BARN Writers’ Studio Teachers
The BARN Writers’ Studio is pleased to present classes and workshops led by masters of the craft. Our roster of teachers includes:
Kathleen Alcalá is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction. A graduate of the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, she also served as an instructor in the program. Kathleen earned her MA from the University of Washington and her MFA from the University of New Orleans. Until recently, she was a fiction instructor at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island. In addition to her short story collection and three novels, Kathleen has published fiction in numerous anthologies, most recently in the speculative fiction anthology Latin@ Rising, edited by Matthew David Goodwin and published by Wings Press. Her most recent book is The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island from the University of Washington Press.
Janee J. Baugher is the author of Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada Books) and The Body’s Physics (Tebot Bach), and she holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University. Her creative writing has been published in over 100 literary journals, including Tin House, The Southern Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Boulevard, Nano Fiction, and The Writer’s Chronicle. Since 1999 Baugher has taught creative writing in primary and secondary schools, at arts camps and libraries, and at colleges and universities. Additionally, she’s held editorial positions at several journals, including Willow Springs, Switched-on Gutenberg, and StringTown, and she’s currently a poetry reader for Boulevard. http://JaneeJBaugher.wordpress.com
Jason Black is a Seattle-area developmental editor who has helped scores of writers find the best in their work over the past nine years. Jason teaches writing, story structure, and character development classes through the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. He is a regular speaker at the PNWA Writers’ Conference and a member of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild’s speakers’ bureau. In addition to his blog, Jason’s articles on writing craft have been featured in PNWA’s Author magazine and the literary journal Line Zero. Jason edits for novelists in all genres, though his own novels, Bread for the Pharaoh, Pebblehoof, and Blackpelt are all middle-grade fiction. Find Jason online at PlotToPunctuation.com, or on Twitter as @p2p_editor.
Lynn Brunelle is a four-time Emmy Award-winning writer for Bill Nye the Science Guy with over 25 years’ experience writing for people of all ages, across all manner of media. Previously a classroom science, English, and art teacher for kids K-12, an editor, illustrator, and award-winning author of over 45 titles (Pop Bottle Science, Camp Out! World Almanac Puzzler Decks, Mama’s Little Book of Tricks), Lynn has created, developed, and written projects for Chronicle, Workman, National Geographic, Scholastic, Random House, Penguin, A&E, Discovery Channel, Disney, ABC TV, NBC, NPR, the Annenburg Foundation, World Almanac, Cranium, and PBS. A regular contributor to NBC’s New Day Northwest as a family science guru, Martha Stewart Radio as a family activity consultant, and a contributor to NPR’s Science Friday, she is the creator of the Mama Gone Geek blog and Tabletop Science (videos that make science fun and accessible). She has also written for several children’s and parenting magazines. Lynn won five Telly Awards and two CINE awards for her music videos, which range in topics from bullying prevention, child protection, and the adolescent brain for international curriculums through Committee for Children, to independent projects encouraging science literacy and STEAM. Her latest book for adults, a memoir called Mama Gone Geek, was released in 2014 and won the Independent Publishing Award Gold Medal. Her latest book for kids, Big Science for Little People: 52 Activities to Help You & Your Child Discover the Wonders of Science was released October 2016. Her newest book, Turn This Book into a Beehive will be released spring 2018 from Workman Publishing.
Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of several novels. Her work has been chosen for Amazon Book of the Month, Borders Original Voices, and Booksense/Indie Next. The Best Reviews says she writes “fascinating historical fiction.” Her novels have been translated into several different languages. Megan is a former television news photographer with a BA in broadcast communications from Western Washington University. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters.
