Lauri Conner
President
Conner is a Cave Canem fellow whose poems have appeared in Calyx, Seattle Review, and other journals and anthologies. She holds a PhD and an MFA from the University of Washington and has taught at Cornish College of the Arts, Antioch University, and Seattle Central College. She is the Head of School at Lake Washington Girls Middle School.
The English teacher who was most influential in Conner’s life was Carol Tipton, her 8th and 12th grade English teacher, who taught her the great lesson: “Don’t be less than what your parents raised you to be.” When Conner is emperor of the world, her biggest accomplishment will be making everyone literate, and she’ll make all of her loyal subjects read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (which, coincidentally, is also the book she would read if only allowed to read a single book over and over again for the rest of her life).