At the Desk
SEASON THREE
At the Desk, features recorded PACT Craft Talks and Conversations. Images here are of our interviewed alumni writing desks and working areas.
SEASON TWO
Interview 10: (9/9/25@6:00PM PST)
Host: Michele Knapp
McKenzie Watson-Fore interviewing Jeanne Yu
Kimberly Casey interviewing Therese Gleason Carr
Jeanne is a writer, poet, “you-never-stop-being an engineer or mom" and nature lover who lives every day in her hope for the world. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and enjoys being outdoors. You will find her on the trails, in the backyard enjoying the antics of her Silkie chickens, walking around the neighborhood and immersing herself into the lives of heron, eagles, osprey, swans, ducks and this year, a family of beavers! Jeanne writes poetry and is experimenting in essay, young adult fiction, and Art in Nature poetry workshops with The Nature Conservancy. She completed her MFA at Pacific University in January 2023 and is grateful to be amongst such a wonderful community that embraces learning and the expanse of what a person can be.
Her work can be found in Rattle, Grist, Camas, Breakwater Review, Paper Dragon, Bellingham Review, Intima, The Inflectionist Review, New Letters, Moonstone Art Center, MER, Sneaker Wave and Otter House Arts. She completed her MFA at Pacific University in 2023. She has enjoyed volunteering at Perugia Press, Northwest Review and CALYX. You can find links to her work at https://integr8ec.com/index.php/jeanne-yu-studio/
McKenzie Watson-Fore serves as the executive editor of sneaker wave magazine, the inaugural critic-in-residence for Mayday, and the inaugural Dirtbag fellow! She completed her MFA in Nonfiction at Pacific in January 2023. McKenzie is based in Boulder, Colorado, where she is the founder and host of the Thunderdome Conference. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Christian Century, Rain Taxi, Full Stop, and elsewhere. She can be found at MWatsonFore.com or drinking tea on her back porch.
Kimberly Casey is a poet and community organizer located in Huntsville, AL. She is the Founder and President of Out Loud Huntsville, a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring community outreach and activism through written and spoken word. She received her MFA from Pacific University in 2021, and published her first full length collection, Where the Water Begins, with Riot in your Throat press. Her forthcoming collection, Other Side of Broken, will be published by Riot in your Throat in summer 2026. She is the Editor for the Out Loud HSV: A Year in Review anthology, and she serves on the board of the Alabama Writers Forum. Learn more at kimberlycpoetry.com
Kimberly’s Desk:
Social Media: Instagram @kimberlyisoutside kimberlycpoetry.com
Pacific University MFA: Poetry, 2021
Therese Gleason (she/her) is author of three poetry chapbooks: Hemicrania (Chestnut Review, 2024), about living with chronic migraine; Matrilineal (Finishing Line, 2021), honorable mention, Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize; and Libation (2006), co-winner, South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook Competition. Her poetry, flash, and essays appear in 32 Poems, Cincinnati Review, Indiana Review, Lunch Ticket–Amuse Bouche, New Ohio Review, Pithead Chapel, Rattle–Poets Respond, and elsewhere. Therese has taught English composition, ESL, and creative writing at the college level, and Spanish and reading in grades K-8. In her most recent position, she is starting her third year teaching language and literacy to multilingual learners in a public elementary school. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Therese has lived in Madrid, Spain; Washington, DC, and Columbia, SC. She currently resides in central Massachusetts with her husband, three teenagers, and a very spoiled dog. (Online: theresegleason.com)
Therese’s Desk:
Social Media: Instagram & Facebook: @theresegcarr; Bluesky: @theresegleason.bksy.social; Twitter @theresegcarr (not really active here anymore); website: theresegleason.com
Interview 9: (8/12/25@6:00PM PST)
HOST: Josh Cook
Mckenzie Watson-Fore — interviewing Brennan Staffieri
Shella Parcarey —interviewing LG Sebayan
LINK: Topic: PACT: Interview #9 (LG Sebayan & Brennan Staffieri)
Time: Aug 12, 2025 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85225435181?pwd=HG01tRqnTiyfCRxCj38UlDOe96APap.1
Meeting ID: 852 2543 5181
Passcode: 186693
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Born in Chicago, LG Sebayan earned an MFA in poetry from Pacific University in 2022. She is a third-year PhD English and creative writing student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,where her work was selected by Nicky Beer for the Creative Writing Faculty Legacy Award for Poetry. When Beer made her selection, she wrote of Sebayan’s work: “A tremendous sense of craft and wit; keen, lacerating detail; an imagination with a tremendous power to grieve, condemn, and bless; a profound sense of empathy and vulnerability—this poet is a force to be reckoned with.” Sebayan’s poem, “For the Indigenous Girl in Fig. 7,” won honorable mention in the 2025 Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Intro Journals Project literary competition. Her poems are published in Pleiades, CALYX Journal, Midwest Review, and elsewhere.
