Ann SpiersAnn Spiers lives on Vashon Island, across Puget Sound from Seattle, Washington. She is its inaugural poet laureate. Her poems appear widely in journals, anthologies, and on- line. In addition to RAIN VIOLENT (Empty Bowl, 2021), other works published in 2021 are Back Cut (Black Heron) and Harpoon (Triple Series, Ravenna). Her chapbooks include What Rain DoesBunker Trail (Finishing Line), and Long Climb into GraceThe Herodotus Poems (Brooding Heron) and Volcano Blue, Tide Turn, and A Wild Taste (May Day Press) are in the Special Collections of U. of Washington, Stanford U, London's British Library, Portland's Multnomah County Library, U of Puget Sound, Cynthia Sears Collection at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and many private collections. She has edited literary journals, produced writing festivals and reading series, judged/selected for contests and retreats, joined panels, served as a King County arts commissioner, and was awarded writing residences at UW's Whiteley Center, Hedgebrook, and Espy Foundation. As a workshop leader, she centers on craft and her participants' work and on the art and craft of chapbook art, its NW history, and writing of poem cycles. She is a practiced presenter. She attended the University of Washington, eventually earning a MA in English Lit and Creative Writing with focus on plays and poems. Read More Read Less