Belltown Writers-in-Residence
The Belltown Residencies (sometimes referred to as the Hugo Huts) are two former cannery cottages nested in the center of an urban garden, located in the transitional neighborhood of Belltown. Residencies run for 12 months, from September through August.
As of September 1, 2010, Hugo House will discontinue the Belltown Residencies due to liability, safety and security risks associated with the program.
If you'd like to meet with a writer-in-residence, visit the House writers-in-residence page.
0ur 2009-2010 Belltown writers-in-residence are:
Cienna Madrid is a local writer and humorist whose articles have appeared in The Stranger, Arcade Journal, SubTerrain Magazine, and the Boise Weekly. She has worked with organizations like the Seattle Poet Populist Program and Scala House Press to highlight and promote the exceptional prose and poetry of local, national, and international writers and poets, and joined the Bumbershoot Board of Advisors in 2005 to continue working in this vein. Cienna's free time is spent devouring books and moonlighting as an inspirational tattoo sloganist (Question Paternity is a popular favorite). Described as a bookworm with one thousand times the gravity, some call her a mighty bookwhale.
Currently, Cienna is working on a novel set in the piss-poor town of Mountain Home, Idaho, which was formerly (and more accurately) known as Rattlesnake Station. Just outside of modern-day Mountain Home along US Route 20, three Idaho historical markers display a fabricated history of the town, embellished by the town's residents. In the novel, one woman contests these rewritten versions of history, which pits her against friends, gun enthusiasts, and family, until her only remaining advocate is a soft-spoken convicted serial killer turned children's author named Bud Peachy Keen.
To make an appointment with Cienna, email ciennamadrid@hugohouse.org.
Storme Webber is a Seattle born, internationally nurtured poet, writer and performer. She is the founder and director of Voices Rising, which produces quarterly events showcasing the arts and culture of LGBTQ people of color. Her work has been featured in the anthologies "Beyond Borders: Black Women Writing New Worlds", "Serious Pleasure" and "Voices Rising: 20 Years of Black LGBT Writing." She was a main protagonist in the documentary "Venus Boyz", featured on the Sundance Channel, and has worked widely in film, theater, and international spoken word scenes in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Brazil and the US. Most recently she has been awarded a Janet Hill/Renaissance House Fellowship, and support from Poets & Writers and Seattle Mayors Office of Arts and Culture.
Storme is presently completing "Wild Tales of a Renegade Halfbreed Bulldagger", a narrative nonfiction memoir of her Aleut/African American/European family, and developing/presenting multimedia excerpts of the work in performance.
To make an appointment with Storme, email stormewebber@hugohouse.org.
