2019 Residents Announced!

Mineral School made it to year five! In a competitive process that drew 320 applicants from throughout the United States and Canada, a panel of five Northwest writers, two filmmakers, and four artists — including three Mineral alumni — have selected a total of 20 talented writers and visual artists who will live and work in Mineral this summer, advancing their work in screenwriting, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, installation art, book arts, painting, and photography from May through September. Additionally, we are piloting a summer-long residency fellowship for an artist who will work quarter-time onsite.

“We’re grateful for the hundreds of collective hours our jurors gave to this year’s (largest ever) group of submissions,” said Nicole Hardy, advisory board member (as well as poet and memoirist). “As word continues to spread about the strange, wondrous magic of Mineral School, attending residency has become a goal for more and more artists. Knowing that—and knowing firsthand how residency can be transformative—we especially appreciate their thoughtful choices. The work that’s come out of our residencies is proof enough of our jurors’ insight and the value of rest, natural beauty, good meals, and an airy classroom all to oneself. ”

While its roots are in serving literary artists, Mineral School has also begun hosting visual artists. This summer four artists will explore nature, place, memory, the environment, and masculinity through the lenses of cameras, installation art, painting, and book arts.

This summer Mineral School will also debut its first-ever May screenwriting residency in partnership with the Rainier Independent Film Festival, providing four screenwriters with quiet time to generate work, a private craft seminar with Warren Etheredge, and full access to the three-day annual RIFF festival. Additionally, with support from The Sustainable Arts Foundation, Mineral School will offer a shorter parent-specific residency so artists with child-rearing responsibilities can temporarily step away from family to focus specifically on creativity.

Mineral School is able to offer ten fellowships in 2019, including three June Dodge Fellows, a program which fully funds writers who hail from the Northwestern United States (Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, or Washington) or western Canada; four SAF Parent Artist Fellowships which fund working artists from throughout North America who are currently raising children age 18 or younger; one Rainier Independent Film Festival Fellowship, funding a filmmaker who identifies as a woman of color and/or LGBTQ+;  the Mona Lisa Roberts Visual Arts Fellowship, family-funded in memory of artist Mona Lisa Roberts for a Northwest visual artist who identifies as LGBTQ+; and one Erin Donovan Writing Fellowship, in memory of an Oregon fiction writer and teacher whose community supports a residency in her memory.

2019 residents include:

