Angel Latterell, President

Originating from a land colder than Siberia on the shores of Lake Superior known as Duluth, Minnesota but now stationed on the hills of Seattle overlooking Puget Sound, Angel Latterell is a poet and performance artist who pushes the boundary of poetic expression through incorporation of dance, music, story and collaborative energy into her creations. Her first full-length stage production combining all these elements entitled Intersection: a spoken word opera debuted in December 2007 at the Richard Hugo House, and her second My People Never Grew Corn is in process. Angel's written word appeared in Chanter and Banshee literary journals and she has performed spoken word vignettes with jazz and modern dance artists around the country. Angel is an attorney for artists and a devoted practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism. In her native habitat she can be spotted enjoying jazz music, walking around Pike Place Market, holding a notebook and enjoying life.

Raúl Sánchez

Raúl is currently working on a collection of Street Poems. These are snippets of visions in the Seattle streets. Keeping the ties to his Native Mexico, Raul's poems may be splattered with words in Spanish, Spanglish or Caló adding a touch of flavor. Raul was the Representative of Los Norteños from 2002 - 2007. Raul has been published in a few journals and on-line. Most recently on Bookmarks published by the Seattle Public Library. 2007 Poetic Art Project Lines on a spine: Poems by the book. Raul occasionally volunteers as a DJ on Sabor! for KBCS 91.3 FM, a community radio station.

Michael Dylan Welch

is editor/publisher of Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem and of award-winning haiku and tanka books published with his press, Press Here. Serving for many years as the vice president of the Haiku Society of America, he also founded the Tanka Society of America, founded and directed the Poets in the Park conference, and is cofounder/director of the Haiku North America conference. He also curates the Haiku Garden summer reading series in Seattle's Japanese Garden, as well as the monthly SoulFood Poetry Night in Redmond, Washington. His poetry has been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies in more than a dozen languages, and he is also an active ambassador and teacher of haiku and related genres of poetry. Michael lives with his wife, two children, and an excessive library in Sammamish, Washington.

Tom Erdman Jr, Board Member Emeritus

co-founded Washington Poets Association in 1971. Tom has won awards from the poetry associations of Arizona, Florida, Oregon and Washington, the most significant being the Ben Hur Lampman Award given by the Oregon State Poetry Association. His work has been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies. He has two chapbooks published by Folly Press of Tacoma. After thirty years as a member of the WPA board he moved to Arizona with his new wife, Dyan. During his Seattle teaching career, Tom's students won over 300 local, state and national writing awards.

Your WPA board in action at its November 11, 2007 meeting in Tieton, Washington: Clockwise from far left: Clarice Keegan, Michael Schein, Ed Stover, Jeremy Gaulke, Paul Nelson, Lorri Lambert-Smith, Leonard Orr (guest), A. K. Allin, and Dan Peters. Photo by Michael Dylan Welch.