(LG’s typical writing spot, which is the left side of this old couch, with a big cup of tea, a can of sparkling water, and reading material — today it’s Francisco Balagtas’ Floránte at Laúra (translated by Randy M. Bustamante) — beside her.
Brennan Lucas Staffieri (they/them) is a non-binary poet born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. They completed their MFA in creative writing with Pacific University. They are a former intern with CALYX Press, where they were in charge of developing queer workshops and programming for the press. Their work has appeared in Love is For All of Us edited by James Crews and Brad Peacock, Oddball Magazine, and on Portland stages. They live in Portland, Oregon with their wife, their partner, and their pets.
@BrennanLikesYou on everything, mainly instagram.
Interview 8: (7/8/25@6:00PM PST)
HOST: Michael Hahn
Shella Parcarey interviewing Owólabi Aboyade
Michele Knapp interviewing Alexandra Lytton Regalado
Owólabi Aboyade is a multidimensional father/ essayist/ poet/ critic/hip hop artist (Will See Music) from Detroit healing from the intergenerational trauma of having to hide his creative/spiritual power to survive. He is a proud Kwame Dawes Mapmaker Fellow in Pacific University’s MFA program’s class of 2025, in the nonfiction genre.
His poetry chapbook, Lee, Young Lee was published by AWE Society Press in 2024. He is a contributor to Riverwise, Geez, Therapeutic Edgelands, and Against The Current magazines. Working with his partner, sculptor and indie publisher Bridget Quinn, he is text editor of Bullet*Train, a magazine chronicling Detroit’s revolutionary culture and making meaning, a zine for people with chronic illness. He’s currently working on transforming his thesis collapse: Notes from the Detroit underground into a book of collected essays about grief, culture, and family in gentrifying Detroit.
Owólabi has been named a Tin House Resident as well as a Radical Imagination Fellow for advancing Detroit’s culture of racial justice via arts. He is a community partner of the abolitionist collective Motor City Mobile Wellness and has been navigating kidney failure and the medical industry since 1990.
Owólabi’s desk:
Alexandra Lytton Regalado is a Salvadoran-American author, editor, and translator. Her works include Relinquenda (Winner of the National Poetry Series, Beacon Press, 2022) and Matria (Winner of the St Lawrence Prize, Black Lawrence Press, 2017). Her poems, stories, non-fiction, and translations have recently appeared in Poetry Magazine, New England Review, BOMB, World Literature Today, Los Angeles Review, Poetry International, AGNI, Narrative, Creative Nonfiction and poets.org. A CantoMundo and Letras Latinas fellow, her work has been anthologized in Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, Best American Poetry, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the US. She has translated poetry collections by Elena Salamanca, Tania Pleitez, Lauri García Dueñas, Dorelia Barahona, and co-translated Efímero by heidi restrepo rhodes. She also serves as the official translator for the Alta California Chapbook Prize, now in its fourth year. Alexandra is co-founder of Kalina Press in El Salvador (est. 2006) and has edited over twenty works, including the bilingual anthologies of Salvadoran literature Theatre Under My Skin (Poetry, 2014) and Vanishing Points (Prose, 2017). She is president of the board of the Salvadoran Cultural Institute and associate editor at SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami).
website:
https://www.alexandralyttonregalado.com/
Instagram: @alexlregalado
Alexandra’s desk:
Interview 7: (6/10/25@6:00PM PST)
Catherine-Esther Cowie was born in St Lucia to a Tobagonian father and a St Lucian mother. She migrated with her family to Canada and then to the USA. Her debut collection is Heirloom (Carcanet Press, 2025).Her poems have been published in PN Review, Prairie Schooner, West Branch Journal, The Common, SWWIM, Rhino Poetry and others.
Website and Socials
They can find me here: https://www.facebook.com/StlucianPoet
And here for the art: https://www.instagram.com/cecowie86/
The book can be purchased here: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800174795/heirloom/
Catherine-Esther Cowie’s Desk
Donna Denizé is Haitian American. Her poems appear in “Gargoyle,” “Provincetown Arts,” “Innisfree Journal of Poetry,” and a new anthology entitled From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons Volume II (Food). Her essays appear in Sonnets of the American, The Folger Guides to Teaching Hamlet // Macbeth // Romeo and Juliet and English Journal.
