Daemond Arrindell—
Daemond Arrindell is a workshop facilitator, counselor, community organizer, advocate and poet - and holds strong to the belief that poetry is a grand tree with a vast array of branches that all contribute to the complexity of the art form.

Daemond is the Slam Master of Seattle and producer of the longest running weekly show in Seattle - the Seattle Poetry Slam; 7-time coach of the renowned Seattle National Poetry Slam Team; a faculty member of Freehold Theatre teaching Spoken Word and Performance Poetry and co-facilitating (for the 4th year) a poetry and theater residency at Monroe Correctional Complex for men; and is the Writer-In-Residence at Cleveland and Franklin High Schools through Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools Program.

Kaj Wynn Berry—
Kaj Wyn Berry has been writing and calligraphing poetry, particularly haiku, for many years. She is also a photojournalist, artist, editor, kayaker, writer. Opening windows into the art and craft of haiku-- the mindfulness of getting into the haiku state of mind-- is a continuing delight. For further information, please check kajirawynberry.com.

Karen Finneyfrock—
Karen Finneyfrock is a poet, novelist and teaching artist in Seattle, WA. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, was released on Write Bloody press in 2010. Her young adult novel, Celia, the Dark and Weird, is due from Viking Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Group USA in Spring 2012. She is a Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools program. In 2010, Karen traveled to Nepal as a Cultural Envoy through the US Department of State to perform and teach poetry.

Tess Gallagher—
Tess Gallagher is a poet, essayist, author and playwright. She attended the University of Washington, where she studied creative writing with Theodore Roethke and later Nelson Bentley as well as David Wagoner and Mark Strand. Her honors include a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, two National Endowment for the Arts awards, the Maxine Cushing Gray Foundation Award, and the Elliston Award for "best book of poetry published by a small press" for the collection Instructions to the Double (1976). Her third husband Raymond Carver encouraged her to write short stories, some of which were collected in The Lover of Horses (1987) and At the Owl Woman Saloon (1996).

Sam Hamill—
Sam Hamill is the author of fourteen volumes of original poetry. His most recent volume, Measured by Stone -photo(2007), exhibit the range of his celebrated practice and vision, from philosophical and discursive elements to the intensely lyrical. He has published three collections of essays and two dozen volumes translated from ancient Greek, Latin, Estonian, Japanese, and Chinese. He is the Founding editor of Copper Canyon Press and director of Poets Against War. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Hamill has taught in prisons for fourteen years, in artist-in-residency programs for twenty years, and has worked extensively with battered woman and children. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Mellon Fund, the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, two Washington Governor's Arts Awards, the Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing, and the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award for poetry

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