Janée J. Baugher is the author of the groundbreaking guidebook, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020). The celebrated writer of Writing Without Teachers, Peter Elbow offered this: “Her approach of linking of visual art with writing is unusual and intriguing. I’m impressed with this collection.” And noted ekphrastic poet Grace Bauer wrote, “This is a thorough and thoughtful guide to writing about visual art…Baugher invites writers—whether beginning or advanced—to consider writing about art as a way to explore themselves and the world.” 

She is also the author of two ekphrastic poetry collections, Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada Books, 2010) and The Body’s Physics (Tebot Bach, 2013). Before her first book was published, it had been shortlisted at Carnegie Mellon Press. In June of that year, the book made the Small Press Distribution bestseller’s list. Of the book, David Guterson wrote, “I was enchanted reading Coördinates of Yes. It’s honest and intimate without ever becoming precious, and it gives us the self without the usual indulgence.” Her second collection had been shortlisted at Saturnalia Books. In her review of the book, acclaimed writer Judith Kitchen wrote, “Baugher’s ekphrastic poems move in a synaesthetic dance with the physical body.”

Baugher holds degrees from Boston University and Eastern Washington University, and her writing has been published in over 100 journals and anthologies, including Tin House, The Southern Review, Nano Fiction, Boulevard, Rattle, Verse Daily!, Green Mountains Review, Minnesota Review, The Portland Review, The Comstock Review, The Santa Fe Literary Review, River Oak Review, Nashville Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, and The Writer’s Chronicle. A two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and Bread Loaf Conference participant, Baugher held a two-year post as a Humanities Washington Inquiring Minds Speaker in which she lectured across Washington State on writers and visual artists of the Lost Generation.

Since 2000 she’s taught creative writing to over 1,000 students at Northeastern University (WA); University of Phoenix (WA); Seattle Public Library; San Juan Island Library (WA); Sitka Fine Arts Camp (AK); Port Townsend Writers’ Conference (WA); Write on the Sound Writers’ Conference (WA); Richard Hugo House (WA); Interlochen Center for the Arts (MI); Interlochen College of Creative Arts (MI); University of Washington–Experimental College; Highline Community College (WA); Eastern State Hospital (WA); and Lewis and Clark High School (WA), among other places. Additionally, she regularly presents panels at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conferences.

As an interdisciplinary artist, Baugher seeks innovative ways to engage with the world. Her performance-art projects, for example, include collaborations with choreographers, dancers, and composers. Her poems adapted for the stage and set to music have been presented at University of Cincinnati–Conservatory of Music, Contemporary Dance Theatre (OH), Interlochen Center for the Arts, Dance Now! Ensemble (FL), The Salon at Justice Snow’s (CO), Otterbein University, and University of North Carolina-Pembroke. As a spoken-word artist, Baugher has performed in Seattle at Arts Edge Arts Festival, Bumbershoot Arts Festival, the Moore Theatre, and Folklife Arts Festival.

Over the last decade, she’s been awarded writing residencies at the Soaring Gardens Artists’ Retreat (PN), Island Institute of Sitka (AK), Silver Creek Residency (ID), The Marble House Project (VT), Dorland Mountain Arts Colony (CA), North Cascades Institute (WA), and Write On Door County (WI). Baugher lives in Seattle and is a long-time poetry submission reader for Boulevard magazine (MO).

Website: www.JaneeBaugher

Publications

• Ekphrastic Writing: A Guide to Visual-Art-Influenced Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction , McFarland (June 24, 2020)
• The Body's Physics , Tebot Bach (July 1, 2013)
• Coordinates of Yes , Ahadada Books (March 17, 2010)

Degrees

• Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Eastern Washington University (June 2001)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Children's literature , Poetry