Contributors

ESSAYS

Betsy Anderson

Betsy Anderson is a park planner and landscape architect for Bellevue Parks & Community Services. She contributes to Landscape Architecture Magazine and previously served as a landscape architect for the National Park Service, working throughout the Western states. Her 2014 master’s thesis for the University of Washington proposed a new vision for storm water management in Dumbarton Oaks Park and received an ASLA Student Honor Award (General Design) and the Graduate School Distinguished Thesis Award. She was the first garden historian for The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in Massachusetts, and received a landscape history fellowship to write about the National Trust’s Plant Conservation Programme in England and Northern Ireland.

Alex Gallo-Brown

Alex Gallo-Brown is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist based in Seattle. He holds an MA in English from Georgia State University in Atlanta and a BFA in Creative Writing from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He received an emerging artist award from Wonder Root and the City of Atlanta and has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, Salon.com, Literary Hub, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, Poetry Northwest, Crosscut, The Oregonian, 3:AM Magazine, Pacifica Literary Review, Seattle Review of Books, City Arts, Cirque, Cascadia Rising Review, and The Grief Diaries, among others.

Kentaro Kojima

Kentaro Kojima is a stone sculptor. Born and raised in Guatemala, Kentaro graduated from the College of William and Mary. He was showroom and fabrication shop manager at Marenakos Rock Center, which has been connecting people with stone since the 1950s when Fujitarō Kubota’s landscape business first sparked demand. Kentaro’s articles have been published in the Japanese American newspaper Hokubei Hochi (North American Post Foundation) and on Jungle City, the Japanese/English website about all things Seattle.
To listen to a Spirited Stone reading by this contributor, please click here.

Jeffrey Hou

Jeffrey Hou is a Professor in the University of Washington Department of Landscape Architecture. He focuses on community design, design activism, cross-cultural learning, and engaging marginalized communities in planning, design, and placemaking. Hou has written extensively on citizens’ and communities’ agency in shaping built environments, including Transcultural Cities: Border-Crossing and Placemaking (2013), Now Urbanism: The Future City is Here (2015), and City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy (2017). Hou received the Places Book Award (2012, 2010), and Community Builder Award and Golden Circle Award for service in Seattle’s Chinatown International District.

Iain Robertson

Iain Robertson (March 13, 1948 – July 27, 2021) was an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington. He had a B.Arch. (Honours) from Edinburgh University, Scotland and an MLA from the University of Pennsylvania and was a registered landscape architect. Professor Robertson’s professional interests focus on the spatial, functional, aesthetic, and ecological uses of plants in design and the role of creativity in the teaching and practice of design. He completed plant-related projects in Washington Park Arboretum, the UW’s Center for Urban Horticulture, and the Bloedel Reserve, and advised planning and design for Arboreta in California and Arizona.
To listen to a Spirited Stone reading by this contributor, please click here.

David Streatfield

David Streatfield is a preeminent historian of West Coast landscape architecture and is professor emeritus in the department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, where he taught from 1971 to 2012 and served as department chair from 1992 to 1996. Streatfield was born and raised in England and received his Diploma in Architecture at Brighton College of the Arts and Crafts in 1956; he earned a Certificate in Landscape Architecture at University College, University of London, in 1962; and earned his Master of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. His book, California Gardens: Creating a New Eden (1994) was selected in 1998 by the American Horticultural Society as one of the “75 Great American Books in 75 Years” on the observance of the Society’s 75th anniversary.

Anna Tamura

Anna Tamura is a landscape architect and planning portfolio manager for the Pacific WestRegion of the National Park Service. She coordinates development of planning portfolios for the more than sixty national parks in the Western states and Pacific Islands. Focusing on complex cultural landscapes and civil rights sites, she has managed several projects related to the WorldWar II incarceration of Japanese Americans (Minidoka National Historic Site, Manzanar National Historic Site, Tule Lake Unit, Honouliuli National Monument, and the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial). A founding member of the annual Minidoka Pilgrimage, Tamura’sfamily members were incarcerated at Minidoka and Tule Lake.

Jason Wirth

Jason M. Wirth is a professor of philosophy at Seattle University, where he works and teaches in the areas of Buddhist philosophy, aesthetics, environmental philosophy, continental philosophy, and Africana philosophy. His recent books include Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis (SUNY Press, 2017); a monograph on Milan Kundera, Commiserating with Devastated Things (Fordham, 2015); Schelling’s Practice of the Wild(SUNY Press, 2015); and the co-edited volumes Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (Indiana University Press, 2011) and Engaging Dōgen’s Zen(Wisdom, 2016). He is the associate editor and book review editor of the journal Comparative and Continental Philosophy. He is an ordained priest in the Sōtō Zen lineage and co-director of the Seattle University EcoSangha. He is also a student in the Yabunōchi School of tea ceremony practice.

Thaisa Way

Thaisa Way is an urban landscape historian teaching and researching history, theory, and design in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her book Unbounded Practice: Women, Landscape Architecture, and Early Twentieth Century Design(University of Virginia Press, 2009) was awarded the J. B. Jackson Book Award in 2012. A second book, From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design: The Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag(University of Washington Press, 2015) explores the narrative of post-industrial cities and the practice of landscape architecture. She has edited two books in urban environmental history and practice, including Now Urbanism (Routledge, 2013) with Jeff Hou, Ken Yocom, and Ben Spencer, and River Cities/City Rivers (Harvard University Press, 2018). She recently completed two monographs, GGN Landscapes: 1998–2018 (Timber Press, 2018) and Landscape Architect A. E. Bye: Sculpting the Earth, Modern Landscape Design Series (Norton Publishing, forthcoming).

STORIES

Jamie Ford

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer, Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations. His debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list, went on to win the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and has been optioned for film and stage. His second book, Songs of Willow Frost, was also a national bestseller. His work has been translated into 35 languages.