Anne Clermont is the author of the novel Learning to Fall, which was was a 2016 Foreword Indies Finalist in general fiction and received praise from Robert Goolrick, Ellen Sussman, Sonja Yoerg, Tracy Guzemen, and others. It was featured in Coastal Living, Redbook, Popsugar, BuzzFeed, SheKnows, Inside Chic, Brit+Co, and more. Her work experience ranges from animal behavior to animal nutrition to cancer research, which has been published in a number of peer-reviewed scientific journals including Nature Biotechnology. She currently divides her time between writing and working as an editor and website designer for her company, Bookish Media. You can learn more about Anne at www.anneclermont.com or www.bookish.media.
Robert Dugoni is the New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon Bestselling Author of the six-book Tracy Crosswhite Series, which includes My Sister’s Grave, Her Final Breath, In the Clearing and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Trapped Girl. He is also the critically acclaimed author of the David Sloane Series. Dugoni has twice been nominated for the Harper Lee Award for Legal Fiction, was a 2015 International Thriller Writer’s finalist for thriller of the year, the 2015 winner of the Nancy Pearl Award for Fiction and a 2017 Edgar Award Finalist for the Seventh Canon. His books are sold worldwide in more than 27 countries and have been translated into 20 languages. Dugoni attended the UCLA law school and practiced law for 13 years in San Francisco. His longing to write never wavered, however, and in 1999 he awoke one morning and made the decision to quit law and write novels. Dugoni’s first novel, The Jury Master, became a New York Times bestseller. Booklist wrote, “Mixing the suspense of a Grisham legal thriller with the political angle of a Baldacci, Dugoni is knocking on the A-list thriller door.” Now the author of more than 14 books, Bob Dugoni is no longer knocking.
Christian Ford is a screenwriter with more than 20 professional credits, an essayist, an occasional director, and an extremely slow boat-builder. He has lived on Bainbridge Island since 2006.
Antonio Garcia is a brand strategist and art director who started his career in advertising and marketing 15 years ago in Madrid, Spain. Since then he has worked in London, Portland, and now the Greater Seattle Area. He has worked for advertising agencies, start-ups, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions, and as a freelance consultant.
Julie Gardner, an Amherst Writers & Artists Affiliate, has led WritersGathering groups, workshops and retreats in Seattle since 2011. At BARN, she has offered regular series since 2019. Participants say they learn more about their strengths, discover new ones, develop their repertoire of craft elements, take risks, generate writing, and have fun writing and learning from others.
Julie is the editor of Original Voices: Homeless and Formerly Homeless Women’s Writings. Recent works have been featured in Passager’s Pandemic Diaries, Persimmon Tree, and in Alone Together: Love, Grief and Comfort in the Time of Covid 19 which won the 2021 Washington State Book award for nonfiction. A current project has been collaborating with librettists Kamala Sankaram and Kristin Martig leading workshops to generate lyrics for Joan of the City, a site-specific multi-media opera that will use augmented reality/mixed reality to tell the story of a modern-day Joan of Arc through Opera on Tap.
Miranda Hersey is a life-design facilitator, certified creativity coach, writer, and editor. She is the author of the life-design workbooks Life by Design: 52 Lists, Questions, and Inspirations for Finding Your Happiness; The Power of Quiet: An Inspirational Journal for Introverts; and Press Pause: A Journal for Self-Care, Intention, and Slowing Down, all published by Castle Point Press/St. Martin’s Press. She is at work on a novel, which is in revisions. In addition to writing and coaching, Miranda provides communications consulting to small nonprofits. As an entrepreneur and the mother of five, Miranda is passionate about helping others live deeply satisfying, meaning-driven lives. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Boston Globe Magazine, Wild Apples, Sun Magazine, Bay Area Parent, and the Bainbridge Island Review, among other print and online publications. A short story she wrote was shortlisted for the Raymond Carver Short Fiction Award. A dual national of Britain and the US, in 2014 Miranda moved from Boston, MA, to Bainbridge Island, WA, where she happily overrun with books, people, and animals. For more on Miranda’s work, visit www.mirandahersey.com.
