Event photos by Joel Allen
READERS
EJ LEVY 
EJ Levy’s debut novel, The Cape Doctor (Little Brown), was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of Summer, and won a Colorado Book Award. Editions are forthcoming in French, Spanish, and Italian. Her story collection, Love, In Theory, won a Flannery O’Connor Award and GLCA New Writers Award (previously awarded to Alice Munro and Louise Erdrich for their first books) and was a finalist for the Edmund White Award; Kirkus named it aBest Indie Book of the Year. Levy’s anthology, Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers, won a Lambda Literary Award. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Best American Essays, Orion, and The Nation, among other places; her stories have twice been named among Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories.
KATERINA CANYON 
Katerina Canyon holds a Master of Arts in Law in Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and she holds a B.A. in English, International Studies, and Creative Writing from Saint Louis University. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She is a 2021, 2020, and 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee. She served as the Sunland- Tujunga California Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2004. During that time, she started and ran the Shouting Coyote Poetry Festival, and she traveled the country promoting poetry and poetry events. Katerina Canyon’s work has been published in publications such as Meniscus, New York Times, and Huffington Post United States and Germany. She has been a featured poet in multiple venues across the country, including Beyond Baroque, Nuyorican, The Bowery Poetry Club and Chance Operations. She teaches poetry workshops to children and at universities. She has published three poetry chapbooks and two albums. Her latest work, Surviving Home, is available through Kelsay Books. Prior to Surviving Home, she self-published, Changing the Lines, a joint project with her daughter Aja Canyon featuring poetry and art can be found online at Amazon. She currently lives in Seattle, Washington, where she can often be found writing poetry near Meadowbrook Pond. 
Eli Hastings is a father, psychotherapist, author, and less virtuous things. He has emitted two books of published memoir/essays (Falling Room (Bison Books, 2006); Clearly Now the Rain (ECW, 2013), a forgotten number of published short pieces, eight unpublished manuscripts, and is the possessor of the ethereal commodities of Pushcart Nominations (3), Literary Contest Awards, and, increasingly, joy. He midwifed hundreds of stories and poems with youth in Seattle’s Juvenile Detention for more than 7 years and likes hanging out with his traumatized clients these days, finding the divine in the brokenness of Amerika. 
Amanda Bales is the author of Pekolah Stories. Originally from Oklahoma, she has since lived many places, including Fairbanks, Alaska, where she received her MFA at the University of Alaska. She now lives with her dog, Axton, in central Illinois and teaches at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Drevlow is the managing editor of BULL, a lit mag about toxic masculinity and the author of Ina-Baby: A Love Story in Reverse (2019), A Good Ram is Hard to Find (2021), and The Book of Rusty (2022) as well as Bend with the Knees and Other Love Advice from My Father (2008), which won the 2006 Many Voices Project. You can find these and other works linked at thedrevlow-olsonshow.com or on Twitter @thedrevlow
Shana Graham is a Seattle and Miami-based writer, producer, educator, and community builder. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Cimarron Review, Witness, The Los Angeles Review, CRAFT, and West Trade Review. She’s currently working on a memoir in linked essays. She also creates living stories in the form of large-scale events filled with music, madness, artistry, and general mayhem. You can find her at at www.supershana.com and @_supershana_.
Sharon is an EMMY Award Winner, Silver Telly Award Winner, Shakin Shit Up host, storyteller, producer, presenter, artist advocate, filmmaker, teacher, and more. She has performed throughout the United States and in Rwanda. Her published work includes books of poetry, performances, and albums including Dare to Claim the Sky, American Dream, and SHOOK.
MICHAEL CHIN 
Michael Chin was born and raised in Utica, New York and currently lives in Las Vegas with his wife and son. His debut novel, My Grandfather’s an Immigrant and So is Yours (Cowboy Jamboree Press) came out in 2021, and he is the author of three previous full-length short story collections. His essay collection, Stories Wrestling Can Tell, is forthcoming in 2023. Chin also serves as a contributing editor for Moss, a journal of the Pacific Northwest. Find him online at miketchin.com and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.
EMCEES
DAREN DEAN
Daren Dean is the author of Far Beyond the Pale (Fiction Southeast, 2015), I’ll Still Be Here Long After You’re Gone: Stories (CJ Press, 2019), The Black Harvest: A Novel of the American Civil War (University of West Alabama’s Livingston Press, 2021) This Vale of Tears (CJ Press, 2021), and Roads (CJ Press, 2023). He has been featured in Bloom, Huffpost, and Ploughshares. He is a graduate of Central Methodist University. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His fiction and interviews have appeared in such places as the Blue Bob: An Anthology of Grit Lit As Incited by Bob Dylan, Bull, Chattahoochee Review, Ecotone, Fiction Southeast, Glimmer Train short story contest finalist, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Image, Louisiana Literature, Maryland Literary Review, Midwestern Gothic, Oklahoma Review, StorySouth, Cola Literary Review (Formerly Yemassee), and others. His short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. He is an Assistant Professor of English (Creative Writing Specialist) at Lincoln University of Missouri, where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship for 2021-2022.
Since 2007, Shaun Anthony McMichael has taught writing to students from around the world, in classrooms, juvenile detention halls, mental health treatment centers, and homeless youth drop-ins throughout the Seattle area. Over 70 of his works have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as The Chicago Tribune, Litro, Bull, Spoon River Review, and Pop Matters. He lives with his wife and son in West Seattle. He teachers English Language Learners at a high school in his neighborhood.
Shaun Anthony McMichael: Writer. Educator. Editor. 