Role: Writer

Daniel Tam-Claiborne is a multiracial writer, multimedia producer, and nonprofit director. He is the author of the short story collection What Never Leaves, and his writing has appeared in Catapult, Literary Hub, Off Assignment, The Rumpus, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. A 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, he has also received support from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Kundiman, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the New York State Summer Writers Institute, and others. His debut novel-in-progress, Transplants, was a finalist for the 2023 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Daniel holds degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he lives with his wife and daughter in Seattle. Learn more at travelbreedscontent.com.

Joyce Chen is a writer, editor, and community builder who draws inspiration from many coastal cities. She is the current Hugo House writer-in-residence, and was a 2019-2020 Hugo House Fellow. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Poets & Writers, Lit Hub, Narratively, and Slant’d, among others, and she contributes book reviews to Orion and Hyphen magazines. She has received support through Hugo House, VONA, Tin House, Vermont Studio Center, and Centrum, and she is the executive director of The Seventh Wave, an arts and literary nonprofit that champions art in the space of social issues.

Erica Berry is a writer and teacher based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Her essays appear in publications such as the Guardian, The New York Times, Yale Review, The Atlantic, and Orion, and her first book, Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell about Fear, was published by Flatiron/Macmillan in 2023. She is currently an Associate Fellow at the Attic Institute for Arts and Letters and a writing instructor with Literary Arts in Portland. Find her online at @ericajberry or ericaberry.com.

Marcus Harrison Green is the publisher of Hinton Publishing, the founder of the South Seattle Emerald, and a columnist with the Seattle Times. Growing up in South Seattle, he experienced first-hand the impact of one-dimensional stories on marginalized communities, which taught him the value of authentic narratives. After an unfulfilling stint in the investment world during his twenties, Marcus returned to his community with a newfound purpose of telling stories with nuance, complexity, and multidimensionality with the hope of advancing social change. This led him to become a writer and found the South Seattle Emerald. An award-winning journalist, he was awarded the Seattle Human Rights Commissions’ Individual Human Rights Leader Award for 2020, and named the inaugural James Baldwin Fellow by the Northwest African American Museum in 2022.

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe is from the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribes. Native to the Pacific Northwest she draws inspiration from her coastal heritage as well as her life in the city. She writes with a focus on trauma and resilience, ranging topics from PTSD, sexual violence, the work her great grandmother did for Lushootseed language revitalization, to loud basement punk shows and what it means to grow up mixed heritage. Sasha received a double MFA from The Institute of American Indian Arts with a focus on creative nonfiction and poetry. She teaches creative writing at the Native Pathways Program at Evergreen and has been a mentor for Seattle’s youth poet laureate program. Her memoir Red Paint has received starred reviews from Kirkus and Shelf Awareness and is available through Counterpoint Press. Her collection of poetry Rose Quartz is available through Milkweed Press. Thundersong, a collection of essays is forthcoming from Counterpoint Press in spring of 2024.

Armin Tolentino is the author of the collection We Meant to Bring It Home Alive (Alternating Current Press) and served as poet laureate for Clark County from 2021-2024. He earned an MFA at Rutgers University-Newark and his writing has appeared in journals including Rigorous, Gobshite Quarterly, Portland Magazine, and Pontoon Poetry. He is a phenomenal clapper, a passable ukulele player, and a bumbling, but enthusiastic, fisherman. More info at armintolentino.com.

Bruce Poinsette is a writer and community organizer whose work is primarily based in the Portland Metro Area. He hosts the YouTube series “The Blacktastic Adventure: A Virtual Exploration of Oregon’s Black Diaspora” and “The Bruce Poinsette Show” on The Numberz FM.  A former reporter for the Skanner News Group, his writing has also appeared in the Oregonian, Street Roots, Oregon Humanities, and Eater PDX, as well as projects such as the Mercatus Collective and the Urban League of Portland’s State of Black Oregon 2015. In addition to his professional writing work, Poinsette also volunteers with Respond to Racism LO, a grassroots anti-racism organization in his hometown of Lake Oswego, Oregon. Learn more at youtube.com/brucepoinsette.

Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. As the singer-songwriter front of her jazz-inspired, country-sauced blues band, Last of the RedHot Mamas, Flame sings about Black queer life. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame’s poetry and essays have been published in diverse arenas and anthologies, including Wanting: Women Writing About Desire, Alone Together, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, and Split This Rock. Her first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame’s second book of poetry, apocrifa, launched May 2023 from Red Hen Press. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks. Learn more at theamberflame.com.

Mamie Stevenson Morago is a writer living in Portland with her husband, sister, and two chihuahuas. Having studied English Literature at Reed, Mamie was fortunate to explore many genres of writing throughout her college education, including creative nonfiction, literary analysis, poetry, and translation. Her career has spanned a decade, ranging from manuscript editing to copywriting to journalistic reporting. 

In addition to having multiple pieces published in Portland Mercury, Mamie writes and performs eulogies as a funeral celebrant, volunteers as a DJ on XRAY FM’s Mating Calls, and thinks up new ideas for her novel and book of essays that have been in the works since 2016.