New Homelands; Local Poetry

Join local poets Lorraine Healy and Mark Strohschein for a poetry reading and group discussion focused on homeland and exploring the experience of finding home in new, sometimes far away places. 

Lorraine Healy, award-winning poet and photographer, holds an M.F.A. from New England College and a post M.F.A. in Teaching of Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, as well as a Licenciatura in Modern Literature from her native Argentina.

Healy was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2004 and was the first poet ever to receive American residence solely on the merits of her work. The winner of the 2009 Tebot Bach Prize, her first full-length volume The Habit of Buenos Aires was published in 2010, followed by the chapbook Abraham’s Voices in 2014 and Mostly Luck Luck: Odes & Other Poems of Praise in 2018. She lives on Whidbey Island, Washington, where she is at work on her next poetry book.

Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Mark Strohschein resides in Washington state. His poems have appeared in Flint Hills Review, Cirque Journal, Bryant Literary Review, Barren Magazine, Lips Poetry Magazine, The Milk House, among others, and in anthologies. His chapbook, Cries Across Borders, a semifinalist for Button Poetry’s 2023 chapbook contest, was just published by Main Street Rag. His chapbook, Sanctuary of Voices, will be published by Ravenna Press in late 2025 as part of its Triple Series. He is a proud board member of the Skagit River Poetry Foundation and a Creative Writing MFA student at Pacific Lutheran University.