PLAYA ALUMNI

Motherhood is the current focal point of Renee Couture’s work. Created from within her mothering experience, she has a diverse practice, encompassing sculpture, photography, and drawing. Couture has a Bachelor’s degree with a double major in Studio Art and Spanish from Buena Vista University . In 2010, Couture earned her M.F.A. in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Art. She has been granted artist residencies at Jentel Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and Ucross Foundation. Couture currently works as a Project Manager with the Percent for Art/Art in Public Places program managed by the Oregon Arts Commission.

Meredith Starr is an interdisciplinary artist living in NY who creates interactive moments in her installations using AR and VR. She earned her BS in Studio Art from NYU, her MFA from LIU. She has three apps published to the App Store for iOS devices- Plastic Swim AR, You Are Here VR and Balancing Act AR. Her work has recently been published in Suboart Magazine, Art Seen: Curator’s Salon, and is featured in the fall 2022 publication of CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women. She has shown nationally and internationally, notably in Oslo, Norway, Seoul, Tokyo, and New York. She recently exhibited work from Are You There? in an installation at the Great Portland Metro station curated by ArtSpace Innovations and has shown Plastic Swim at Local Projects, in Queens NY, Balancing Act AR as part of the Turning Tides exhibit at the Target Gallery in Alexandria, VA, and You Are Here VR at Tomato Mouse Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. In the summer of 2023, she completed a residency at Zero Foot Hills in Connecticut. Starr is an Associate Professor of visual arts at SUNY Suffolk, and is the Vice President of Membership for the FATE (Foundations in Art Theory and Education) Organization. When she’s not in the studio you can find her on a run, pausing to photograph a sculptural arrangement of trash at the curb.

Paige Kaptuch’s work has appeared in Swamp Pink, Epiphany, Door is a Jar, The Masters Review and Hayden’s Ferry Review, with a feature forthcoming in Runner’s World. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona and has received fellowships from The Volland Foundation, Jentel, and Vermont Studio Center. She lives on Colorado’s Western Slope and is working on a novel.

Alice Langlois is a stop-motion animator and musician from rural Western Massachusetts, the place which fostered her deep love for nature and the environment. From leaves and seed pods to feathers and scales, elements of the natural world are an integral part of Alice’s artistic process, making their way into her films, music, and sculptures. Currently living and working in the animation industry in Portland, OR, Alice can often be found discovering strange creatures or gathering moss in old-growth forests.

Mackenzie Evan Smith Sajan’s writing has appeared in the North American Review and ZYZZYVA and has received support from Hedgebrook, Hawthornden Castle, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the U.S. Fulbright Commission. She lives in Oregon with her family.

Melissa Hart is the author of the memoirs Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood (Seal Press) and Wild Within: How Rescuing Owls Inspired a Family (Lyons Press), as well as the creative nonfiction book Better with Books: 500 Diverse Books to Ignite Empathy and Encourage Self-Acceptance in Tweens and Teens (Sasquatch Books). Her short memoir has appeared in Longreads, Real Simple, CNN, The Washington Post, Slate, The Advocate, and numerous other publications. She lives in Eugene, where she loves to bike and hike, run and ski, read and wander through the forest taking pictures of slime molds. Website: www.melissahart.com

Mary Welcome is a multidisciplinary rural cultural worker. As an artist- organizer, her projects are rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address equity, cultural advocacy, inclusivity, visibility, and imagination. She brings a nuanced perspective to the contemporary field, as an organizer working in service to small towns; as a cultural producer across American geographies; and as a facilitator of place-based arts programming. She currently serves as the Artist-in-Residence for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Her partners include Cabin- Time, Homeboat, M12 Studio, Brokeback Palouse, the Department of Public Transformation, Art of the Rural, Springboard for the Arts, and the USPS.

The artist Lynn Robb lives and works in Santa Monica, California. Her photographs and prints have been exhibited in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Santa Monica. Recent projects include explorations of architectural construction and of wildfire burn sites in California. She has published two monographs of her photos: Morning Walk One, and surface | tension.

Juan Alvarado Valdivia was born in Guadalajara, Mexico to Peruvian parents and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of ¡Cancerlandia!: A Memoir and Ballad of a Slopsucker, which was a 2020 International Latino Book Award finalist for Best Collection of Short Stories – English or Bilingual. In 2021, he served as a mentor to two aspiring writers in the Latinx in Publishing Writers Mentorship Program. His short stories and personal essays have been published in Prairie Schooner, The Acentos Review, Black Heart Magazine, The Cortland Review, Mount Hope, Origins Journal, and Thread.

Jenny is a fiction writer who recently completed her first novel. She is a school and community booster, nature enthusiast, former academic, and proud parent of two young kids. She works as a freelance writer and editor.

