September 20, 2018

Melanie Noel is the author of The Monarchs (Stockport Flats, 2013) and The Ringing, a chapbook forthcoming from Goodmorning Menagerie. Her poems have also appeared in Thermos, Spiral Orb, Weekday, The Volta, and The Arcadia Project. She’s written poems for installations and as live scores for short films. She was a co-curator of the dance, music, and poetry series “Apostrophe,” and curated “Impala,” a reading series that took place in her grandmother’s car. She’s taught classes in parks, schools, hospitals, and community centers (http://lovepossum.com/teaching.html), and enjoys doing creative engagement work with older adults who have memory loss (www.melanienoel.com). She’s honored to serve as Redmond’s poet laureate for 2018–2020.

Jay Aquinas Thompson is a poet, essayist, and educator with recent or forthcoming work in The Spectacle, Coast | NoCoast, Full Stop, Fog Machine, Denver Quarterly, Berfrois, and Poetry Northwest, where he’s a contributing editor. Previously, he coedited the journal Thermos. He’s been awarded grants and fellowships from the Community of Writers, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and 4Culture. He lives with his family in Seattle, where he teaches creative writing to incarcerated women. Visit his blog at https://downdeepdowndeep.wordpress.com/.

Kyle Hanson (aka The Murkies) is a composer and accordionist who innovated the extended technique described as “alternating transverse oscillation of the bellows,” by which he obtains a shimmering sound and immersive effects. His music ranges from ambient soundscapes to psychedelic pop with many stops in between. Kyle led Seattle’s Black Cat Orchestra for many years with partner and collaborator Lori Goldston, producing four albums, including one with Mirah, and a song with David Byrne. Currently he plays with Nancy Clarke and Jeremy Eaton in Bounty of the Wayside producing spontaneous songs and interludes.