April 19, 2007

Madeline DeFrees is the author of seven poetry collections. Her most recent book, Spectral Waves (Copper Canyon Press), was nominated for a 2007 Pulitzer Prize, and her previous book, Blue Dusk: New & Selected Poems (also Copper Canyon Press), won a Washington Book Award and the Lenore Marshall Prize for 2002. In 1980, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry and, the following year, a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She also won the first Denise Levertov Prize from Seattle Pacific University. Madeline spent more than thirty years as a sister of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary and was released from her religious vows in 1973.

Born in Spokane, Thomas Aslin has lived his entire life in the Northwest. Aslin, who earned a B.A. from the University of Washington, holds an M.F.A. from the University of Montana where he studied with Madeline DeFrees, Bill Kittredge, and the late Richard Hugo. His poems have appeared in Natural Bridge, Intro 12, and Artful Dodge, among other publications. In 2006, Red Wing Press published his chapbook, Sweet Smoke, and in the fall of 2007 Clark City Press will release his full-length collection titled A Moon Over Wings.