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It’s embarrassing to admit that when I arrived at Western Washington University’s Master of Arts in English program in the fall of 2001, I could count on two hands—and two hands only—the number of living, breathing writers whose work I knew intimately, whose names had found their way to the tip…

Dave Freeman decided to become an attorney, in part, because he knew it was work he could do even if he went blind.

An Olympia native, Freeman started having problems seeing in the dark when he was about 10. By 14, he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, an…

Growing up in rural Whatcom County, Ryan Pemberton knew what it was to be hungry. His father, who lived out of state, saw Ryan once or twice a year.

So young Ryan dreamed of a future in which his own children would have two parents under one roof and enough food on…

A CENTURY AGO, during America’s expansionist heyday, no one ever saw author and “Manifest Destiny” cheerleader Horace Greeley point across the sweeping expanse of America and urge his eager charges: “Go north, young man!”

Yet, many of us did. And to this day, most…