Ann Teplick

Ann Teplick is a poet, playwright, and prose writer, as well as a teaching artist who, for eighteen years, has worked with youth in schools, hospitals, psychiatric units, juvenile detention centers, and literary nonprofits. In 2010/11 she received funding from Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and 4Culture, for a collection of poetry, The Beauty of a Beet, Poems from the Bedside. In 2011 she was a Jack Straw and Hedgebrook Fellow. In 2011/12, she was a member of the Washington State Arts Commission’s Teaching Artist Training Lab.

Ann received 2012 GAP Award funding to assist in the adaptation of the young adult novel, Hey Baby, Wanna Dance?, into a play with staged readings, a post-play conversation with the director, and a talk with a member of a domestic violence advocacy group. The funding will support stipends for the director and actors, the fee for the domestic violence speaker, and the rental of the venue for the readings. The project highlights critical issues for teens, such as gender confusion and identification, homophobia, parental abandonment, addiction, self harm, and date rape. The novel is currently under consideration for publication; however, the immediacy of live performance, with the opportunity for an in-house discussion, has the capacity to impact us in ways that can be more compelling than the written page.