Get Lit! Festival 2019

This panel discussion, featuring six award-winning writers, will provide insight into how to find the right experience for you; the writers will discuss their experiences—from research to the application process to how to make the most of your time. Lindsey Drager has received fully funded residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the I-Park Foundation. Sierra Golden has been awarded fellowships and residencies by Hedgebrook, Hugo House, and The Elizabeth George Foundation. Keetje Kuipers has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a Bread Loaf fellow, and the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. Rena Priest's has been a Sustainable Arts Fellow at Mineral School, and attended a writer’s residence at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland in 2019. Anca L. Szilágyi is the recipient of awards and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust, 4Culture, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Made at Hugo House, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. Dujie Tahat has earned fellowships from the Richard Hugo House and Jack Straw Writing Program.

EWU’s Career Services is co-sponsoring a panel discussion that will help writers master the art of self promotion. Moderated by Career Advisor and MFA alum, Aileen Keown Vaux, the panel will feature Asa Maria Bradley, author of the sexy modern-day Viking Warriors paranormal romance series. Her work has received many accolades, including a Holt Medallion and a Booksellers’ Best Award. Isaac Marion is the author of Warm Bodies, which become a New York Times Bestseller, inspired a major film, and was translated into 25 languages. He spent the next eight years writing the rest of the story over the course of four books, now concluded with The Living. Bethany Montgomery is an Eastern Washington University alumna who is currently pursuing her passion for poetry. She envisioned the concept of Power 2 the Poetry, which is a collective that aims to increase visibility and empower poets to help make positive social changes. Margaret Starry is the Events Coordinator for Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA. With a particular passion for literary events, she has organized readings for and hosted bestselling authors with Auntie's such as Ransom Riggs, Kate Quinn, Delia Owens, and Stephanie Land. 

We would like to think Career Services for their sponsorship. 

*This event will be from 9:30-10:30 and this exact same panel will be repeated again form 10:30-11:30.
Join us for an exploration into contemporary comics and their place in the literary canon. Four artists and writers will discuss their journeys into the world of comic creation and how you can find your own style. Kate J. Reed lives, writes, draws and works in Spokane. Her fiction has appeared in The Copper Nickel, Spokesman-Review summer stories and various online journals. Her first published comic appeared in Lilac City Fairytales: Towers and Dungeons. She retook up illustration after finding life as a working parent didn't afford the quiet hours sitting at a writing desk she needed. Tim Greenup’s first poetry collection, Without Warning, was published in 2016 by Scablands Books. His work has appeared in LEVELER, Sixth Finch, BOAAT, and elsewhere. He teaches at Spokane Falls Community College. Emma Noyes (Sinixt band of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation) is an artist, researcher, and educator living and working in Spokane. Emma has continued the story telling tradition of her family by finding ways to depict characters of chaptix’/coyote stories. She mainly works in brush and ink.  Maxx Follis-Goodkind is an interdisciplinary artists, crafter, designer, curator, and community organizer. She is the Director and Co-Founder of Push/Pull, Program Director of Greater Ballard Arts (Ballard Night Out) and teaches classes at Push/Pull and other locations in Seattle. 

We would like to thank Spokane Community College for their sponsorship.

*This panel will be one hour (approximately 9:30-10:30) and then it will repeat in a second session from approximately 10:30-11:30.

From robots to Tasmanian tigers to “modern-day witch hunts,” and a kid with a pet octopus, these fiction writers are breaking new ground and making waves in the literary scene. With riveting prose, unusual characters, and gripping plotlines, these writers will make you see the world in a new way. Simeon Mills is a writer, cartoonist, and teacher. His novel The Obsoletes, is forthcoming this summer. He is also the author/creator of the graphic novel Butcher Paper. Leyna Krow is the author of the short story collection, I’m Fine, But You Appear to be Sinking. Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of What We Do With the Wreckage, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. She is also the author of Swimming with Strangers, and This Life She’s Chosen. Leni Zumas is the author of Red Clocks, Farewell Navigators, and The Listeners. Red Clocks is a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and has entered its third printing. She is the director of the creative writing program at Portland State University.

Join us for a conversation about the ins and outs of writing scripts for television and movies, adapting literary writing to the screen, and working with producers, actors, and directors to make your vision come to life on the screen. The discussion will be lead by EWU film professor and director of the Spokane International Film Festival, Chase Ogden. Ogden has been a part of hundreds of film projects and commercials, an has had short films in over 50 festivals around the world. Isaac Marion is the author of Warm Bodies, which was turned into the 2013 hit film of the same name. Juan Mas is a local producer and director who works in film, television and theater. He was a director for five seasons on SyFy’s Z NATION. Jason (J.D.) McKee has served as VFX Supervisor on a horror film and on the Z NATION series. He has also directed multiple episodes of Z NATION. J.D. has edited multiple feature films, directed many short films and episodes for television, and is the CO-Founder of MODEfx, a Spokane based VFX company.  While studying at UCSC, Bethany C. Morrow created a two-quarter independent study course to produce and direct an original screenplay, adapted from one of her short stories. Her screenwriting is currently represented by Lia Chan at ICM. Malcolm Pelles is a screenwriter, playwright, and professor. He has written scripts for CBS Entertainment, the National Football League, Gameloft, and the United States Army, among other organizations. His plays have been performed Off-Broadway in New York City and in Washington, DC.

