Poetry at Griffin Bay Books

Griffin Bay Bookstore presents an evening of poetry on Saturday, December 6, at 7:00 pm.

Elizabeth Austen is making a return engagement to Friday Harbor as Washington’s poet laureate and this time she is joined by fellow poet and teacher, Susan Rich. Both are known for bringing the magic of poetry alive with their readings.

Elizabeth Austen’s debut collection, Every Dress a Decision, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She is also the author of two chapbooks, The Girl Who Goes Alone and Where Currents Meet, and an audio CD, skin players.

Her poems have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily, in the Los Angeles Review, the Bellingham Review, and Willow Springs. She is noted for her engaging public performances of poetry, and has been featured at Poet’s House in New York City, Minneapolis’s The Loft, the Skagit River Poetry Festival Spokane’s Get Lit, Seattle’s Cheap Wine and Poetry, and Bumbershoot, among others.

Austen tests the boundaries between the known and the unknowable in her debut poetry collection, Every Dress a Decision. The aftermath of a brother¹s mysterious death forms a subtle narrative spine, around which other pressing questions revolve. In a voice both lyrical and wry, Austen¹s poems engage headlong in the contradictions of 21st century social expectations, desires and identity.

She produces poetry programming for NPR-affliate Kuow 94.9, earned an MFA at Antioch University LA, and teaches at Richard Hugo House. She makes her living at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she also offers poetry and journaling workshops for the staff.

Susan Rich, poet and human rights activist, is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently: Cloud Pharmacy and The Alchemist¹s Kitchen. She is a co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders and has received awards from The Times Literary Supplement, Peace Corps Writers and the Fulbright Foundation. Rich¹s individual poems appear in the Antioch Review, Harvard Review, New England Review, and Poetry Ireland.

She has worked as a staff person for Amnesty International, an electoral supervisor in Bosnia Herzegovina, and a human rights trainer in Gaza and the West Bank. Rich lived in the Republic of Niger, West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, later moving to South Africa to teach at the University of Cape Town on a Fulbright Fellowship.

Educated at the University of Massachusetts, Harvard University, and the University of Oregon, Susan Rich lives in Seattle and teaches at Highline Community College where she runs the reading series, Highline Listens: Writers Read Their Work.

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