B.T. Shaw

by admin

Good writing is a kind of magic. Like little else, creative writing connects us across time, geography and culture, and within it, fun lurks like a rabbit in a hat. Using prompts and props--ranging from watermelon jellybeans to Wallace Stevens' white nightgowns--I help students discover the thrills of language.

Project: B.T.’s goal during her residency is "to provide students with points of entry into both reading and writing poetry." That process can start with a game of 10 Questions or the revision of A Boring Poem or a close reading (which sounds boring but isn't) of a poem by the likes of Rimbaud. I show students they CAN understand poetry, and then offer tools so they can write it themselves.

B.T. Shaw has been a writer and editor for 20-plus years. Her first book, This Dirty Little Heart, won the Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry and will be published this spring by Eastern Washington University Press. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as Field, Tin House, Orion, and Poetry Northwest, and she’s participated in numerous readings, including the Seattle Poetry Festival. She edits the Poetry column for The Oregonian, where her book reviews also appear. In 1999, she received her MFA from the University of Washington; since then, she’s taught poetry and creative nonfiction in Seattle, Portland, and, one glorious summer, Rome, .