• Katrina Carrasco (Seattle, WA), June Dodge fellow in fiction, is the author of The Best Bad Things (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018), which is a 2019 Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in Witness, Literary Hub, Post Road, and elsewhere. She is working on a new novel.
• Max Delsohn (Seattle, WA), nonfiction, is an essayist and comedian writing a collection of essays about gender and self-knowledge. In 2018, they were a Made at Hugo Fellow and featured at Chicago’s Second City Break Out Comedy Festival.
• Elaina Ellis, (Bellingham, WA), June Dodge fellow in poetry, is the author of Write About an Empty Birdcage (Write Bloody Publishing, 2011) and has received Artist Trust and Lambda Literary Award fellowships. She is working on a new manuscript inspired by the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Ezekiel.
• Samantha Frank (Arlington, WA), SAF fellow in fiction, holds an MFA from Pacific University. Her work has appeared in Grow Northwest Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Yes!, and Cotton Xenomorph.  She is at work on her first novel, Speaking Rabbit, set in 1916 Everett, Washington.  
• Jordan Friedman (Mercer Island, WA), studied screenwriting and filmmaking at Dartmouth College, Seattle Film Institute, and Northwest Film Forum. He is revising a feature-length screenplay he plans to produce/direct in 2020.
• Sean Hovendick (Albany, NY), visual artist, is a US Army veteran and holds an MFA in computer art from Syracuse University. His interactive and photographic works explore hidden forces of power and identity; his current photography portraiture project is called “Lives of Men.”
• Sara Jaffe (Portland, OR) fiction, is the author of Dryland (Tin House Books, 2015), a visiting professor at Reed College, and a recipient of a fellowship from Oregon’s Regional Arts and Culture Council. She is completing a short story collection.
• Janine Kovac (’15, Oakland, CA), nonfiction, wrote the memoir Spinning: A Choreography for Coming Home (Moxie Road, 2017), and is a founder of Write On Mamas and longtime Lit Quake program volunteer. She’s writing new nonfiction.
• Laura Latimer (Austin, Texas), visual artist, studies the impact of human interference on the biological world through photography, sculpture, and installation. She has shown work at public spaces and galleries in Texas, Indiana, and Illinois.
• Corinne Manning (Seattle, WA), fiction, is the co-founder of The James Franco Review and Furnace readings series, and is revising a novel titled Dirty Joke, about trauma created and perpetuated within the early 20th century Italian diaspora. 
• Catherine Alice Michaelis (Shelton, WA), Mona Lisa Roberts fellow in visual art, is a book and paper artist whose work has been collected by 85 public institutions. She is also a curator and collaborative printmaker. 
• Elise Morris (Pleasant Hill, CA), SAF fellow in visual art, is a painter and printmaker who holds an MFA from the JFK University Arts & Consciousness program in Berkeley, CA. She currently works with  multiple galleries, and is pursuing public art projects. Her work focuses on finding light in nature. Her art blog, “The Studio Work,” features Bay Area artists.
• Ruby Hansen Murray (Cathlamet, WA), fiction, recently earned an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and has published work in Raven Chronicle, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A recipient of an Artist Trust grant, she’s writing a story collection called That’s the Indian!, set on the Osage Reservation in Northeastern Oklahoma. 
• Dayna Patterson (Bellingham, WA), SAF fellow in poetry and nonfiction, is the author of If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Signature Books, 2020), a hybrid collection of poetry and lyric essay exploring her Mormon ancestry and family history. She is an adjunct professor of English at Western Washington University.
• Jackie Perez (Bahrain), screenwriter, is a US Navy veteran who has completed short films in horror and other genres and is at work on a feature-length film about the pioneering life of Grace Hopper, a computer scientist and US Navy rear admiral. She volunteers as a grant writer for Stowe Story Labs and is a member of Veterans in Media and Entertainment.
• Rebecca Peterson (Yuma, AZ), working fellow, is a teacher turned writer, fabric artist, and apparel designer, who will participate in a pilot summer-long residency working part-time for Mineral School and majority-time on her own art.
• Beth Pielert (Half Moon Bay, CA), RIFF fellow in screenwriting, is a writer/director developing the series Leaves Awaken with the Lummi Nation. This thriller follows Naya, an urban podcaster, as she returns to her ancestral rez to unravel the mystery surrounding her mother’s disappearance.
• Pamela K. Santos (Portland, OR), SAF fellow in poetry, writes multilingual narratives on diasporic identity and hyphenated selves. She is the recipient of a 2019 Oregon Literary Fellowship and is at work on new poems.
• Alexis Stratton (Denver, CO), screenwriter and gender justice advocate, has completed short films and is working on a feature-length adaptation of their novel Burn, a retelling of Virgil’s Aeneid set in the South and told by a lesbian protagonist.
• Suzanne Warren (Seattle, WA), Erin Donovan fellow in fiction, is a Seattle-based educator, and is completing a collection of short stories and flash fiction called The Country of Husbands. A 2019 Jack Straw fellow, her work has appeared or will soon appear in Narrative, Gulf Coast, The Cincinnati Review, Post Road, and elsewhere.
• JM Wong (Seattle, WA), June Dodge fellow in nonfiction, is a writer, advocate, and nurse. JM has written for The Nation, translated poetry from Chinese to English, and is writing new work that strives for an “alternative narrative to the capitalist supply chain, of objects and people” and where global interconnectedness can be reimagined.

Residents will receive room and board, with all meals prepared by culinary volunteers including Val Cashman (Portland), Jason Cohen (Missoula, MT), Jackleen de la Harpe (Portland), Jane Hodges (board, Seattle), and Siolo Thompson (Seattle). Board members, alumni, and supporters including Daemond Arrindell (’16, poetry and playwriting), Dave Brewer (board spouse), Jill Bergantz Carley (’18, poetry/visual art), Elisabeth Eaves (board emeritus), Connie Eggers (’16, poetry), Katy Hannigan (arts administrator, Thread Support), Jess Martin (board emeritus), Putsata Reang (board, ’17, nonfiction), and Jason Vanhee (’16, fiction) will help host residents.

“We’re honored to host our fifth year of residency, and grateful to our hard-working application jurors, board, volunteers, donors, foundation supporters, and to all our neighbors in Mineral,” said Jane Hodges, Mineral School founder. “We continue to breathe new life into the school that houses our vision, while sharing this process with the community and helping artists grow.”