splits: victim/perpetrator, queer/straight, man/woman, urban/rural, coastal/middle, red/blue, poor/privileged. Tara was the only poet in the country to make three national poetry slam stages in 2008, and was elected Seattle Poet Populist in 2002, and is a twice Seattle Grand Slam Chamption. She is a founding member of Salt Lines, an all queer all female quartet of internationally acclaimed spoken word artists. She holds an MFA from Vermont College, and her work has been published in numerous journals, anthologies, and chapbooks.
Carol Trenga practices and teaches Feldenkrais®, Yoga and meditation. She began these practices during twenty years of studying, teaching and working in biological sciences. She recently became a mentor of The Embodied Life™, which combines movement, meditation and guided inquiry to help bring presence and curiosity to each moment. These practices renew our capacity to be creative and joyful in life. Her classes emphasize body awareness, integrated movement, and living with clear intention. Carol is a Certified Yoga Instructor and a Guild-Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, and holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Health from University of Washington, where she worked from 1988-2005. She also taught human physiology and environmental medicine at Bastyr University from 1997-98. She lives in Seattle with her husband, younger daughter, and two cats.
Alan Sutherland began studying butoh in his early 40's. He has performed extensively in America and a little in Asia. He has danced with Dappin, the Degenerate Art Ensemble, Implied Violence, Pan, as well as showing his own unique solo work. A published poet, he has a degree in philosophy, a granddaughter, and the mad belief that the world can be made a better place if the right dance is performed.
Mitsuki Dazai, koto, is a graduate of Japan's renowned Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, where she majored in vocal performance in the Western Classical tradition. During the course of her studies, she felt drawn to the non-western traditions of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, which eventually led Mitsuki to intense studies in traditional koto music at the Ikuta School of koto. Inspired by the cultural veneration of this instrument, she next pursued advanced studies in contemporary koto music at Sawai Koto Conservatory in Tokyo, with instruction by modern Koto Masters Tadao Sawai, Kazue Sawai and Ritsuko Otawara, from which she graduated and was further honored as a certified koto instructor. A founding member of the koto ensembles in both the Unites States and Japan, and a member of Ensemble East West (founded by flutist Tessa Brinckman), Mitsuki is currently active in solo and ensemble concerts throughout the U.S. and Japan, and is increasingly active in the regional festivals of the Pacific Northwest. Mitsuki has performed with Tessa Brinckman (flute, alto flute, piccolo, baroque flute), Joe Powers (harmonica), Peter Hill, Larry Tyrrell, Teruo Furuya, Kaoru Kakizakai, and Kazushi Matama (shakuhachi), Joe Ross (guitar) and Radim Zenkl (mandolin). Mitsuki's musical background is diverse and extensive as a performer and innovator, including arranging and composing Koto music in different styles. Not limiting herself to music traditionally associated with the koto, her performances often incorporate western, pop and improvisational elements and arrangements, challenging the many voices of the koto and allowing her to relate the koto's appeal to a variety of audiences.
Michael Schein, LiTFUSE director, is the author of 3 novels - the 3rd untitled; the 2nd, Bones Beneath Our Feet (forthcoming 2011); and the 1st, Just Deceits: A Historical Courtroom Mystery (Bennett & Hastings 2008); as well as a play adapted from Just Deceits, short stories and book reviews. Michael is also a widely-published poet whose work appears (among other places) in Slow Trains, Chrysanthemum, The Ledge, Pontoon, Elysian Fields Quarterly, RockSaltPlum, Runes, Lilies & Cannonballs, Drash, The November 3rd Club, Floating Bridge Review, and an anthology, The Art of Bicycling (Breakaway Books 2005). Among the awards Michael has received for poetry are two Pushcart nominations, finalist in the 2005 Ledge Chapbook Contest and the 2006 Elixir Press Poetry Book Award, and finalist in the 2007 San Francisco Writers’ Conference Contest. Michael has taught poetry and fiction at the Port Townsend Writers Conference.