July 15, 2010

Michael Daley graduated from University of Massachusetts and has an MFA from the University of Washington. In 1976 he founded Empty Bowl Press in Port Townsend. Gary Snyder called his first collection of poetry, The Straits, “Superb, elegant poetically and fresh with the Northwest world.” His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Hudson Review, Alaskan Quarterly Review, Raven Chronicles, Seattle Review, and on Writer’s Almanac. Word Press in Cincinnati published To Curve. Pleasure Boat Studio of New York published Way Out There: Lyrical Essays and Moonlight in the Redemptive Forest, including an Artist Trust–funded CD.

Bill Ransom, a Puyallup native, has published six novels, numerous short stories and articles, and six collections of poetry. His most recent poetry book is The Woman and the War Baby from Blue Begonia Press, and work in the anthology New Poets of the American West. He was a pioneer in the National Endowment for the Arts’ Poetry in the Schools project in Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. For twelve years he was a firefighter and an advanced life-support EMT in Jefferson County and in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua during their civil wars, and his work often reflects those experiences. He currently serves as academic dean of curriculum at Evergreen State College in Olympia.