https://centrum.org/the-port-townsend-writers-conference/

Port Townsend Writers Conference, 223 Battery Way, Port Townsend, WA (2026)

10/02/2026

Hello Writers!

Autumn settles over the Salish Sea, inviting us to slow down, pay attention, and experience the landscape anew. To usher in such a season, poetry comes to Fort Worden State Park for a free reading featuring acclaimed poets Melissa Kwasny, Rick Barot, and Kathryn Hunt on October 24, 2026, at 7:00pm.

Rick Barot was born in the Philippines and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. His fourth book of poems, The Galleons, was longlisted for the National Book Award. His collections include The Darker Fall, Want (a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and winner of the 2009 Grub Street Book Prize), and Chord, all from Sarabande Books. Rick's work has appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, and The New Yorker.

Melissa Kwasny is the author of seven collections of poems, including The Cloud Path, Where Outside the Body Is the Soul Today, Pictograph, and The Nine Senses. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Boston Review, and The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral, among many other journals.

Kathryn Hunt’s third poetry collection, When You Wake Near the Sea, is the winner of the 2026 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award and is forthcoming in spring 2027. She published two earlier collections, Long Way Through Ruin and Seed Wheel. Her poems have appeared in the Orion, Radar, Missouri Review, Poetry Northwest, and Carolina Quarterly Review.

More than a literary event, this fall reading is an invitation to gather in a remarkable landscape at a particular moment in the year—to listen, reflect, and share in the communal experience of poetry as the season turns.

This event is presented by Centrum and is free and open to the public.

Event Details:

What: Free Fall Poetry Reading featuring
WHO: Rick Barot, Melissa Kwasny, and Kathryn Hunt
When: Saturday, October, 24, 2026 at 7pm. Doors open at 6:30.
Where: Wheeler Theater, Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend, Washington
Admission: Free
Reception: Centrum will host a free reception following the reading at Taps, across the street from Wheeler Theater. Food provided, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks available for purchase.

04/10/2026

Join us in welcoming back Jacqueline Allen Trimble (), a featured reader joining us on TOMORROW! - Saturday, April 11 at 7p - at Wheeler Theater at Fort Worden State Park for our free Poetry on the Salish Sea April poetry reading. Jacqueline read for Poetry on the Salish Sea back in September, 2024.

Jacqueline Allen Trimble is the Poet Laureate of Alabama, a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow (Poetry), a Cave Canem Fellow, and a two-time Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellow (2017, 2023). Published by NewSouth Books, American Happiness, her debut poetry collection, won the 2016 Balcones Poetry Prize. How to Survive the Apocalypse, her second poetry collection, was published by NewSouth Books, an imprint of UGA Press, in August 2022 and was listed as one of the top ten best poetry books of 2022 by New York Public Library. She is Professor of English and chairs the Department of Languages and Literatures at Alabama State University.

Come, enjoy the reading, and let's give Jacqueline another warm welcome to Port Townsend!

04/07/2026

Introducing Luther "Lue" Hughes (), a featured reader joining us on Saturday, April 11 at 7p at Wheeler Theater at Fort Worden State Park for our free Poetry on the Salish Sea April poetry reading.

Luther “Lue” Hughes is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves (BOA Editions, 2022), listed as best books of 2022 in The New Yorker, and the chapbook, Touched (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018), recommended by the American Library Association. They are the founder of Shade Literary Arts, an online platform for q***r writers of color, cohosts The Poet Salon Podcast with Gabrielle Bates and Dujie Tahat, and serves as the Poetry Editor for CHUM News. Their honors include the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Rosenberg Fellowship, the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, Cascade PBS’s Black Arts Legacies honoree, and named Most Influential by Seattle Magazine. Their writing has been published in The Paris Review, Orion, American Poetry Review, Seattle Met, and others. They’ve been featured in The Seattle Times, Forbes, Essence, KUOW Public Radio, and more. Lue lives in Seattle, where they were born and raised.

Come, enjoy the reading, and let's welcome Luther "Lue" Hughes to Port Townsend!

04/03/2026

Introducing ! Allisa is one of our featured Poetry on the Salish poets and readers at our free April poetry reading coming up on Saturday, April 11, 2026, at 7pm at Wheeler Theater, Fort Worden State Park!

Allisa Cherry is the author of An Exodus of Sparks (Michigan State University Press) and the winner of the 2024 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize. She has been a finalist for Persea Books’ Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and The Sewanee Review’s poetry contest. Her writing has appeared in many literary journals, including Chicago Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, Penn Review, EcoTheo, and Salt Hill. Raised in a rural religious community in the irradiated high desert along the eastern border of Arizona, she has since relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where she completed her MFA in Poetry at Pacific University. Allisa works in workforce development, teaching classes for immigrants and refugees transitioning to life in the United States, and serves as an associate poetry editor for West Trade Review.

Come, enjoy the reading, and let's welcome Allisa to Port Townsend!

03/31/2026

Poetry on the Salish has one more free poetry reading on the books before we break for summer conference season at Fort Worden. Don't miss it!

On Saturday, April 11 at 7pm, poetry lovers and community members alike are invited to a special evening of powerful poetry readings and vernal inspiration, featuring the work of Allisa Cherry from Portland; Luther "Lue" Hughes from Seattle; and on a return visit to Port Townsend, the recently appointed poet laureate of Alabama, Jacqueline Trimble. This free event brings together three distinct voices, offering a unique lens on what it means to live in relationship with ourselves and others, a journey shaped by listening, empathy, and creative expression. Please join us afterwards at Taps for a party in honor of the poets. Connect with the poets, make new friends, and go home with a couple of poetry books. Yummy refreshments will be served, no host bar. Taps is right across the street from Wheeler Theater.

