2020 Artist Grant: Poetry
Kary Wayson
$5,000 Nancy Mee & Dennis Evans Award in the Arts
A longtime resident of Seattle, Kary Wayson works as a poetry teacher and freelance editor, as well as an associate editor for Poetry Northwest.
Kary has won many awards for her work, including the “Discovery”/The Nation Prize, the Crazyhorse/Linda Hull Memorial Prize, The Charles B. Wheeler Prize for her first book, American Husband, and The Burnside Review Prize for her second, The Slip.
Laura McKee
$2,500 Professional Poets Awards
Seattle poet Laura McKee received a BA from the University of Utah and an MFA from the University of Washington. Her first collection, Uttermost Paradise Place, published by Copper Canyon Press, was selected by Claudia Keelan for the 2009 APR/Honickman First Book Prize. See You Soon was published through the University of Arkansas Press as a finalist for the Miller Williams Prize.
Rena Priest
$2,500 Professional Poets Awards
A poet and a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation, Rena Priest’s literary debut, Patriarchy Blues, was honored with a 2018 American Book Award. Her most recent collection, Sublime Subliminal, was selected as the finalist for the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. She is a National Geographic Explorer and a Jack Straw Writer (2019). She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Bellingham.
Jeannine Hall Gailey
$900 Professional Poets Honorable Mention Awards
Woodinville poet Jeannine Hall Gailey is the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.
Jenifer Browne Lawrence
$900 Professional Poets Honorable Mention Awards
Jenifer Browne Lawrence is the author of Grayling (Perugia Press) and One Hundred Steps from Shore (Blue Begonia Press). Her awards include the Perugia Press Prize, the Orlando Poetry Prize, and the James Hearst Poetry Prize. Her work appears in Cincinnati Review, Los Angeles Review, Narrative, North American Review, and elsewhere. Jenifer lives in Poulsbo, WA, and has recently retired from serving as editor-in-chief for Crab Creek Review.
Derek Sheffield
$900 Professional Poets Honorable Mention Awards
Derek Sheffield’s collection, Not for Luck, won the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize judged by Mark Doty and is forthcoming from Michigan State University Press in 2021. His other books include Through the Second Skin, finalist for the Washington State Book Award, and Dear America. A professor of English at Wenatchee Valley College and poetry editor of Terrain.org, he lives with his family in Leavenworth.
Judith Camann
$1,000 Emerging Poets Awards
A poet, knitter and education specialist living in Seattle, Judith Camann recently earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Ashland University, adding to her advanced degrees in early childhood education, special education and counseling.
Video contains strong language
Linda Malnack
$1,000 Emerging Poets Awards
Linda Malnack lives in Normandy Park. Her poetry chapbook, 21 Boxes, was published by dancing girl press in 2016. She was co-editor for the on-line poetry journal, Switched-on Gutenberg, for 20+ years and currently volunteers as an Assistant Poetry Editor for Crab Creek Review.
Holly Thomas
$1,000 Emerging Poets Awards
Holly Thomas is a freelance editor, writer, poet, and artist with more than thirty years of wordsmithing experience. A native of upstate New York, she moved to Seattle in the mid-1990s and now lives on Whidbey Island. Her first book, Pluck Another Apple, Eve, And Finish It, was published in 2019.
Joanna Thomas
$1,000 Emerging Poets Awards
Both poet and visual artist, Joanna lives in Ellensburg. Her poems have appeared in Found Poetry Review, petrichor, and Picture Sentence; her chapbook blue•bird (bloo-burd) is forthcoming from Milk & Cake Press in 2021. You can find her at https://joannathomas.xyz and https://inlandpoetry.com/
Scott Woodham
$1,000 Emerging Poets Awards
An Associate English instructor at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, Scott was chosen to receive a 2019 Exceptional Faculty Award grant. He is a former Opinion Pages Editor and columnist at Alaska Dispatch News and earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Murray State University in Kentucky.