John is writing a history of Native Americans in Washington State, told entirely in story form.  He researches local history in the local archives searching for interactions between Native and Native and Native and White.  His searches led him to Robert Hamilton Espy, Willard’s grandfather and the co-founder of Oysterville. John is also a librarian for Seattle Public Schools and a mesmerizing storyteller.  He accompanies his presentations with a large collection of slides of early Native Americans.  While in Oysterville his stories will be polished, rewritten, completed, and new ones began.

Laura was born in Uruguay, educated in Jerusalem and now lives in El Paso, Texas. Her poems tug between the inside and the outside, between two people, and between self and language. Laura’s facility with four languages is integral to her project. Language ultimately becomes the prism through which the world is analyzed.  During her residency she aims to finish her first book of poems. 

While in Oysterville, Joyce will complete a performance piece entitled Searching and Knowing.  This work is based on her experiences journeying through breast cancer and will premier in Berkeley in the Fall of 2008. Accompanied by sounds from nuclear imaging machines incorporated into an original musical composition, her performance will include the sung and spoken word, as well as movement. Joyce will also work on the first manuscript of her memoir, entitled, Breast Dance.

Seattle, WA

Mary plans to spend her time in Oysterville revising the end of her novel Centerpoint. She hopes to “interweave the strands of a complex plot so tightly that the overall design becomes clear and the ending seems not just believable but effortless and inevitable.” A horticulturalist and non-fiction writer, Preus has published numerous newspaper and magazine articles, as well as books including The Northwest Herb Lover’s Handbook and The Leek Cookbook.

A novelist and writer for the New York Observer, Will plans to spend his time in Oysterville working on the second half of his current novel The Elevated, a story about a man who, in the author’s words, “literally runs into pieces of New York’s past, beginning when he bumps his head on the tracks of the Sixth Avenue Elevated Train, torn down in 1939.”  His first novel The King’s Evil won a PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship in 2004. He has also written The Ballad of Alex Matthews and Lily Daw, and short stories including “Stalin’s Mustache.”

Wendy will work on finishing her book Noisy Waters: The Environmental History of Whatcom Creek, which chronicles the story of degradation and renewal of a four-mile creek that runs through downtown Bellingham. The work draws on Scherrer’s extensive work as an environmental planner, state leader in environmental education and classroom teacher.  Wendy plans to publish her book in 2009 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Olympic Pipeline explosion in Whatcom Creek, a significant milestone in Washington’s environmental history. Meet Wendy...