She has a Master of Arts from Howard University, and a Master of Fine Arts from Pacific University.
The interviewers are:
Melissa McKinstry, Poetry 2022, interviewing Catherine-Esther Cowie, Poetry 2020
Shella Parcarey, Fiction 2024, interviewing Donna Denizé, Poetry 2025
Host:
Cindy Huyser, Poetry 2024, first guest host!
SEASON ONE
Interview 6: (3/11/25@6:00PM PST)
Chante Owens is an emerging writer whose work explores various aspects of her intersecting identities. Her personal essays have appeared in The Sun Magazine, Well + Good, Healthline, The Muse, and more. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Pacific University, and is currently embarking on her next big project: a fictionalized memoir with a healthy blend of humor and lyricism.
http://chanteowens.squarespace.com/
Chante’s Desk
Caroline Catlin believes in the power and impact of shared truths. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Longreads, Huffington Post, Teen Vogue, Glamour, and elsewhere. Her photography & film can be found in Boston Globe, AliveNow, The New York Times, and Healthline.
Caroline’s background in behavioral health and grief care has inspired her to incorporate art into the process of caregiving and advocacy, as well as to work on reforming the way health, illness, and disability are portrayed in the media.
In addition to her creative work, Caroline leads grief support groups for children and teens, volunteers as an end of life photographer, and teaches writing workshops on similar topics. Her TED talk, Why I photograph the quiet moments of grief and loss has been viewed over 1 million times.
Caroline earned her MFA from Pacific University and is currently working on a memoir about living with incurable brain cancer, represented by Neon Literary. She is fueled most by connection, community, and sour candy.
https://www.carolinecatlin.com/
Caroline’s Desk
The interviewers will be:
Philippa Ribbink (Catlin)
SEASON ONE
Interview 5: (2/11/25@6:00PM PST)
Nancy Miller Gomez is the author of Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books) and Punishment (Rattle chapbook series). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, Lit Hub, The Adroit Journal, New Ohio Review, The Rumpus, Rattle, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Anthology. Nancy co-founded an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Prisons, Jails, and the Juvenile Hall. She lives with her family in Northern California where she serves as the Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz, County. More at: nancymillergomez.com.
Nancy’s Desk
Allisa Cherry (she/her) was raised in an irradiated, rural desert town, in a religious community in the southwest, where much of her poetry takes place. Her book, An Exodus of Sparks (MSU Press), was a finalist for the Persea Books' Lexi Rudnitsky first book prize and the 2024 recipient of the Wheelbarrow Books poetry prize awarded by the RCAH Center for Poetry. Her work has appeared in journals such as The McNeese Review, TriQuarterly, The Journal and The Penn Review. She currently lives in Portland, OR where she teaches workshops for immigrants and refugees transitioning to a life in the United States and serves as an associate poetry editor for West Trade Review.
Allisa’s Desk
The interviewers will be:
MC: Michele Knapp
SEASON ONE
Interview 4: (1/14/25@6:00PM PST)
Jacky Grey is a writer, artist and architect interested in place and belonging. Jacky received The Sewanee Review prize in nonfiction in 2023. Jacky earned their MFA in Creative Non-fiction from Pacific University. They were a participant of the Anaphora Arts Emerging Critics Program in 2023.
They write memoir, personal essay, poetry and criticism. Their work has been published in The Sewanee Review* and Oregon East. Grey is based in Western Oregon with their partner, daughter and dog. They maintain an Instagram that is a fan page for said dog and chaotically curated meme stream.
*First published in The Sewanee Review.
Jacky’s desk
Jacky’s real desk
Mike Itaya is the editor-in-chief of DIRTBAG and writes about dirtbags, always.
The interviewers will be:
Benjamin Porter (Itaya)
SEASON ONE
Interview 3: (12/10/24@6:00PM PST)
Ben Porter is a short fiction writer who lives in Lafayette, Louisiana where he is a PhD student in English under the University Doctoral Fellowship. He is a graduate of Pacific University's MFA in Creative Writing where he was the recipient of the Pearl Scholarship. Recently, he can be read in The Madison Review, Sandy River Review, BULL, and Miracle Monocle. When not writing, Ben wrestles with his kids, drinks wine he can’t afford, and tries with all his might to play country licks on his guitar.