03/30/2026

The application period for the Long Form Workshop for Memoir or Essay Collections, led by award-winning writer Sayantani Dasgupta (), closes in just two days!

From July 2026 through July 2027, this 12-month masterclass in creative nonfiction begins with a weeklong residency at the renowned Port Townsend Writers Conference. There, participants will explore the foundational elements of memoir and essay collections, including setting, structure, character, voice, tone, and theme, while engaging deeply with published works that illuminate the essential questions behind every meaningful narrative: What is this story truly about? Why tell it now? How does the writer remain open to discovery along the way?

Following the summer residency, writers will continue their journey through twice-monthly online workshops and monthly manuscript submissions. This sustained structure offers rigorous peer critique, close mentorship, and the accountability needed to develop and complete a book-length project.

The program also features virtual guest sessions with celebrated authors Kim Barnes, Melody Moezzi, David Gessner, and Rajiv Mohabir, alongside conversations with publishing professionals who will demystify the path from manuscript to book.

Dasgupta, known for blending close reading with fearless experimentation, emphasizes daily creative discipline and intellectual curiosity. She encourages writers to cultivate both confidence and humility, to trust their voices while remaining open to surprise. The workshop culminates in July 2027 with a final weeklong retreat at the Port Townsend Writers Conference, where participants refine drafts and explore next steps toward publication.

Designed as both a creative crucible and a supportive community, this program offers writers the structure, inspiration, and mentorship to bring their most meaningful stories to life.

Apply now at https://centrum.org/program/writers-long-form-memoir-and-essay-collection/

03/05/2026

Update! Poet José Enrique Medina had to cancel his trip to Port Townsend next weekend. We'll miss him, and the show must go on!

Thank you, Tamarah Rockwood () for jumping in and joining and Kim Trainor to read during Poetry on the Salish Sea's FREE March 2026 poetry reading. We hope to see you in Wheeler Theater at 7pm on Saturday, March 14, for this wonderful celebration of poetry and community (in just 10 days!).

We also hope you'll join us at across the street after the reading for laughs and a free reception with food provided by Centrum and Taps as well as alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks for sale.

See you there!

03/02/2026

In two weeks, Poetry on the Salish will host another free poetry reading at 7pm at Wheeler Theater followed by a free reception at across the street, with food provided by Centrum and Taps and a cash bar serving both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks.

This reading will feature accomplished poets from across nations up and down the west coast of North America!

Join us on March 14, 2026, to welcome to Fort Worden State Park José Enrique Medina, author of Haunt Me and Man Without a Skirt; , a Fellow of the Academy of American Poets, a Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writer award winner, and former Washington State Poet Laureate; and Kim Trainor, whose most recent book, Blue thinks itself within me: Lyric poetry, ecology, and lichenous form was published by University of Regina Press, in 2026, and follows her collection A blueprint for survival, from Guernica Editions, in 2024.

In times like these, let's come together to learn from and be inspired by unique voices. Let's find community in poetry and friendship!

02/14/2026

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT!

And the weather has joined us in celebrating too. What a beautiful day! Celebrate Valentine's Day at Wheeler Theater for a free poetry reading at 7pm. Bring your friends and loves.

We've already introduced 12 of our 14 featured poets who will read. Let's introduce the final two. They will read a poem they wrote about love and another poem by a different poet about love they love!

❤❤❤

Haines Whitacre is a poet, book artist, and near-shore sailor who lives in unceded Duwamish land a short walk from the Duwamish River.

Lisbeth White is an enchantivist writer based in the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of American Sycamore; the elemental memoir, A Most Natural Thing; and co-editor of Poetry as Spellcasting.

❤❤❤

Also, join us at Taps across the street from Wheeler Theater after the reading for food and companionship! For more information, visit https://centrum.org/program/poetry-on-the-salish-sea/

02/09/2026

Super Bowl fans?

We can all agree the Seahawks won, and the basis of the halftime show was love. Did you see a couple start lives together in matrimony and commitment? We did.

Let's keep this love season going. Valentine's Day is this weekend, and we invite you to join us for a free poetry reading at Wheeler Theater at 7pm.

We've already introduced 8 of our 14 featured poets who will read. They will read a poem they wrote about love and another poem by different poet about love they love! So much love.

Let's introduce 4 more poets who will read this Valentine's Day:

❤❤❤

Tamarah Rockwood is a Harvard graduate, founder of Bainbridge Island Press, and PhD candidate at University of Birmingham, UK. Organizes western Washington poetry communities. Lives on Bainbridge Island with her family.

S. Salazar’s debut poetry collection Raíces, Relics, and Other Ghosts (Kelsay Books, 2023) received three honorable mentions for the International Latino Book Awards. When not writing, she hikes with loved ones, talks to her parrot, Gizmo, and gushes over every dog she sees.

c'ic'áyx̣ʷmu Rachel Sullivan-Owens is a local Indigenous poet and author from the nəxʷsƛ̕áy̕əm̕ people, enrolled with the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe in Sequim. Her work can be found in The Yellow Medicine Review and more.

Thena Westfall is a poet. She lives and works in Port Angeles, WA.

❤❤❤

Join us at Taps across the street from Wheeler Theater after the reading for food and companionship! For more information, visit https://centrum.org/program/poetry-on-the-salish-sea/

Port Townsend Writers Conference

10/02/2026

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