Danya Kukafka is the author of the nationally bestselling novels Notes on an Execution and Girl in Snow, both available now. She works as a literary agent with Trellis Literary Management. Danya grew up in Colorado, and moved to New York City for school, where her love for reading and writing have taken her through nearly every facet of the publishing industry. She began as a student at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she created a major titled “The Art of the Novel.” After internships at various literary agencies, she followed that passion to Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, where she was privileged to work as an assistant editor for writers like Meg Wolitzer, Paula Hawkins, Lauren Groff, Brit Bennett, Emma Straub, Gabriel Tallent, Helen Oyeyemi, Maile Meloy, Sigrid Nunez, and many more. Danya’s debut novel, Girl in Snow, was released in 2017 by Simon & Schuster—it was a national bestseller, an IndieNext Pick, a B&N Discover pick, and received favorable reviews from The New York Times (Editor’s Choice) and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Girl in Snow has been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide. Her newest novel, Notes on an Execution, also an IndieNext Pick and national bestseller, was reviewed in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many more outlets. It is currently in development for a feature film.

Karen Edmonds is pursuing her interests in writing and editing after working for nonprofit organizations for twenty years. While working on her first novel, she completed a Certificate in Novel Writing through Stanford University. She is enrolled in UC Berkeley’s editing program with an expected completion date of May 2024. She works as a freelance editor for an online learning platform and a nonprofit focused on empowering BIPOC communities. She volunteers in a bookstore operated by the local library, as a coach for Girls on the Run, and as a race official for a running company. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies-Sociology from Whitman College and an MPA from the University of Montana. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, and loves to spend her free time exploring the beauty of the Pacific Northwest

Heida Diefenderfer is a restoration ecologist who studies the ecohydrology and geomorphology of river floodplains and estuaries. She is active in working groups across the U.S. West Coast, mainly studying Northeast Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforests (for example, Bidlack et al. 2021, BioScience) and the “blue carbon” sequestered by coastal wetlands (for example, Kauffman et al. 2020, Global Change Biology). She is privileged to have helped develop and continue adaptive management of the Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program, which since 2003 reconnects river floodplain areas to improve habitat for juvenile salmon and other organisms. She has also contributed to investigations of the Net Ecological Gain concept by the Washington State Academy of Sciences, and the Cumulative Effects of Restoration following the Deepwater Horizon disaster on the U.S. Gulf Coast, by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. A member of the Washington Natural Heritage Advisory Council as an appointee of the State Commissioner of Public Lands since 2013, advising state resource agencies, she most recently serves as Chair. Heida’s work is published in peer-reviewed journals associated with scientific professional societies including Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (Ecological Society of America), Geophysical Research Letters (American Geophysical Union), and Restoration Ecology (Society for Ecological Restoration). Her professional roles are Senior Earth Scientist, U.S. Department of Energy Pacific Northwest National Laboratory-Coastal Sciences Division, and Faculty Fellow, University of Washington (UW)-College of the Environment. She earned her BA (biology/forest ecology) from Reed College and her doctorate from UW College of Forest Resources.

Meghan Robins was born and raised in Tahoe City, California, and currently resides in Bend, Oregon. She earned her MFA from Sierra Nevada College. Her short fiction and creative essays have appeared in Beyond Words, VoiceCatcher, Powder Magazine, Kokanee Review, and the literary anthology Tahoe Blues. Her essay “Being a Woman Is Like Making French Onion Soup” won first place in the WOW! Women on Writing nonfiction writing contest. Meghan is currently writing a historical novel set in a Lake Tahoe logging camp in 1859. When not writing and working as a freelance marketing & communications specialist, she’s most often found baking, drinking tea, and exploring the mountains (sometimes all at the same time). You can read more of her work at meghanrobins.com.

Megan Kruse grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Olympia. She studied creative writing at Oberlin College and earned her MFA at the University of Montana. Her debut novel, Call Me Home, was published by Hawthorne Books in 2015; she was the recipient of a 2016 Pacific Northwest Book Award and named one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.” She currently teaches for Eastern Oregon University’s Low Residency MFA program and Gotham Writers Workshop. She is at work on a new novel about oysters, queer family, and how we make meaning in the face of climate disaster.

Liz Asch is an author, acupuncturist, visual artist, and educator. Liz created and hosts the embodied surrealist art project, Body Land: Metaphor Medicine, which helps listeners relax and practice self-regulation of the nervous system while engaging the mind’s creativity. Body Land is free wherever you get your podcasts. Her collection of short fiction, Your Salt on My Lips (Cleis Press, 2021), was lauded for “reinventing the genre of erotica.” Liz holds a BA from Vassar, an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Eastern Oregon University, and a Masters in Chinese Medicine. Her 16 mm animated short, “The Loveseat,” showed in LGBTQ film festivals across the US and in Canada. Liz’s essays, stories, reviews, interviews, and poetry have been published in The Rumpus, The Collagist, Gertrude Press, Phoebe, Sinister Wisdom, Atticus Review, Entropy, BUST, Oregon East, and Mutha Magazine, among others; and in the anthologies: Wild Gods, Step Lightly, The Dream Closet, and The Untold Gaze. Liz has been honored to be an Art/Lab Jewish fellow, a Pushcart nominee, and winner of the Phoebe Creative Nonfiction Contest and the Willamette Writers Kay Snow Award. A guest educator at Corporeal Writing, various MFA programs, and the Portland Underground Graduate School, Liz is a cherished workshop leader, assistant, and editor to many artists. She practices hands-on healthcare at Night Sky Acupuncture + Ideaphoria in Portland, Oregon. You can read more about her at www.LizAsch.com