Holly J. Hughes is coauthor of The Pen and The Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World (Skinner House Press, 2012), author of Passings (Expedition Press, 2016) and Sailing by Ravens (University of Alaska Press, 2014), and editor of the anthology Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease (Kent State University Press, 2009). Holly has taught writing at Edmonds Community College for more than 25 years as well as at regional conferences and workshops, including LitFuse, FishTrap, Write on the Sound, the North Cascades Institute, and Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program, the Rainier Writers Workshop. Visit Holly at www.hollyjhughes.com.
Julie Christine Johnson is the award-winning author of the novels In Another Life (Sourcebooks, 2016) and The Crows of Beara (Ashland Creek Press, 2017). Her short stories and essays have appeared in several journals, including Emerge Literary Journal; Mud Season Review; Cirque: A Literary Journal of the North Pacific Rim; Cobalt; River Poets Journal, in the print anthologies Stories for Sendai; Up, Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers; and Three Minus One: Stories of Love and Loss; and featured on the flash fiction podcast No Extra Words. She holds undergraduate degrees in French and psychology and a master’s in international affairs. Julie leads writing workshops and seminars and offers story/developmental editing and writer coaching services. A hiker, yogi, and wine geek, Julie makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State.
H.M. Jones is the author of the award-winning dark fantasy, Monochrome, and its prequel, Fade to Blue. Her work is strewn across various short story anthologies, websites and poetry anthologies. She began her publishing journey in 2011, by self-publishing Monochrome, learning to format books and engage readers through intense study. She was successful enough in her pursuit that she engaged a publisher, who picked Monochrome up in 2015. She has since self-published several short novellas, two of which are graphic novellas. She owns her own indie-publishing house, Madame Geek Publications, and spends much of her “spare” time giving talks at conventions, when she is not teaching college English, computers, mothering her children, or writing books. Her website is www.hmjones.net, and she can be found tweeting around the twittersphere @HMJoneswrites.
Beth Jusino is a publishing consultant for both traditional and self-publishing authors, with almost 20 years of experience helping writers navigate the complicated space between manuscript and final book. A former literary agent and marketing director, she’s the author of the award-winning The Author’s Guide to Marketing and has ghostwritten or collaborated on half a dozen additional titles. Beth is a member of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild, a regular speaker for Seattle Public Library’s #SeattleWrites workshops, and has taught at writers’ conferences across the country. Visit her online at www.bethjusino.com or on Twitter @bethjusino.
William Kenower is the author of Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write with Confidence, and Write Within Yourself: An Author’s Companion. Editor-in-Chief of Author magazine, Kenower is a sought-after speaker and teacher. He’s been published in The New York Times and Edible Seattle, and has been a featured blogger for the Huffington Post. His video interviews with hundreds of writers from Nora Ephron, to Amy Tan, to William Gibson, are widely considered the best of their kind on the Internet. Bill also hosts the online radio program, Author2Author, where every week he and a different guest discuss the books we write and the lives we lead.
Newly published, Northwest author Kathryn Lafond, known for her love of ceremony and song — including at meal time, spent nearly 10 years writing Seasoned with Gratitude: 250 Recipes and Blessings Celebrating the Greater Nourishment of Real Food. For over 20 years she has served her Bainbridge Island community as an intuitive energy healer, spiritual guide, writer, health coach, home-chef, and singer, as well as teacher of wild foods and medicine classes. “Lafond writes with an infectious enthusiasm that keeps the pages flipping.” —Kirkus Reviews
Mike Lawson is the award-winning author of 15 published novels. He has been nominated for the Barry Award several times and has twice won the Portland-based Friends of Mystery Award for his Joe DeMarco political thriller series. The latest DeMarco work is House Witness. The first book in his second series, titled Rosarito Beach, involving a rogue DEA agent named Kay Hamilton, was optioned for television. Prior to turning to writing full time, Mike was a nuclear engineer employed by the Navy. He lives in the Northwest.
