rain shadow poetics lab

Founder of Cascadia Poetics Lab in 1993 and Cascadia Poetry Festival (Seattle) in 2012, professional broadcaster and interviewer, Robin Blaser award recipient 2014. Paul has published 5 books of poetry, 2 books of interviews, and co-edited 6 anthologies. His first book,  A Time Before Slaughter (2009), was shortlisted for the Stranger Genius Award. Living in Rainier Beach, Seattle, in the dəxʷwuqʷeb Creek/Cedar River watershed in the Cascadia bioregion, Paul serves as Literary Executor for Sam Hamill.

Harold Rhenisch’s 33rd book, The Salmon Shanties: a Cascadian Song Cycle, was short-listed for the 2025 Purdy Prize. His memoir The Wolves at Evelyn won the George Ryga Prize in 2007. He taught work in progress workshops at the Victoria School of Writing and poetry and short fiction writing at Vancouver Island University. In January 2026, he will lead a 5 week online workshop on Wawa, Cascadian language and poetic form for the Cascadia Poetics Lab. His poetics rise from his life as a horticulturalist and gardener. He lives in Vernon, BC.

Garry Gottfriedson, B.Ed., M.A.Ed., LL.D.h.c., D.Litt.h.c. is rooted in his Secwepemc teachings. In 1987, he attended Naropa Institute (Boulder, Co) with an MFA Creative Writing Scholarship. Gottfriedson has published 13 books and co-authored four, including poetry, children’s books, history and academic texts. He has presented his work across Canada, USA, Central and South America, New Zealand, Europe, and Asia. Gottfriedson’s work unapologetically unveils the truth of Canada’s treatment of First Nations. His work has been anthologized and published nationally and internationally.

Jan Zwicky has published ten collections of poetry including The Long Walk, Songs for Relinquishing the Earth and Forge. Other books include Wisdom & Metaphor, Lyric Philosophy, and Once Upon a Time in the West, a collection of essays. A native of the prairies, Zwicky now lives on Quadra Island. In addition to her work as a poet and philosopher, she is active as both a gardener and a
musician. Say It, a chapbook from Deer Mountain Pages that addresses the roots of environmental crisis, will appear late this summer.

Robert Bringhurst is a typographer, poet, linguist and translator. In 2004, his three-volume study of Haida oral literature was awarded the Edward Sapir Prize by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology and was chosen as Literary Editor’s Book of the Year by the Times of London. Two volumes of his lectures and essays – The Tree of Meaning and Everywhere Being Is Dancing – are published by Gaspereau (CA) and Counterpoint (USA). The Ridge, a new book of poems, appeared from Harbour Publishing in 2023. The Selected Poems are published Gaspereau (CA), Jonathan Cape (UK), and Copper Canyon (USA).

Lorin Medley is a counsellor and writer from Comox, BC with poems in anthologies including Winter in America (Again, Cascadian Zen: Volume Two, Refugium: Poems for the Pacific, Sweetwater: Poems for the Watersheds, The New Quarterly and subTerrain. Her poetry chapbook, On the Way to Kluusms, forthcoming from Watershed Press, will be launched in Cumberland, BC at Rain Shadow Poetry Festival 2025.