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The Jack Straw Artist Residency Programs offer established and emerging artists in diverse disciplines an opportunity to explore the creative use of sound in a professional atmosphere through residencies in our recording studios and participation in our various presentation programs. Artists may apply to only one program per year.

Writers Program Deadline: Wednesday, November 1

Artist Support and New Media Gallery Program deadline: Monday, November 27

All residency applications are now online via Submittable! If this format is not accessible to you for any reason, please contact us at [email protected] or (206) 634-0919.

Questions? Check our FAQs or email us at [email protected].

The 2024 Writers Program Curator is Nisi Shawl. Nisi Shawl (they/them) is the multiple award-winning author, co-author, and editor of more than a dozen books of speculative fiction and related nonfiction, including the standard text on diverse representation, Writing the Other: A Practical Approach. Shawl’s best known fiction is the Nebula Award finalist novel Everfair. Recent books include the 2022 story collection Our Fruiting Bodies, and the 2023 Middle Grade historical fantasy novel Speculation. Editing credits include the 2023 anthology New Suns 2, sequel to the acclaimed New Suns 1. They’ve spoken at Duke University, Spelman College, Sarah Lawrence College, and many other institutions, and they teach online and in-person courses on respectful representation, dialogue and dialect, culturally inclusive worldbuilding, and diverse narrative voices. For over two decades they have served on the boards of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and the Carl Brandon Society, a nonprofit supporting the presence of people of color in fantastic literature.

Jack Straw Writers Program

Jack Straw Writers at Elliott Bay Books

Wednesday, August 9, 7pm

Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave, Seattle

Curator Priscilla Long hosts a reading featuring 2023 Jack Straw Writing Fellows Hana Choi, Geri Gale, Garfield Hillson, Sumu Tasib, and Kaitlyn Teer. The 2023 Jack Straw Writers Anthology will be available for sale.

Jack Straw New Media Gallery

Erin Slomski-Pritz and Jenny Lesser Holman | Dream Motif

August 4-September 29, 2023

Call 206-634-0919 or email [email protected] to schedule a visit

Jack Straw Cultural Center, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE

Friday, August 18, 7pm: Artist Talk

September 23, 2pm: Youth and Family Workshop

E-mail [email protected] for information or to sign up.

Dream Motif is a series of dream synchronicities. Each dream has a logic and theme that corresponds to leitmotifs created by local musicians, visuals of the collective unconscious, and soundscapes that make vivid the fragile distinction between waking and dream life.

Jack Straw Atrium Gallery

D.A. Navoti | O'otham Rhapsode

Call 206-634-0919 or email [email protected] to schedule a visit

Jack Straw Cultural Center, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE

O'otham Rhapsode is a multimedia work by Jack Straw resident artist D.A. Navoti that depicts the lives and homelands of the Akimel O'otham, whose ancestral lands—named the Gila River Indian Community—are located south of Phoenix, Arizona. The word "O'otham" translates to people; the term "rhapsode" comes from Ancient Greece to describe an orator of epic poems. What orates these visual "poems"—a collection of three short videos—is atmospheric and symphonic music composed between 2022-2023.

Jack Straw Fall Audio Workshops 

Jack Straw's audio workshops with engineer Tom Stiles are the perfect opportunity to improve your studio skills or get that first introduction to the world of audio recording and editing.  

To sign up or for more information, email [email protected]. 

Intro to Podcasting: Wednesday, October 11, 6:30-9:30pm

Fee: $50 (held on Zoom)

Learn the basics of creating and maintaining a podcast, from concept to planning, production, and distribution. 

Intro to Digital Audio Editing: Thursday, October 12, 6:30-9:30pm

Fee: $50 (held on Zoom)

Learn the basic skills of recording and editing sound with audio editing software.

Join us on Social Media!

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to get regular doses of writing, art, and music from Jack Straw artists of all ages. 

We recently posted this poem by Roxhill Elementary student August, written with help from teaching artist Vicky Edmonds.

When I feel calm,

it feels like red and purple streams

going through my body.

When I play with my brother

it keeps the streams flowing.

Jack Straw Podcasts

Jack Straw Artist of the Week

The current installment of our Artist of the Week podcast is an excerpt from Leanna Keith's improvised performance at our fall 2022 Jack Straw Artist showcase.

Listen at jackstraw.org, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts. 

Jack Straw New Media Gallery Podcast

Sasha Petrenko talks with Jack Straw's producer Carlos Nieto about her Jack Straw New Media Gallery installation Forest Time Water.

Listen at jackstraw.org, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts.

SoundPages, the Jack Straw Writers Program Podcast

The 2022 Jack Straw Writers SoundPages series concludes with a conversation between Ruth Schemmel and 2022 Writers Program Curator Michael Schmeltzer, and a recording of Ruth's live reading at Jack Straw.

Listen at jackstraw.org, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts.

Gratitude to the First People of Seattle

The staff, board, and artists of Jack Straw Cultural Center acknowledge that we are living, creating, working, and playing on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle and the Salish Sea - the Duwamish, Suquamish, and Muckleshoot nations and other Coast Salish peoples, past and present. We honor them and the land itself with deep gratitude.

Support Jack Straw Cultural Center

Jack Straw Cultural Center relies on the support of individual contributors to make our programs possible. Please help us continue to support the work of artists working with sound and all our art and technology education programs. Donate any amount by clicking the button below, or sending a check directly to us at 4261 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105.

Support Jack Straw's programs with a one-time or recurring gift.