Live from Storyknife: August 2023
Leah Altman (Oglala Lakota) is a Native American transracial adoptee and was raised in the Portland area. She has written for several local and national publications, including Indian Country Today, Underscore, The Oregonian, Portland Monthly, Oregon Humanities, Portland State University’s Metroscape magazine, and Parents.com. Leah has an MFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MA in writing from Portland State University’s book publishing program.
Nicole Arocho Hernández is a Pushcart-nominated Puerto Rican poet. Her poems have been published in The Acentos Review, Electric Literature, Honey Literary, The Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, I Have No Ocean, was published by Sundress Publications. She received her MFA at Arizona State University.
Gabe Montesanti is the author of BRACE FOR IMPACT. Her work has been published in HuffPost, the LA Times, LitHub, Creative Nonfiction Magazine, Electric Literature, and Brevity. Her essay, “The Worldwide Roller Derby Convention” was recognized as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2020. She is currently at work on a memoir about drag.
Amber Flora Thomas is the author of three collections of poetry, Eye of Water, The Rabbits Could Sing, and Red Channel in the Rupture. A recipient of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and other awards, her poetry has been published widely in journals and anthologies.
Lucy Wong is an award-winning, published and produced writer. Her plays have been performed throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her prose has appeared in literary and trade magazines. Upon learning that she sold a half hour TV comedy pilot, feminist icon Gloria Steinem urged her to do stand-up — which was so exhilarating that Lucy began performing one-woman shows
Rachael Warecki is a MacDowell Fellow whose work has also been supported by residencies such as Ragdale and Storyknife. She lives in Los Angeles, where she’s originally from, and is currently at work on a series of alternate-history mystery novels.
Judith Wilding lives in Oregon. She is currently working on Living for Art and Other Ways to Fool Yourself, a memoir about a young girl looking for home in opera houses where her mother performed. Not for lack of trying, Wilding was forced from those narrow spaces of dying sopranos into a much wider, stranger reality.