Join Get Lit! in beautiful Coeur d'Alene on the campus of North Idaho College to hear from local playwriting professionals. Susan Hardie has performed in and directed scores of productions throughout Spokane and the region for nearly forty years. Her collaborative work with playwright Bryan Harnetiaux and performer David Casteal in the original play York traveled extensively throughout the country and earned a City of Spokane Arts Award. Bryan Harnetiaux has been a Playwright-in-Residence at Spokane Civic Theatre in Spokane, Washington, since 1982. Thirteen of his plays have been published including stage adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Killers, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Long Walk to Forever. Sandra Hosking is a professional editor, writer, playwright, and photographer based in Spokane. Her plays have been performed in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere. Hosking holds an M.F.A. in theatre/playwriting from the University of Idaho and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Eastern Washington University.
Kathleen Jeffs is Chair of the Theatre and Dance Department at Gonzaga University. Jeffs completed her D.Phil. at the University of Oxford and lectured on Golden Age drama at Oxford and Cambridge, and taught drama at the University of Sussex. This discussion will be moderated by Dr. Jonathan Johnson, author of three collections of poetry, most recently May Is An Island and two memoirs. Johnson is a professor at EWU and his play about John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Ode, premiered in 2013 as part of the Get Lit! Festival. Johnson is currently teaching a special graduate-level playwriting course at EWU. 

We would like to thank North Idaho College for their sponsorship.

Originating in eighteenth century Paris, a salon gathers people together around discussions of literature, art, and philosophy. Poets Kaveh Akbar, Kelly Schirmann, Janaka Stucky, Claudia Castro Luna, and Anastacia-Renee Tolbert will engage in a discussion centered around poetry and the writing life — the poets may also choose to read short sections of their own work. The discussion will be moderated by poet Ellen Welcker.

Kaveh Akbar's poems appear recently in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Times, The Nation, and elsewhere. His first book, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, is just out with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches in the MFA program at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College.

Claudia Castro Luna is the Poet Laureate of Washington State (2018-2020) She served as Seattle’s first Civic Poet from 2015-2017 and is the author of Killing Marías (Two Sylvia's Press) shortlisted for the 2018 Washington State Book Award and nominated to a 2018 Pushcart. She also is the author of This City (Floating Bridge Press). Born in El Salvador she came to the United States in 1981 fleeing civil war. She has an MFA in poetry from Mills College, an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA and a K-12 teaching certificate. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, La Bloga, Diálogo, Psychological Perspectives and the Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art among others. Her non-fiction work can be read in the anthologies, This Is The Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press), The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the US, (Northwestern University Press) and Vanishing Points: Contemporary Salvadoran Narrative, (Kalina Eds) Living in English and Spanish, Claudia writes and teaches in Seattle where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and their three children.

Janaka Stucky is a mystic poet, performer, and founding editor of the award-winning press, Black Ocean. In 2015 Jack White’s Third Man Records launched a new publishing imprint, Third Man Books, and chose Janaka’s full-length poetry collection, The Truth Is We Are Perfect, as their inaugural title. Other books include Your Name Is The Only Freedom, The World Will Deny It For You, and his latest book, Ascend Ascend (Third Man Books, 2019). He has performed in over 60 cities around the world. His poems have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Fence and North American Review, and his articles have been published by The Huffington Post and The Poetry Foundation. He is also a two-time National Haiku Champion. More at janakastucky.com.

Kelly Schirmann is a writer, musician, ceramicist, and visual artist from Northern California. She is the author of Popular Music and the co-author, with Tyler Brewington, of Boyfriend Mountain and Nature Machine. Her music projects include headband (solo), Sung Mountains (with Jason Fiske), and Young Family (with Sam Pink). She is the founding editor of Black Cake, a record label for contemporary poetry and other experiments, and the co-creator of OMO, Public Access and Friendship Collective. Other projects include Americans for Responsible Technology (A.R.T.), Idea Book, and Human/Website. She currently lives in Missoula, Montana.

