Rebecca Hoogs

Rebecca Hoogs is the author of a chapbook of poems, Grenade (Green Tower Press 2005); her poems have appeared in AGNI, Crazyhorse, Zyzzyva, The Journal, Poetry Northwest, The Florida Review, and Seneca Review, among other publications. She was the recipient of a fellowship from the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire (2004), as well as a Gerberding Rome Fellowship (2002). Hoogs has taught English at the University of Washington, where she received an MFA in Creative Writing in 2000 and an MA in Literature in 2004. She currently lives in Seattle where she is the Director of Writers in the Schools (WITS), an educational outreach program of Seattle Arts & Lectures that brings professional writers to Seattle public middle and high schools for yearlong residencies. Her first full-length collection of poems, Self-Storage, was published in 2013.

As part of her Fellowship’s Meet the Artist requirements, Rebecca journeyed with fellow writer Catherine Wing to Walla Walla College and spent several hours with students of Professor Dan Lamberton, discussing poems the students had sent the authors in advance of their visit. After the workshop, Rebecca and Catherine were interviewed for the students’ literary journal, The Gadfly. That evening they gave a public reading to 50 Walla Walla College students and faculty, Whitman College students and faculty, and community members. They each read and took questions from the audience. For many, it was their first poetry reading, so the authors took pains to talk about the genesis or structures of their poems, making sure that the audience had a good first experience with poetry. The audience was very attentive. Afterwards, the writers signed books and talked one-on-one with audience members.

Artist’s Addenda: Rebecca was selected to be a resident artist in 2008 Jack Straw Writers Program.