Non Fiction
J.D. Isip
Richmond, Texas
"As far as being an outsider, I like to tell folks, “I’m a gay man who grew up in government housing; I went from being poor and fat to being poor and gay, and then just gay and fat. I’ve learned to embrace my outsider feelings, and I think that has allowed me to attract friends and colleagues. Still, as you will see in my writing, I have never been able to totally shake the idea that I am an anomaly. Granted, when you really talk to folks, when they get super honest, there aren’t many who don’t share this same anxiety. There is a little comfort in that."
Otto Kitsinger
Boise, Idaho
"I failed photography in high school, so of course now I am a photographer, mostly performance and news and sports and events. Covid and capitalism made a mess of that. I still take pictures, but now, despite the lowest score on my high school test being for the essay section, I am trying to write, too. I’m not sure how well that’s working, but I’m not sure free will exists. I think I understand baseball, the desert, and why I can’t sleep, but I probably understand none of them. When I’m home, I dream of the road; when I’m on the road, I dream of home. I know where I live, but sometimes I wonder where or when home is."
Non-Fiction
Cristie Coffing
Snoqualmie, Washington
"I was born into chaos, learning early that imagination was my greatest ally...As a bartender, server, dancer, and writer, I feel most at home on a stage or behind a bar. Unable to escape my chaotic upbringing, I have found myself lying with addiction on cold floors, dancing with poverty beneath waxing moons, and walking with suffering in rain-soaked fields. My job, I feel, as an artist is to lift the shroud and expose the raw in the margins of normalcy. As if to say, See? Follow me. Let me tell you a story…
David Kohen
Central Valley, California
"I have often felt outside of geographic rootedness. Moving across so many states made it hard to think of identity as belonging naturally to one place. Even after I committed myself to Alaska, I stayed attentive to the tension between arrival and belonging — between observing a place and being accepted by it. Teaching in communities as different as Barrow, Fairbanks, Eagle, and Akiachak deepened that awareness. Each place demanded attention to its own character before I could begin to understand it."
Kelsey Green
Kitsap Peninsula, Washington
"A seeker, a learner, a roamer; I have done a lot of different things and I am proud of that fact though it is confusing to others, especially as a woman existing in this current society. Having been a hyper-vigilant child and growing into a deep feeler means that moving through the world is painful, but also exquisite. I don't know if other people cry so willingly, at minor sadnesses, at everyday beauty. It's awkward as hell, but I've grown glad that I can. The alternatives (inner war, addiction, letting your life melt down around you like wax; all of which I have tried) just do not do this incredible ride justice any longer."
Non-Fiction
Emily Aborn
Temple, New Hampshire
"Born on the coast of Maine, with sea salt all but running through my veins, I moved to New Hampshire with my parents and three younger brothers when I was eight years old. I’ve spent approximately 62.5% of my life in small town, rural New Hampshire. I grew up under the roof of hardworking, but underpaid parents who became pastors of a church somewhere along the line. I was the eldest of four, the only daughter, and to up the eccentricity factor, homeschooled until I was fourteen years old."
Steve Dudrow
Mesquite, Nevada
"The American West has taught me how to pay attention...My vision is simple: to help people notice. I believe attention is one of the greatest gifts we can offer each other. The American West has shown me that wonder still exists, that learning never ends, and that some of life's most important discoveries happen when we slow down long enough to see what has been there all along."
Jill Van Vliet
Dallas, Oregon
"“You are a traveler, like me,” my dad told me before he died, when I was 14. Possibly the only thing we had in common...I’m a single woman with no children in a country which still has suspicions about such people. My very un-American quality is that I lack a competitive bone in my body, so writing has never been anything I cared to do for any other reason than to please myself, and my loved ones. I’m notorious for my very long letters, and making weird collages and art projects for friends."
Margie B. Klein
Mojave Desert, Nevada
"Growing up as a tomboy in Wisconsin, with plenty of fields and forests primed me for adventure in the wide-open west. I went to college there and longed to return, so somehow, I ended up in Nevada – the state with the most open space of them all...I found ways to advocate for special places. Of course, I had to be a closet activist, because trying to make things better is frowned upon when working for the government...Just being female in this work set me up for “no confidence” votes all the time."