He can also be found on:
on X: @Ben_S_Porter
Website: Benporter.info
Melissa McKinstry’s poetry has appeared in Adroit, Beloit, Rattle, Poetry Northwest, Tahoma Literary Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Best New Poets 2023, among other places. She’s been a semifinalist for the Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize and the Persea Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, a finalist for the Autumn House Rising Writer Prize, a nominee for Best of the Net, and a two-time nominee for Pushcart Prizes. In 2024, she was selected as second place for The Maine Review Environs Prize, finalist for the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, and finalist for the Ninth Letter Literary Awards, a Djanikian Scholar in Poetry at Adroit, the Honorable Mention for Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Contest, and inaugural writer-in-residence at the Millay House Rockland. In January 2025, she’ll serve as emcee for the Pacific University MFA residency in Seaside, Oregon.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Melissa grew up on small farms in Oregon and Washington and later earned a BA in English Literature at the University of Washington, and more recently her MFA in poetry at Pacific University (Poetry 2022).
A love of literature, writing, problem-solving, and nurturing young artists and writers inspired Melissa’s career teaching high school English, working on a team to establish the Coronado School of the Arts, and designing a secondary humanities curriculum based on the question How are we to live?
In 1996, Melissa’s son, Charlie, was born with an undiagnosed genetic disorder and required full care from birth. With a loving family and care community, Charlie lived 26 years. He passed away in 2022, and some of Melissa’s poetry explores the uncertainty of mothering a child with severe disabilities. Melissa’s daughter, Sarah Rose, champions quality care for patients and providers at Health and Hospitals in New York City.
Melissa and her husband Doug live, write, and design in San Diego. Since 2016 they have curated a Poet Tree in their neighborhood to foster community, curiosity, and beauty. Melissa also teaches yoga and volunteers on the Alumni Council for the Pacific University MFA program. She is honored to be research, editorial, and production assistant for her mentor, poet Ellen Bass.
The interviewers will be:
Michele Knapp (McKinstry)
MC: Mike Itaya
SEASON ONE
Interview 2: (11/12/24@6:00PM PST)
Josh Cook’s writing has appeared VQR, the Washington Post, and LARB, among other places. He’s the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board grant and a Loft Literary Center Teacher of Excellence fellowship. He graduated from Pacific, where he studied fiction, in 2011. He lives in Saint Paul with his partner, daughter, and the sweetest rescue dog of all time.
He can also be found on:
IG: @joshcook_writer
Website: www.joshcookwriter.com
Substack: joshcook.substack.com
Hillary Behrman’s award winning short stories have been described as deeply humane and unsettling and have been published in journals, magazines, short story dispensers and an anthology. Lake Effect, her debut collection of short stories, was chosen by Lauren Groff as the winner of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction and will be published by Sarabande Books in 2026. Groff praises Lake Effect as a book of “great moral power and heart” by “an author of extraordinary grace." Hillary lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest and is a graduate of Pacific University’s MFA in writing program. Hillary’s work in the urban and rural west as a children’s civil rights lawyer and public defender lends urgency to her fiction. Her life and writing are rooted in a strong sense of place, family, community and connection to wild and natural spaces. Learn more at www.hillarybehrman.com.
She can also be found on:
IG: @HillaryBehrman
The interviewers will be:
Atina Hartunian (Cook)
Michael Hahn (Behrman)
MC: Michael Hahn
SEASON ONE
Interview 1: (10/8/24@6:00PM PST)
Maureen Bhutong Boyd is a Thai-Scottish North American writer and editor who uses the pronouns she and her.
Maureen worked as a union organizer and leader of campaigns around the United States for over fifteen years before she received her MFA in Fiction from Pacific University. Her stories appear in The Pinch, Bellingham Review, Joyland Magazine, and Buckman Journal, amongst others. She read from her unpublished novel at APAture, Kearny Street Workshop's Festival for Emerging Asian Pacific American Artists, and another excerpt was a finalist for Hidden River Art's William Van Wert Award for Fiction. She also wrote and performed an autobiographical monologue for "This is My Body,” a storytelling showcase for women of color in the California Bay Area.
She resides in Oakland with one husband, two teenagers, and three pugs. She is @maureenbhutongboyd on Instagram, and you can view her work at: www.maureenbhutongboyd.net
Allison C. Macy-Steines writes both prose and poetry, and she is passionate about bending the boundaries between genres. Macy-Steines earned her M.F.A in Writing from Pacific University and holds a B.A. in Journalism and Media Studies from UW-Milwaukee. She grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and now lives in Boring, Oregon, with her husband, daughter, and pup.
The interviewers were:
Kate Wylie (Macy-Steines)
Atina Hartunian (Boyd)
Tonight’s MC: Michael Hahn