Anastacia-Renee is a multi-genre writer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. She is the recipient of the 2018, James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Award for Washington artists (Artist Trust), and has served as the Seattle Civic Poet from 2017-2019, and the 2015-2017 Poet-in-Residence at Hugo House. Anastacia-Renee is a two-time Pushcart nominee and 2017 Artist of Year (Seattle). She is the author of five books: Forget It (Black Radish Books), (v.), (Black Ocean) 26, (Dancing Girl Press), Kiss Me Doll Face (Gramma Press) and Answer(Me) (Winged City Chapbooks, Argus Press) and has received writing fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Artist Trust, Jack Straw, Ragdale, Whiteley, Mineral School and Hypatia in the Woods. Her cross-genre writing has appeared in a TEDx talk and the anthologies: Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism, Sinister Wisdom: Black Lesbians—We Are the Revolution, Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks and: Ms. Magazine, Split this Rock, Painted Bride Quarterly, Crab Creek Review, Seattle Review, The Fight & the Fiddle, Duende, Poetry Northwest, Synaethesia, Banqueted, Torch, Mom Egg Review, The Magazine of Glamorous Refusal, Pinwheel Journal, and many more. She teaches poetry and multi-genre workshops at Hugo House, libraries, universities, and high schools.

Come hear publishers and authors share some of their most memorable adventures in the publishing industry. The conversation will be moderated by Janaka Stucky, founding editor of the award-winning press, Black Ocean. His poetry collection, The Truth Is We Are Perfect was the inaugural title of Third Man Books, a publishing imprint of Jack White’s Third Man Records. Other books include Your Name Is The Only Freedom, The World Will Deny It For You, and Ascend Ascend. Panelists include Kelly Schirmann, author of Popular Music and the co-author, with Tyler Brewington, of Boyfriend Mountain and Nature Machine. She is the founding editor of Black Cake, a record label for contemporary poetry and other experiments, and the co-creator of OMO, Public Access and Friendship Collective. Christopher Howell has published eleven poetry collections, most recently Love’s Last Number. His work has appeared in a number of anthologies and journals, including Colorado Review, Crazy Horse, Field, Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He has won three Pushcart Prizes, two National Endowment Fellowships, two fellowships from the Artist Trust, and the Stanley W. Lindberg Award for Editorial Excellence. Greg Gerding is the author of five books of prose poetry, a collection of essays, and an oral history on the subject of intimacy. Gerding is the founder of University of Hell Press, which started as a self-publishing brand, and is the Editor-in-Chief of The Big Smoke America. Christine Holbert is the founding director of Lost Horse Press. Christine reviews and edits manuscripts, designs covers and text, typesets books, designs catalogs, promotes Lost Horse books, manages marketing, oversees interns and volunteers, and negotiates with distributors, bookstores, printers, authors, and other publishers.  

Six friends, all writers who met long ago in Missoula, Montana, will discuss their long, strange, meandering pathways to publication. This panel will take a close look at obstacles, frustration, rejection, gratitude, and the rare and exultant fist-pump of triumph. At the heart of the discussion is the notion that there is no normal, easy route to literary success, and that success, itself, is an ever-morphing and elusive animal.

Jeremy N. Smith is the author of Breaking and Entering, Epic Measures, and Growing a Garden City. A graduate of Harvard College and the University of Montana, he has written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Discover, among other outlets, and he and his work have been featured by CNN, NPR News, and Wired. He lives in Montana.

Rob Schlegel is the author of three award-winning poetry collections. The most recent, In The Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps, won the 2018 Iowa Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. In 2017-18 he taught in Portland State University's MFA Program. With Rawaan Alkhatib and Daniel Poppick, he co-edits the Catenary Press.

Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel is the author of the essay collection Fear Icons, winner of the inaugural Gournay Prize. Her essays have appeared in journals such as Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast and the anthology Marry a Monster. A graduate of the University of Montana's Environmental Studies Program and the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, she now teaches creative writing at Whitman College.  

Amy Ratto Parks is the author of How to Remember the World (forthcoming, 2019), Song of Days, Torn and Mended, and Bread and Water Body, the winner of the Merriam Frontier Chapbook Prize. Her poems have appeared in Mid-American Review, Interim, Mikrokosmos, The Mississippi Review, Court Green, and Barrow Street among others. Ratto Parks has worked as a reporter, a freelance writer and online writing course designer, and an editor of Writer’s Digest, Fiction Writer, and Cutbank literary magazine. She currently teaches at the University of Montana.

Sharma Shields is the author of a short story collection, Favorite Monster (Autumn House Press), and two novels, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra (Henry Holt). Sharma’s writing has appeared in Catapult, Slice, Electric Lit, The New York Times, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review and elsewhere and has garnered such awards as the 2016 Washington State Book Award, the Autumn House Fiction Prize, and a grant from Artist Trust. Sharma has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State and now lives in Spokane with her husband and two young children.

Simeon Mills is a writer, cartoonist, and teacher. His novel The Obsoletes is forthcoming in May from Skybound Books. His graphic novel Butcher Paper received a 2012 Artist Trust grant and is currently available from Scablands Books. Chapters of Butcher Paper have appeared in The Florida Review, RiverLit, Rock & Sling, The Pinch Journal, and Okey-Panky. He majored in architecture at Columbia University and received his MFA in fiction from the University of Montana. Mills teaches drawing at Eastern Washington University and middle school English in Spokane, Washington, where he lives with his wife and two children.