Seattle Arts and Lectures

As Youth Programs Manager I support a variety of programs all with an essential, vibrant purpose: empowering our local young people to create, write, speak, and dream. Among other things, I work with our Writers in the Schools program. We support a space that ensures that elementary, middle school, and high school students have the opportunity to realize the strength of their own voices–and the joy inherent in exercising that voice. We are able to do that by supporting local teaching artists who (with compassion and creativity) go into classrooms and foster that strength, that resilience, that joy in young writers. Collaboration with a number of different partners is essential to my role–and that collaboration leads to intentionally built community, one of the world’s most powerful forces.

I loved slipping between the pages of many different books when I was a kid–I loved losing myself in different worlds like a braver child might have enjoyed losing themselves in a hedge maze. But, when I think back to what I loved most, I remember Sam the Cat Detective and The Westing Game and anything with Wayside School in the title. The voices of the characters in those books curled around my way of being and shaped it with their distinctiveness.

I am an avid short story reader, so if you happen to look at my desk, you will find a variety of short story collections. As I cycle through them, you might find Ted Chiang’s Exhalation or Izumi Suzuki’s Terminal Boredom on my desk. I love being able to flip open a collection and read a story that perfectly and briefly captures a mood or a thought or the beginnings of a mode of being.Before I came to this position I spent over a decade as a public school classroom teacher. Most of my time was spent teaching high school English, and during that time I was able to experience the breadth and depth of creative thought of many, many wonderful students. Whether I was reading a graphic novel about a family trip to Vietnam, a memoir about fencing, or a ghost story meant for the dark, I saw the power that words can have over and over again.

My ideal Sunday would be a space for breathing and being–for finding a bit of peace in the midst of the details of life. That would mean spending some time writing, playing board games with friends, and competitively playing Wordle against my partner. There would be delicious food in there as well, most likely centered on brunch (the perfect meal to balance sweet and savory).