Jill Louise Busby (Literary, Thurston County)

Jill Louise Busby is an award-winning, boundary-pushing writer and filmmaker, known for her work around identity, power, and public personas. She is the author of Unfollow Me: Essays on Complicity from Bloomsbury Publishing. She is currently the Associate Director at Northwest Film Forum and is at work on her second book, a screenplay, and an album. She lives in Olympia, WA with her wife and son. She is a 2025 National Leaders of Color Fellow.

wall-stream.squarespace.com
@jilllouisebusby

Megan Griffiths (Media, King County)

Megan Griffiths is a writer/director working in film and television. She has made eight features, including her breakout THE OFF HOURS, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, EDEN, which won the SXSW Audience Award, LUCKY THEM, which premiered at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival, and the upcoming YEAR OF THE FOX. She is a member of the Director’s Guild of America and the director’s branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Griffiths has directed television shows for HBO, EPIX, TNT, Hulu, USA, Fox, Netflix, and recently served as the producing director for Amazon’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” She is currently working on an animated documentary about disability entitled VIEW FROM THE FLOOR.

thecinechick.com
@thecinechick

Jesse Higman (Visual, King County)

Jesse Higman is a visual artist who invites strangers to pour paint together in simultaneous cooperations. He began his creative career making art for Seattle’s rock bands, then developed his own system of painting he calls illuvium, after the geologic term for particles settling on floodplains. Higman is quadriplegic in a wheelchair. As larger works necessitated the help of others, a social practice emerged. He has designed a mobile canvas stretcher, facilitating grants to pour with thousands of painters throughout the NorthWest.

jessehigman.com
Artist Trust profile
@jessehigman

Katherine Paul (Performing, Skagit County)

Katherine Paul (Swinomish, Iñupiaq, Colville) is the musician behind Black Belt Eagle Scout. A member of the Swinomish Tribe, she grew up in the Pacific Northwest, immersed in the music and community that shape her sound. Blending indie rock, dream pop, and post-rock, her music reflects her experiences as a queer Indigenous artist.

Her debut album, Mother of My Children, was named one of Pitchfork’s “Best Rock Albums of 2018,” launching her onto the national stage. Since then, she has released three studio albums, toured internationally, and had her music featured in Reservation Dogs, Rutherford Falls, and the Sundance-winning short TIGER. She has collaborated with artist Jeffrey Gibson, composed live scores for New York Fashion Week, and appeared in Sterlin Harjo’s documentary Love and Fury.

With evocative guitar work and soaring vocals, Katherine’s music explores love, loss, healing, and identity, carving space for Indigenous voices in contemporary rock.

blackbelteaglescout.com
@blackbelteaglescout

Olivia Stephens (Literary, King County)

Olivia Stephens is a graphic novelist, illustrator, and writer from the Pacific Northwest. Her comics often utilize supernatural elements to explore grief, rage, and profound tenderness.

Currently, Olivia is working on DARLIN’ AND HER OTHER NAMES, a werewolf-western-horror-romance comic that she self-publishes online. The first installment of DARLIN’ AND HER OTHER NAMES won the 2023 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Artist. Olivia has also won a Fellowship Award from Artist Trust and attended residencies at Tin House, Mineral School, Storyknife, MacDowell, and Yaddo. She earned her BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2017.

olivia-stephens.com
@oliveoilcorp
Artist Trust profile