Jack Straw Reading Series: Janna Cawrse, Waverly Fitzgerald, Brian McGuigan, & Ghida Sinno May 21, 2008

Poet and Jack Straw Writers Program curator Judith Roche hosts three readings at Jack Straw Productions in May that feature new work by the 2008 Jack Straw Writers. This is the 2nd of three. Admission to each reading is a $5 suggested donation, and comes with a gift of the 2008 Jack Straw Writers Anthology. Look out for the podcast preview of the series on May 1 at http://www.jackstraw.org/blog.

Janna Cawrse fell madly in love with a fisherman when she was 19-years-old. He dumped her. Five years later that fisherman came crawling back. She dumped him. Two years later…well, the story gets juicier after that. But it ends (or begins) with a honeymoon across the Pacific on a leaky, old, and conspicuously small sailboat. Janna’s travel memoir, The Motion of the Ocean: 1 small boat, 2 average lovers, & the world’s longest honeymoon (forthcoming with Touchstone/Fireside, summer 2009) is as much about navigating relationships as navigating the world. Janna also writes for various sailing magazines. Her stories have appeared in several anthologies, most recently, More Sand in my Bra: Funny women write from the road, again! (Travelers’ Tales, 2007). Janna lives in Seattle with her fisherman, their daughter, and the friendly ghost of a Labrador Retriever named Scout.

Waverly Fitzgerald is a writer, teacher and writing coach. She published a non-fiction book Slow Time: Recovering the Natural Rhythms of Life, in 2007. It was inspired by her studies of and experiments with time and flowed out of her participation in the Take Back Your Time Day movement and conferences. She also writes historical fiction and non-fiction articles about time, seasonal holidays and flowers. She posts preliminary writings about her flower project on her blog: livinginseason.blogspot.com.

Brian McGuigan is a poet, performer, and tastemaker of Seattle's literary scene. He is the curator of "Cheap Wine and Poetry" and works in Programs and Development at Richard Hugo House. In 2007, the Seattle City Council selected McGuigan as the curator of its Words' Worth Poetry Series, founded by City Council President Nick Licata. Spankstra Press published his chapbook, More Than I Left Behind, in 2006.

Ghida Sinno was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. She earned a B.A. in English Literature from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. She has received grants from Artist Trust and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook and most recently at Casa Libre in Tucson, AZ. Her work has appeared in the Seattle Review, Many Mountains Moving, and Westwind Review.

Official Website: http://www.jackstraw.org