Visiting Writers
Meet Our Current Visiting Writer
Ramón Isao, 2023-24
Ramón Isao is a recipient of the Tim McGinnis Award for Fiction, as well as fellowships from Artist Trust and Jack Straw Cultural Center. His stories appear in such journals as AGNI, The Iowa Review, Epiphany, Ninth Letter, and Moss, and his screenplay credits include ZMD, Junk, and Dead Body. He has an MFA from Columbia University, and serves as Fiction Editor at the New Orleans Review.
A journalist, essayist, and novelist, Kristen is the Winner of Nautilus and IPPY awards; and her novel Subduction was a finalist for two International Latino Book Awards and Foreword Indies Book of the Year.
A former Hugo House Prose Writer-in-Residence, she is a Washington State Book Award Finalist, the editor of Seismic, and reviews books for the Washington Post. Kristen was also the researcher for the New York Times team behind “Snow Fall,” which won a Pulitzer Prize.
Daemond Arrindell is a poet, performer, and teaching artist. Writer-In-Residence through Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools Program; and in 2012, he taught Seattle University’s first course in Slam Poetry.
He has performed and facilitated workshops in poetry venues, prisons, high schools and colleges across the country, including through Freehold Theatre's Engaged Theatre program, and he has been repeatedly commissioned by both Seattle and Bellevue Arts Museums. Recently he was selected for “13 for ‘13,” a joint project between the Seattle Times and KUOW profiling 13 influential people in Seattle’s art scene.
Anastacia-Renee is a writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, TEDx Speaker and podcaster. She is a 2020 Arc Fellow (4Culture) and Jack Straw Curator. Renee is the recipient of the James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Award for Washington Artist (2018), Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), and Poet-in-Residence at Hugo House (2015-2017).
Renee has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Ragdale, Mineral School, and The New Orleans Writers Residency. Her poems and essays have been anthologized in: Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden,Seismic: Seattle City of Literature and her poetry and fiction have appeared in, Spark, Foglifter, Auburn Avenue, Catapult, Alta, Torch, and many more.
Theo Pauline Nestor is the author of Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding her own Voice (And a Guide to how you can too) (Simon & Schuster 2013) and How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Over (Crown, 2008).
Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies and publications, such as the New York Times, The Establishment, The Rumpus, Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion, and Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On. An award-winning instructor, Nestor has taught at the University of Washington, Cornish College, Hugo House, and Hedgebrook.
Other writers we have welcomed to our program:
- Claudio Castro Luna
- Regan Jackson
- Nicole Hardy
- Deborah Poe
- Kris Saknussemm