Priscilla Long is a Seattle-based writer of poetry, creative nonfiction, science, fiction, and history, and is a long-time independent teacher of writing. Her work appears widely and her five books are: Fire and Stone: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?(University of Georgia Press), Minding the Muse: A Handbook for Painters, Poets, and Other Creators (Coffeetown Press), and Crossing Over: Poems (University of New Mexico Press). Her how-to-write guide is The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life. She is also author of Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America’s Bloody Coal Industry. Her awards include a National Magazine Award. Her science column, Science Frictions, ran for 92 weeks in The American Scholar. She earned an MFA from the University of Washington and serves as founding and consulting editor of www.historylink.org, the online encyclopedia of Washington State history. She grew up on a dairy farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Jennifer Longo is a playwright and novelist with Random House Books. Her first two YA novels, Six Feet Over It and Up to This Pointe were both finalists for the Washington State Book Award. Jen holds a BA in acting from San Francisco State University and an MFA in playwriting from Humboldt State University. Her next novel (Random House, Fall 2018) is set in her forever home, her best writing inspiration — the beautiful PNW.
Donald Maass is a literary agent and writer. The Donald Maass agency in New York sells more than 150 novels every year to major publishers in the U.S. and overseas. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook(2004) and The Fire in Fiction (2009), Writing 21stCentury Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2016). He is a past president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc.
Jennifer K. Mann is a picture book author and illustrator from Bainbridge Island. Formerly an architect, she gleefully turned to picture books fulltime in 2012. She is the author and illustrator of Two Speckled Eggs, I Will Never Get a Star on Mrs. Benson’s Blackboard, Sam and Jump, and the forthcoming Josie’s Lost Tooth, all published by Candlewick Press. She is the illustrator of George Shannon’s Turkey Tot, and Alison McGhee’s Percy, Dog of Destiny.
Dinah Manoff is a Tony Award-winning actress. She has starred in a number of television series, including the classic Soap. Dinah is best known for her portrayal of Carol Weston, the character she played for seven years on the series Empty Nest, and for the memorable Pink Lady, Marty Maraschino in the film Grease. Other films include Ordinary People, in which she co-starred opposite Timothy Hutton as Karen, his suicidal best friend and I Oughta Be in Pictures opposite Walter Matthau. Dinah has also worked as a television writer and director. She is the daughter of writer Arnold Manoff and Oscar-winning actress Lee Grant. Currently Manoff resides with her family on Bainbridge Island, WA, where she writes, coaches, and teaches acting with the Northwest Actors Lab.
Maureen McQuerry is an award-winning poet, novelist. and teacher. Her YA novel, The Peculiars (Abrams/Amulet) is an ALA Best Book for YA 2013, Bank Street and Horne Book recommended book, and a winner of the Westchester Award. Her most recent books are an MG fantasy duo, Beyond the Door, a Booklist Top Ten Fantasy/SciFi for Youth, and The Telling Stone, a finalist for the WA State Book Awards. A new historical novel, Everything After (Blink/HarperCollins) will be released in February 2019. Her poetry appears in Relentless Light (Finishing Line Press), Southern Review, Smartish Pace, and Georgetown Review, among other journals. Maureen taught middle school through college for almost 20 years with a specialty in gifted education. In 2000 she was awarded the McAuliffe Teaching Fellowship for WA State. She currently supervises student teachers for WSU, is a board member of SCBWI Inland Northwest.
Before his thrillers landed him on the New York Times bestseller list, Kevin O’Brien was a railroad inspector. The author of 18 internationally-published thrillers, he won the Spotted Owl Award for Best Pacific Northwest Mystery and is a core member of Seattle 7 Writers. Press & Guide said: “If Alfred Hitchcock were alive today and writing novels, his name would be Kevin O’Brien.” Kevin’s latest nail-biter is Hide Your Fear. He’s hard at work on his 19th novel.
