RASP: Redmond Association of Spokenword

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of two collections of short fiction, This Life She’s Chosen and Swimming With Strangers. She has been the recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers Conference and the MacDowell Colony. She is a 2016 Jack Straw Writing Program resident, and she teaches at the Attic Learning Community in Woodinville and at Seattle’s Richard Hugo House.

Ramon Isao is a recipient of the Tim McGinnis Award for Fiction, as well as a writing fellowship from Jack Straw Cultural Center. His stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, Hobart, and The American Reader. His screenplay credits includeDead Body, Zombies of Mass Destruction, and Junk (in which he costars). He has an MFA from Columbia University, and he teaches creative writing at Hugo House in Seattle.

Ruby Hansen Murray’s prose and poetry appears in Wild in the Willamette, Oregon Humanities Magazine, Yellow Medicine Review, Tribal College Journal, Salal, The Lake Rises, and About Place. She teaches creative writing in rural and tribal settings. A VONA fellow, she’s been awarded residencies at the Sitka Island Institute, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Brush Creek, Jentel, Playa, and Hypatia-in-the-Woods. She is completing an MFA in creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

MC—Kara Simon

IMPORTANT: VALA (and RASP) is moving across the mall!

Beginning in September 2016, RASP will meet in the new home of VALA Eastside at Redmond Town Center, at 7325 166th Ave NE Suite F (directions). That's on the southeast side of the center circle; (in the old Ann Taylor location between Lucy Activewear and Claire's on the old Borders side). (see RTC directory).

VALA stands for Venues for Artists in the Local Area. It is an artist-friendly place (and we all agree that poetry and writing are major arts) and offers more flexability that our previous location. We thank the leaders, staff and volunteers at VALA for their generous support of RASP and for the use of their artist-centric location.

Be sure to read the article in the Redmond Reporter about VALA, RASP, and our new location——"RASP to blend its written, spoken art with the visual arts."

Judith Skillman’s latest book is House of Burnt Offerings (Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press). Her work has appeared in J Journal, Tampa Review, Prairie Schooner, Field, The Iowa Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, Pontoon, and other journals and anthologies. Awards include an Eric Mathieu King Fund grant from the Academy of American Poets. Kafka’s Thistle, a collection of poetry about the relationships, life, loves and works of Franz Kafka, is forthcoming in September 2017 from Deerbrook Editions. Currently she works on manuscript review. Her website is www.judithskillman.com.

MC—Michael Heavener

MC—Michael Dylan Welch