Anna has played with language for over fifty years, and written for the last 45, which is quite a lot if you think about it. If you ask her if she’s a writer, she will say yes. Not because she’s published, (because she is and she has the $1.75 royalty check each month to prove it) but because she writes everyday. Sometimes she writes really good stuff and other times she writes junk, but the point is she calls herself a writer because she writes. She becomes agitated by anyone who define writers as those “with a gift”, or those “who have published.” Writers are people who write. 

Anna writes because it challenges her to stay in the moment and gives her a good excuse to sit around and listen to sounds and then try to make up a word spelled like that sound.

She’s pleased when others enjoy her writing, which is about half the time. If they don’t like what she has to say “umm, yeah, I don’t write for you.”  Along this vein, Anna advises writers who haven’t yet worked out a compatible arrangement with a hyper-vigilant inner critic, (most of us) to write for their ideal reader, the one who understands every word they write: themselves.

When people come into her shop and say, “I really want to write but I doubt I could ever get published, ” she’ll respond by saying something like;

“Do you play an instrument or a sport?”

“Yes,” they’ll most likely say.

“Are you in the Seattle Symphony or with the Sounders?”

“No.”

At that point they’ll get her point and consider writing just because it feels good.

For those of you who need something a bit more substantial, Anna has twenty-six years of experience teaching and leading writing workshops for adults and children on Bainbridge Island and Seattle. She has published in “Literature Circles and Response, now in its 5th printing, “Practical Aspects of Authentic Assessment”, “Instructor Magazine”, the “National Council of Teachers of English Journal,” and various other educational magazines. She is currently working on her first novel. She’s almost positive that if Random House called her today and offered her a contract for her next book, she would still define a writer as someone who writes.

Peter Quinn is a poet and business person. Businessman poets are rare, but it works for him. A graduate from Lewis and Clark College, he spent four years studying with Vern Rutsala, Tony Ostroff and William Stafford. During his senior year he received the Academy of American Poets Award. For several years following, Peter and poet John Willson convened a poetry group called Moonphases in Portland. He has published in Mississippi Mud, Foxfire, the Portland Oregonian and Northwest Magazine. Peter is also the Development Director for the Northwest Maritime Center. He continues to write poetry and lead workshops to feed his poetry passion. Peter is currently working on a book, “The Poet Creeps Out”.