Shin Yu Pai is the author of several books including AUX ARCS, Adamantine, Sightings, and Equivalence. She is the recipient of grants from 4Culture, Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, and the Awesome Foundation. She is currently poet laureate of the City of Redmond and was a 2014 Stranger Genius Award nominee. She has also served as a poet in residence for the Seattle Art Museum. In 2010, she became a member of the Macondo Workshop for Writers. Her visual work has been exhibited at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, the Paterson Museum, American Jazz Museum, Three Arts Club of Chicago, Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, and the International Print Center. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Pai lives in Seattle.
Warren Read is the author of a 2008 memoir, The Lyncher in Me (Borealis Books), and the 2017 novel, Ash Falls (Ig Publishing). His short fiction has been published in Hot Metal Bridge, Mud Season Review, Sliver of Stone, Inklette, Switchback, and The East Bay Review. Warren has worked in education for 26 years and is currently an assistant principal with the Bainbridge Island School District.
Martha Kay Salinas writes young adult fiction about teens dealing with gritty, real-life issues. She enjoys creating characters braver than she dares to be. Endowing them with the strength to conquer evil is one of her greatest pleasures. Martha also works as a freelance editor. Her favorite types of projects are young adult fiction, women’s fiction, and cozy mysteries, but she also edits college admissions essays and academic papers as long as there’s no math or rocket science involved. Martha has two sons who have grown up nicely and she’s married to her high school sweetheart, Douglas. She has a MFA in creative writing from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. A native Texan, she lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Dinah Satterwhite is an active artist living in Bainbridge Island, Washington. She manages the regional Studio Tour and coaches artists. She is a professional photographer and specializes in photographing artists’ work. Her work is displayed in art galleries and stores. Dinah is experienced in marketing, copywriting, design, and layout.
Suzanne Selfors is a nationally bestselling author of more than 20 books for young readers. She’s won the WA State Book Award, four Junior Library Guild Awards, an Amazon Best Children’s Book Award, and her novels have been included on numerous state award lists. She has written for Mattel, Dreamworks, Harper Collins, Bloomsbury, Little Brown, and MacMillan.
Jennie Shortridge is the author of five bestselling novels, including Love Water Memory and When She Flew. Her books have been translated into several languages and optioned for film, as well as being selected as American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next picks and Library Journal’s Editors’ Picks. An avid volunteer, she is the co-founder of Seattle7Writers, a nonprofit collective of Northwest authors who raise money and awareness for literature and literacy. Learn more at www.jennieshortridge.com.
Author of the comedy romantic mystery, Affection for Crime, TM Smith has a master of arts degree in English. She taught English at the high school, community college, and university levels until she turned to the dark side of school administration. With retirement, she returned to her first love of writing.
Rodika Tollefson is a writer, editor and multimedia producer with more than 17 years of experience in journalism and communications. She is an internationally published writer, contributing writer, and editor to local publications as well as managing editor of WestSound Home & Garden’s blog. Rodika has written bylined, non-bylined, and ghostwritten articles for commercial blogs for Kitsap Peninsula businesses and nonprofits as well as national and international companies (including American Express OPEN Forum, GoToMeeting and Join.Me, Hertz, and more than a dozen cybersecurity companies). She’s dabbled with a few personal blogs, and her current work also includes providing editorial direction and article ideation for commercial blogs. Rodika has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and communications (cum laude) from the University of Alaska Anchorage and a master’s degree in digital media from the University of Washington. She has won various awards for her journalism and video work.
Bryan Tomasovich is the owner of the Publishing World, a Bainbridge-based company dedicated to assisting authors one-on-one with editing, agent research, and queries for traditional publishing, and full-service advising and project management for professionally self-published books. He has also worked as a senior editor at Emergency Press, an independent publisher based in New York, and as a professor of writing, literature, and media at Antioch University Seattle and the University of Puget Sound.