Charles Johnson

Charles Johnson is a novelist, essayist, literary scholar, philosopher, cartoonist, screenwriter, and professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle. A MacArthur fellow, his fiction includes Night Hawks, Dr. King’s Refrigerator, Dreamer, Faith and the Good Thing, and Middle Passage, for which he won the National Book Award. In 2002 he received the Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Seattle.

Glenn Nelson

Glenn Nelson is the founder of The Trail Posse, a media project about race and the outdoors. Born in Japan and raised in Seattle, Glenn graduated from Seattle University and Columbia University. He is the co-founder of the Next 100 Coalition, a national alliance of civil rights, environmental, and community groups advocating for more inclusive public land management. Formerly a writer for The Seattle Times, he’s been published in numerous magazines and book collections. He’s won several national awards for his writing, photography, and web publishing, most recently for Outstanding Beat Reporting (Race, Inclusion, and Environmental Justice) from the Society of Environmental Journalists.

POEMS

Anastacia-Reneé

Anastacia-Reneé is the Civic Poet of Seattle and former 2015–2017 Poet-in-Residence at Hugo House. She is the author of Forget It (Black Radish Books, 2017), (v.) (Gramma Press, 2017), Answer (Me) (Argus Press, 2017), and 26(Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her poetry, prose, and fiction have been published widely.

Elizabeth Austen

Elizabeth Austen is a former Washington State Poet Laureate (2014–2016). She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University–Los Angeles in 2001 and teaches at Hugo House. Elizabeth has been a visiting artist for the Anacortes, La Conner, Mount Vernon, Seattle, and Sedro Woolley, Washington school districts, and for the Austin, Texas Art Spark Festival. She’s led workshops for Burning Word, Field’s End, Highline Community College, Poets in the Park, Puget Sound Writers Program, and the Washington Center for the Book.
To listen to a Spirited Stone reading by this contributor, please click here.

Claudia Castro-Luna

Claudia Castro Luna is Washington’s current Poet Laureate and was Seattle’s Civic Poet from 2015 to 2017. Her books include Pushcart-nominated Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press) and This City (Floating Bridge Press). Born in El Salvador, Claudia came to the U.S. in 1981. A Hedgebrook and the Voices of our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA) alumna and a 2014 Jack Straw fellow, she has an MA in Urban Planning and an MFA in poetry. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, La Bloga, Diálogo, and Psychological Perspectives. Her nonfiction work is published in several anthologies, among them This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home(Seal Press).

Samuel Green

Samuel Green was named Washington’s first poet laureate in December 2007. A thirty-year veteran of the Poetry-in-the- Schools program, Sam has taught in hundreds of classrooms. He served six terms as Distinguished Visiting Northwest Writer at Seattle University. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Poet & Critic, Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, and Puerto del Sol. Among his ten collections of poems are Vertebrae: Poems 1972–1994 (Eastern Washington University Press, 1994) and The Grace of Necessity (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2008), which won the 2008 Washington State Book Award for Poetry.

Shin Yu Pai

Shin Yu Pai is an interdisciplinary artist and the author of several books including ENSO (Entre Rios Press, 2019), AUX ARCS (La Alameda, 2013), and Adamantine (White Pine, 2010). From 2015 to 2017, she served as the fourth poet laureate for the City of Redmond. Shin Yu has held residencies with Seattle Art Museum, Town Hall Seattle, and Jack Straw Cultural Center, and is a three-time fellow of The MacDowell Colony. She has received awards for her work from 4Culture, The Awesome Foundation, City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, and Artist Trust.
To listen to a Spirited Stone reading by this contributor, please click here.

Shankar Narayan

Shankar Narayan is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, winner of the 2017 Flyway Sweet Corn Poetry Prize, and a former fellow at Kundiman and at Hugo House. He curates Claiming Space, a project to lift the voices of writers of color, and his chapbook, Postcards from the New World, won the Paper Nautilus Debut Series chapbook prize. Shankar draws strength from his global upbringing and from his work as a civil rights attorney for the ACLU. In Seattle, he awakens to the wonders of Cascadia every day, but his heart yearns east to his other hometown, Delhi.
To listen to a Spirited Stone reading by this contributor, please click here.

PHOTOGRAPHS/FOLDOUT

Gemina Garland-Lewis

Gemina Garland-Lewis is a Seattle-based photographer, EcoHealth researcher, and National Geographic Explorer with experience in over 30 countries across six continents. She first picked up a camera when she was twelve years old and proceeded to spend the better part of high school in the darkroom in her hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Both her photography and research explore the myriad connections between humans, animals, and their shared environments. In 2009 she spent several months in Japan and got her first taste of photographing traditional gardens. Two years later she moved to Seattle and began immersing herself in the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. Though it took her seven years of living in the city before finding Kubota Garden, it quickly became a cherished space. Her photography and writing have been featured by National Geographic News, National Geographic Adventure, and REI, among others.

Mayumi Tsutakawa

Mayumi Tsutakawa is an independent writer and curator who focuses on Asian/Pacific American history and arts. Tsutakawa received her MA in Communications and her BA in East Asian Studies at the University of Washington. She co-edited The Forbidden Stitch: Asian American Women’s Literary Anthology, which received the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award. She lives in Seattle.
To listen to a Spirited Stone reading by this contributor, please click here.

Nathan Wirth

Nathan Wirth earned his BA and MA in English literature from San Francisco State University. Influenced by his continuing studies of poetry, painting, film, music, and the Japanese traditions of Zen, karesansui, bonsai, ma, wabi-sabi, ikebana, calligraphy, and mushin—he attempts to photograph silence. He teaches at City College of San Francisco and lives in Marin County, California, with his wife and daughter.