February 19, 2015

Ellie Rogers currently studies in the MFA creative writing program at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, where she also teaches writing and critical inquiry, and serves as assistant managing editor of the Bellingham Review. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Crab Creek Review, Floating Bridge Review, Midwestern Gothic, and Winter Tangerine Review. She draws material from her experiences as a botanical herbarium curator, circus tag-along, and Midwestern transplant to the stunning Pacific Northwest.

Award-winning poet Roberto Ascalon has taught across Seattle since 2003. His teaching residencies have led to text, audio, spoken word, video, and photography exhibitions at the Frye Museum, the Northwest African American Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Museum of History and Industry. One residency in 2011 earned him a trip to the White House where had the honor of shaking hands with the President. He is a Kundiman and Jack Straw fellow, a two-time Seattle Slam Team member and the winner of the 2013 Rattle Poetry Prize. As the poet planner for 4Culture in 2014, Ascalon helped revive Seattle’s beloved Poetry on Buses program. He spends his time between Bellingham, where he is a candidate for an MFA in creative writing, and West Seattle where he lives in an old school building with a beautiful girl, a blackboard, and a cat.