Creating community led to dream career

Creating a sense of community has always been a central value for IAS alum Brittaney Bunjong, who graduated from the University of Washington Bothell in 2016 with a degree in Media & Communication Studies...

April 4, 2022

Ching-In Chen: Poetry of Activism

IAS faculty member Ching-In Chen attended the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference in Philadelphia last week. Chen presented work on the intersection of community organizing and poetry as part of the “Whenever the Wounds of Injustice are Salted We Will Gather: Poetry of Activism” ...

April 1, 2022

MFA Alum Eric Acosta Organizes Local Reading and Film Festival

Since completing his MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics, poet Eric Acosta (MFA 2020) has been engaged in fostering community among his cohort and within Seattle's vibrant literary and art scenes. Together with fellow alums Ashley Noelle (MFA 2020) and Reed Lowell (2019), he started a workshop to keep the conversation and feedback that are so central to the MFA experience flowing ...

March 29, 2022

Rebecca Brown interviewed in BOMB Magazine

IAS faculty member Rebecca Brown is interviewed in a piece entitiled "Working Beyond the End," published by BOMB Magazine. The interview cover's Brown's new book, You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe; themes that run through Brown's works, such as youth and innocence; Brown's treatment of characters; Brown's religious faith; and the need to have stories we can believe in. ...

March 28, 2022

Jennifer Atkinson featured in “Down with Doomscrolling”

IAS faculty member Jennifer Atkinson's teaching and research on mental health and climate change was featured in The Planet Magazine. The piece, titled Down with Doomscrolling, profiled young people and students in environmental fields who are struggling with emotional distress from engaging with difficult topics around ...

March 28, 2022

Julie Shayne: A literary lens on gender, race and power

The spirit of IAS faculty member Julie Shayne’s new class, The Power of Feminist Writing, is perhaps best captured in the words of Malala Yousufzai, a Pakistani activist for female education, who said, “One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.” ...

March 28, 2022

MFA Alum Jessica Hagy publishes 3 books

The pandemic has been a busy time for prolific MFA alum Jessica Hagy (MFA 2018), who has seen 3 volumes come out in the last two years. In 2020, Tartarus Press published One Morning, a gothic novel Hagy wrote as her MFA thesis. One Morning tells the story of twelve hours in Gour Borough, Pennsylvania through the interwoven perspectives of twelve women who ...

March 24, 2022

Jennifer Atkinson and Pulitzer-Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert speak about climate impacts

IAS faculty member Jennifer Atkinson teamed up with Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction and Under a White Sky, to discuss solutions to our climate crisis, as well as reasons for hope as we face the challenges ahead. Their joint talk at the 2022 Environmental Summit was sponsored by The Delta College President’s Speaker Series, which invited Atkinson and Kolbert as keynote speakers. ...

March 23, 2022

Becca Price: “Reframing Educational Outcomes”

In collaboration with Sarita Shukla (School of Educational Studies), Elli Theobald (Department of Biology, UW Seattle), and Joel Abraham (CSU Fullerton), IAS faculty member Becca Price has published an essay about how to honor and build from the strengths that students bring into the classroom. “So much of traditional teaching,” Price says ...

March 16, 2022