Students

Ronda Piszk Broatch’s (2025) poetry manuscript, We Rough Wind, was one of six finalists for the Word Works Tenth Gate Prize; her poem “Before I Had a Horse, I Wanted a Horse” was nominated by Radar Poetry for the Pushcart Prize; her poem “The Only Dress You’ll Ever Need” was nominated by ONE ART for the Pushcart Prize; her poem "Upon Reading Šalamun’s Opera Buffa, the Trees Outside My Window Reel and Rhumba” is the winner of this year’s Willow Springs Surrealist Poetry Prize and will be published in the Spring issue of Willow Springs.

Liz Kingsley (2025) was named a finalist in the 2025 Saints & Sinners LGBTQ+ Poetry Contest. Her poems will be published in the annual New Poetry from SASFest 2025, edited by Jan Edwards Hemming and Paul J. Willis.

antmen pimentel mendoza (2025) will read at Grossmont College for the 2025 Literary Arts Festival.

Alumni

Nancy Canyon (2027) read from "Struck: A Season on a Fire Lookout” at Village Books in Lynden, Washington, February 8, 2025, and read two poems, "Teaching the Moon to Speak" and "The Moon Speaks, from Corridor Zine at Poetry Pop-up Pub Series at L&L Libations, presented by Salish Sea Poetry Festival.

Bill Capossere’s (2010) full-length play Drowning was selected for the 2025 Durango Playfest, June 24–29.

Summer Christiansen (2023) was selected for the Storyknife Writers Retreat in Homer, Alaska, which she will attend in October 2025, and is teaching a course, "Impossibly Possible: How to Find Success as a Neuro-Spicy Writer" with Write or Die Magazine on April 19, 2025.

Katie Humphries’ (2021) piece “Empty Nest” has been selected for Best Microfiction 2025, after being nominated by Tahoma Literary Review.

Bonita Lini Markowski (2023) was the featured poet for Word Hive: A Space for Poets, February 15, 2025.

Preeti Parikh's (2021) debut poetry collection, Blue Selvage, was one of three selections in the 2024 Tupelo Press Summer Open Reading Period and will be published in 2026.

Cindy Skaggs (2017) has accepted a faculty position at Western Colorado State's low-res MFA program beginning Summer 2025.

David Taylor’s (2023) literary podcast, The People’s Recorder, was nominated for Best Indie Podcast in the 2025 Ambies, the Podcast Academy, February 2025.

Faculty

Kelli Russell Agodon (2007) Poetry, has released five new episodes for Poems You Need with her co-host Melissa Studdard, highlighting poems by Rita Dove, Martha Silano, Stephanie Burt, Jennifer Joshua Espinoza, and Cornelius Eady.