Time to celebrate Hugo House's 25th Anniversary!

BECOME A MEMBER | EVENTS | UPCOMING CLASSES | DONATE

Dear friends,

Happy New Year from all of us at Hugo House!

As we turn the page on another year of growth and learning, we are excited to celebrate a very special milestone with you—Hugo House’s 25th anniversary!

Throughout 2022, we will be looking back on the past decades of artists, teachers, classes, events, camaraderie, and so much more that have helped to shape Hugo House from an ambitious idea—that anyone from any background can be a writer—into a thriving reality. This is also a time for Hugo House to look toward the future, to consider how we hold space for all to tell their own stories, and how we hope to evolve to better meet our community’s needs for the next 25 years and beyond.

On January 20th, we’ll kick off the anniversary celebrations with a free screening of Where the House Was, a film that follows the tear-down of the old Hugo House building and documents the erasure of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood and neighborhoods like it around the country. Learn more below or here on our website.

Throughout the year, we’ll be highlighting important dates in Hugo House’s history, little-known trivia about the House, and stories from our community. If you have any memories, photos, or anecdotes you’d like to share, please send them to welcome@hugohouse.org.

And in September, we will open the doors of our beautiful space for a free community celebration. There will be plenty of drinks, friends, readings, togetherness, and more! Stay tuned for more information to come.

Over the past 25 years, each and every one of you—as students, donors, teaching and performing artists, or just as lovers of the written word—has helped build Hugo House into this cornerstone of literary expression we’re fortunate enough to call home. Thank you for all that you’ve brought, and all you continue to bring! We look forward to sharing this special year with you.

Warm wishes,

Rob Arnold
Interim Executive Director

Where the House Was: Film Screening & Performance
January 20, 2022 | 7pm
In-Person | Proof of vaccination and masks required

In celebration of Hugo House's 25th Anniversary, join us for a special free screening of the documentary film Where the House Was, hosted by director Ryan Adams and featuring musical performances by Steve Fisk and Lori Goldston.

Tickets

Two opportunities for writers at Hugo House!
Applications for two Writers in Residence and the 2022–23 Hugo Fellowship are now open. Learn more about the programs and where to submit your application below.

Writers in Residence
Application closes Mar. 31
Hugo House writers-in-residence receive a monthly stipend and paid teaching opportunities, along with time and space to complete a manuscript.
Apply »

2022–23 Hugo Fellowship
Application closes Mar. 31
The Hugo Fellowship supports emerging writers in the Seattle area, providing space and resources to complete a proposed project.
Learn more & apply »

Class proposals for Summer 2022 are open through January 10
Have an idea for a creative writing class that you'd like to share with the Hugo House community? Our education team wants to hear all about it. Learn more about class proposals at Hugo House and submit yours via our teacher portal »

Hugo House is hiring!
We're currently accepting applications for our marketing assistant position. If you have a flair for communications and are interested in working with a growing literary nonprofit, we'd love to hear from you. Learn more »

Scribes-O-Rama
January 29, 2022 | 12 – 5pm

Scribes-O-Rama is an afternoon filled with creative writing workshops for young writers!

The first 4 hours of Scribes-O-Rama will offer numerous workshops for participants to choose from, offering an array of genres, activities, and writing prompts from talented teaching artists in the Seattle-area! The final hour will feature a Writing Life Panel in which published writers will share and answer questions about their varied paths to publishing.

Tickets

Winter youth workshop highlight

Shapeshifting: Writing the Mixed-Race Experience for Teens with Anne Liu Kellor
Grades 9 – 12 | January 16, 2022
Explore your evolving, multi-layered identities through readings and prompts that examine your family, messages you've learned about race, and feelings of belonging/not belonging across multiple communities.

Kids Write-In
Wednesday, Dec. 1 | 4 pm PT
Join us for creative inspiration and fun writing projects to try! Kids Write-In is geared toward elementary school kids who want to write independently or with the help of an adult.
See upcoming sessions »

Write Time with Naa Akua
Thursday, Dec. 2 | 4:30 pm PDT
Write Time is a writing circle that takes place every Thursday during the school year. Participation is free and open to teens age 13 – 19.
RSVP for this week's write-in »

Writing the Four Agreements with Naa Akua
All Levels | 6 sessions | Jan. 11
In this class, you’ll take four meditative and poetic steps. Each week we will explore an agreement, a meditation, and a poetic form in collaboration with The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

Inclusive Setting and Characterization
with Aram Mrjoian
All Levels | 10 sessions | Jan. 12
Explore the reciprocal relationship between setting and characterization, in particular esoteric details characters notice and how macrocosmic social, cultural, and political systems control character decision-making

How the Body Holds Its Stories with Jordan Alam
All Levels | 6 sessions | Jan. 15
How do our bodies hold on to experiences? In this course, writers will come together to consider the physical act of writing—how we translate embodied knowledge into language on the page.

Queering the Personal Essay with Edgar Gomez
All Levels | 8 sessions | Jan. 20
In this generative nonfiction workshop, students will be provided a safe space to dissect personal essays by queer writers, then write their own personal essays and workshop them in a supportive environment.

Creative Nonfiction II with Sasha LaPointe
Intermediate | 8 sessions | Jan. 20
This class will build on craft learned in Creative Nonfiction I with a focus on structure and form. We will investigate both traditional and nontraditional forms, including memoir, the lyric essay, and the hermit crab essay, as well as the role of research in creative nonfiction.

Continue to build your fiction writing skills with these upcoming Fiction II sections:

Fiction II with Susan Meyers
Intermediate | 8 sessions | Jan. 12

Fiction II (ASYNCHRONOUS) with Anca Szilágyi
Intermediate | 8 sessions | Jan. 19

Instructor Katherine Quevedo published a blog post with WritersDigest.com on How to Write Relatable Inanimate Object Characters in Fiction, inspired by the Creating Nonhuman Characters workshop co-taught with Elizabeth Beechwood. Congrats, Katherine! Read the post »

Congrats to student Saira Khan, whose story "Late Stage," was recently accepted for publication by DeRailleur Press. Pre-order a copy »

Michael Miller's poem, "void," was awarded 21st prize in the Writer's Digest 2021 Poetry Contest, in which he also received two honorable mentions, one in Poetry and one in Memoir. Congrats, Michael!

Have a recent literary success you'd like to share with the Hugo House community? Let us know here »