b e t w e e n s p a c e s
University of Washington Bothell MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics, Kelsey Street Press, Essay Press and Bellingham Review host a hybridisciplinary phonetic transference (an awp offsite reading) featuring Ally Ang, Kiran Bath, Steven Dunn, Valerie Hsiung, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Dennis James Sweeney and Keith S. Wilson.
Kelsey Street Press authors reading:
Kiran Bath is a lawyer, poet and essayist who currently resides in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in NAILED, Live FAST magazine and the Bridge. As a self-proclaimed coffee snob, she is permanently searching for the perfect macchiato. This past fall, she was named a Brooklyn Poets Fellow for study in Jason Koo’s workshop on writing to different audiences, Dear Readers.
Andrea Abi-Karam is a trans, arab-american punk poet-performer cyborg, workshop facilitator, and activist. Their chapbook, THE AFTERMATH (2016), queers Fanon’s vision of how poetry fails to inspire revolution. Under the full Community Engagement Scholarship, Andrea received their MFA in Poetry from Mills College. With Drea Marina they co-hosted Words of Resistance [2012-2017] a monthly, radical, QTPOC open floor poetry series to fundraise for political prisoners’ commissary funds. Selected by Bhanu Kapil, Andrea’s debut EXTRATRANSMISSION (2019) is a poetic critique of the U.S. military’s role in the War on Terror. Andrea toured with Sister Spit in 2018 and has performed at RADAR, The Poetry Project, The STUD, Basilica Soundscape, TransVisionaries, Southern Exposure, Counterpulse, & Radius for Arab-American Writers. They have taught workshops at the New York Public Library, San Francisco Public Library, Naropa University, Silent Barn, Rock Paper Scissors, Wesleyan University, Barnard College, Seattle University, Bay Area Trans Writers, and FARR Concordia. With Kay Gabriel, they co-edited We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (2020). Chosen by Simone White, Andrea’s second book, Villainy (2021) reimagines militant collectivity in the wake of the Ghost Ship Fire and the Muslim Ban. Villainy was a 2022 Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry. They are a recipient of the inaugural 2023 Jerome Alternates Grant Award.
Other Readers:
Ally Ang is a gaysian poet and editor based in Seattle. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, their work has been published in Foglifter, Columbia Journal, The Margins, and elsewhere. Ally has received fellowships and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Artist Trust, and the Jack Straw Writers Program. Find them at allysonang.com or on Twitter and IG @TheOceanIsGay.
Valerie Hsiung is a poet, interdisciplinary artist, and the author of several poetry and hybrid writing collections, including The Naif (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2024), The only name we can call it now is not its only name (Counterpath, forthcoming 2023), To love an artist (Essay Press, 2022), selected by Renee Gladman for the 2021 Essay Press Book Prize, outside voices, please (CSU), selected for the 2019 CSU Open Book Prize, Name Date of Birth Emergency Contact (The Gleaners), YOU & ME FOREVER (Action Books), and e f g (Action Books). Her writing has appeared in print (Annulet, BathHouse Journal, The Believer, Chicago Review, digital vestiges, The Nation, New Delta Review), in flesh (Treefort Music Festival, Common Area Maintenance, The Poetry Project), in sound waves (Montez Press Radio, Hyle Greece), and other forms of particulate matter. Her work has been supported by Foundation for Contemporary Arts, PEN America, Lighthouse Works, and public streets and trails she has walked on and hummed along for years. Born in the Year of the Earth Snake and raised by Chinese-Taiwanese immigrants in Cincinnati, Ohio, she now lives in the mountains of Colorado where she teaches as Assistant Professor of Creative Writing & Poetics at Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
Dennis James Sweeney is the author of You're the Woods too (Essay Press, 2023) and In the Antarctic Circle (Autumn House Press, 2021). His writing has appeared in Ecotone, Five Points, Ninth Letter, The New York Times, and The Southern Review, among others. Formerly a Small Press Editor of Entropy and Assistant Editor of Denver Quarterly, he has an MFA from Oregon State University and a PhD from the University of Denver. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Diana Khoi Nguyen - A poet and multimedia artist, Diana Khoi Nguyen is the author of Ghost Of (Omnidawn 2018) which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and forthcoming collection, Root Fractures (Scribner 2024). Nguyen is a Kundiman fellow, recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and winner of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Colorado Book Award. In 2022, she was the inaugural artist-in-residence in Asian American Studies at Brown University. Currently, she is core faculty in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
Steven Dunn, aka Pothole (because he's deep in these streets) is the author of two novels from Tarpaulin Sky Press: Potted Meat and water & power. His third novel, Tannery Bay, is co-written with his homie Katie Jean Shinkle and forthcoming from FC2 in 2024.
Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian Poet and a Cave Canem fellow. He is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and an Illinois Arts Council Agency Award, and has received both a Kenyon Review Fellowship and a Stegner Fellowship. Additionally, he has received fellowships or grants from Bread Loaf, Tin House, and the MacDowell Colony, among others. His book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon), was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry.