2024 Events

Celebrating our 35th anniversary in 2023 and 2024

Haiku Northwest invites you to attend any of our free monthly and quarterly meetings, which usually focus on rounds of sharing and workshopping our haiku, with occasional presentations and writing exercises. Most meetings in 2024 will be on Zoom (join our mailing list to receive each Zoom link), but we are exploring when and how to have more in-person meetings. Listed here are all our meetings, a few special events, plus significant regional or national events. If you’re giving a haiku workshop or know of another haiku event in the area, please let us know so we can add it. Monthly meetings usually start at 6:30 p.m. with informal socializing, with a more formal start at 7:00 p.m., and occur on the second Thursday of each month, except as indicated. For 2024 we will also have quarterly meetings on selected Saturdays in place of that month’s Thursday meeting, for three hours usually starting at 1:00 p.m. All dates and details are subject to change, and will be confirmed via the Haiku Northwest Mailchimp mailing list (through which you may be provided additional details, such as Zoom links—if you have questions, please email haikunw1988@gmail.com). To suggest regional haiku-related events to add to the following schedule, please contact Michael Dylan Welch at WelchM@aol.com. We’ll update content as soon as we confirm the details. See you at our next event!


Haiku Northwest Monthly Newsletter

If you have a haiku event, reading, publication, award, or other haiku-related news to share in Haiku Northwests monthly newsletter, please submit your announcement by the 20th of each month to haikunw1988@gmail.com.

In addition to the following events, the Washington region of the Haiku Society of America plans to have an annual regional meeting on May 17, 2024, and may have additional events. For more information, please contact the HSA regional coordinator for 2024, Richard Tice. Haiku Northwest is independent of the HSA Washington state region.

2024 Meetings

All online via Zoom, unless specified otherwise, and all times Pacific Time. Events in green and indented are not Haiku Northwest events, but may be of interest to our members. For more details about events not run by Haiku Northwest, please click the links provided.

January 11

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Zoom

Presentation by Tanya McDonald on her haiku journal, Kingfisher.


January 13

Curtis Manley Book Launch, 2:00 p.m.

Launch for Climbing the Volcano: A Journey in Haiku by Curtis Manley

Brick & Mortar Books, 7430 164th Ave NE, Suite B105 in Redmond, Washington


February

National Haiku Writing Month

Visit the NaHaiWriMo website and Facebook page

Write at least one haiku per day for each day of February!


February 10 (Saturday)

Quarterly Meeting, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Zoom

1:00 pm Welcome and announcements by Michael Dylan Welch, host

1:05 pm “35th Anniversary Spot: The Swinging Grasshopper: How Bob Major Inspired a Haiku Northwest Tradition” by Connie Hutchison

1:15 pm “Teaching Haiku” by Anne Burgevin

2:00 pm Group photo, then a break

2:05 pm Breakout rooms

2:20 pm Read-around (share one haiku of your own)

2:35 pm “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: Another Exploration of Ukrainian Haiku” by Nicholas Klacsanzky

3:00 pm Break

3:05 pm Critique sharing (prepare one haiku to paste into the chat and/or read aloud) for everyone to comment on—what we like and what might be improved)

3:55 pm Closing words, reminders, announcements

4:00 pm Ending time, or stay longer for socializing


Anne Burgevin blends her professional work as a former elementary teacher and a creative writing teacher with her passion for haiku. Helping youth explore their role as stewards of our natural resources is important to Anne’s sense of purpose as an educator. She has found haiku to be an exciting vehicle for these goals. Annes second collection, Sunny Uplands, is forthcoming from Red Moon Press. She is an associate editor at The Heron’s Nest. Please read a recent Teachers & Writers Magazine interview with Anne.


Nicholas Klacsanzky has had poems and essays published widely in journals, books, and on websites. He has also collaborated in creating the books Zen and Son and How Many Become One. His solo haiku book, Transported, was published in 2022 by Red Moon Press. Nicholas is the haiku and senryu editor for Frogpond journal, and an editor for the “Haiku Commentary” blog. He is a teacher by profession.


March 1–31

Enter the fifth annual Mukai Garden Haiku Festival. Results announced in April, with winners on display around the garden throughout April. Visit the garden at 18017 107th Ave SW, Vashon Island, Washington.


March 14

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Zoom

Hosted by Connie Hutchison and Michelle Schaefer. “35th Anniversary Spot” by Michael Dylan Welch.


March 2931

Sakura-Con

Washington State Convention Center


April 11

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Zoom

Our “35th Anniversary Spot” will feature a look at Haiku Northwest’s 1996 anthology, Sunlight Through Rain, edited by Robert Major and Francine Porad. We’ll discuss the purpose of haiku critique and will critique haiku submitted by members.


April 12–14

Seattle Cherry Blossom and Japanese Cultural Festival

Seattle Center, Seattle, Washington


April 13–14

Sakura Days Japan Fair

VanDusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver, British Columbia


April 17 (Wednesday)

International Haiku Poetry Day


April 17

Haiku Society of America Washington Region Zoom Meeting

“Focus on Washington, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., free on Zoom


April 30

Submission deadline for Haiku Northwest’s 35th anniversary anthology

(for Washington state residents only; submissions open March 18)


May 11 (Saturday, in person)

Quarterly Meeting, 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Avenue, Seattle, Washington (free admission)

Hosted by Michael Dylan Welch. Our visit to the Frye Art Museum will include a private tour, ekphrastic writing and sharing, and lunch at the museum cafe. Attendees are invited to submit haiku written during or after this event for compilation in a trifold, which we will give to the museum and to contributors.


June 13

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Zoom

“Light and the Poet: Impressionism and Haiku presentation by Bill Fay, with a focus on ekphrastic haiku writing, plus our usual time for haiku sharing and critique.


June 2123

Haiku Oregon Weekend

A Celebration of Oregon Haiku Poets

Oregon City, Oregon near Portland

Friday, June 21

Dinner at a time and restaurant to be announced

Saturday, June 22
10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

5:00 p.m.

Sunday, June 23
Haiku walk at a time and natural location to be announced


June 2930

Japan Fair

Meydenbauer Center, 11100 NE 6th Street in Bellevue, Washington

(look for more information about their annual haiku contest also)


July 11

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Zoom

Featured reading by John Brandi.

“35th Anniversary Spot” by Terran Campbell

Haiku Northwest meeting at the Lake Forest Park Library, September 27, 2018. Left to right are Cara Izumi, Millie Renfrow, Ron Swanson, Curtis Manley, Arlene Springer, Philaah Jones, Terran Campbell, Tanya McDonald, Dianne Garcia, Gary Evans, and Angie Terry. Photo by Michael Dylan Welch. Please join us!

Haiku Northwest meeting at the Bellevue Regional Library, August 7, 2008. Left to right are Curtis Manley, Helen Russell, William Scott Galasso, Ida Freilinger, Bryson Nitta, Tanya McDonald, Connie Hutchison, Dejah Leger, Susan Miller, Terran Campbell, Joshua Beach, Angela Terry, Marilyn Sandall, and Herb McClees. Photo by Michael Dylan Welch. Please join us!


August 10 (Saturday, in person)

Quarterly Meeting, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Lake Hills Greenbelt Garden Shelter, 15500 SE 16th Street, Bellevue, Washington (see map shown here). Please bring your own lunch and a notebook and writing tool for our haiku walk (during which we’ll write haiku to share later) and rengay-writing session. Bring books to give and take on a “free table.” Here's our agenda for the day:

10:00 a.m. Gather/socialize

10:30 a.m. "As Far as We Can Go: The Limits of Haiku Connections"

Nick Klacsanzky discusses varying degrees of closeness and farness in the relationship of the traditional two parts in haiku, and how readers may react to them, followed by an exercise to write three haiku representing the spectrum of closeness and farness.

11:00 a.m. Walk to Larsen Lake

12:00 noon Lunch/sharing haiku

12:50 p.m. Featured reading by Victor Ortiz

1:00 p.m. Rengay writing/sharing, led by Michael Dylan Welch

1:50 p.m. Cleanup

2:00 p.m. Depart


August 31

Porad Haiku Award Deadline

(received by this date)

See submission guidelines

See 2023 winners

Winners announced at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway on October 26, 2024


September 12

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Featured reading by Roy Kindelberger, reading from his new book Building Bridges.


September 12, 13

Moon Viewing Festival, with haiku contest each night, 7:00 p.m.

Seattle Japanese Garden


September 15

Today marks the 36th anniversary of Haiku Northwests first meeting in 1988 in Bellevue, Washington.


September 30–October 5

Japan Week

Sponsored by Bellevue College, Bellevue, Washington (public events on October 5)

 

October 10

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Our “35th Anniversary Spot” will feature memories of Seabeck, presented by David Berger, Ida Freilinger, Carole MacRury, and Kathleen Tice, plus Luke Brannon with “Lessons Learned from completeTheHaiga.” TheHaiga is an online collaborative project with weekly drawing prompts across multiple social platforms. Luke will detail lessons he’s learned regarding haiga and the collaborative creative process. See https://x.com/thehaiga and https://www.threads.net/@completethehaiga.

Raising a family in the Pacific Northwest, Luke Brannon keeps a hand in writing in his spare time. Influenced by language poetry, his micropoetry focuses on capturing the moment and its interplay with the reader’s own experiences. When not writing, Luke creates line-art inspired by the American Southwest. More recently, he has begun to bridge his writing and his art into one.

 

October 24–27

Seabeck Haiku Getaway (our seventeenth annual retreat)

Our weekend theme is “Maps,” with Crystal Simone Smith as our featured guest.


November 9 (Saturday)

Quarterly Meeting, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Broadview Branch of the Seattle Public Library

12755 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle, Washington

We’ll begin with announcements and introductions (share a seasonal haiku, either yours or someone else’s), then have a “Found Haiku” activity led by Richard Tice (finding haiku in nonhaiku sources). You may come across a passage in fiction that jumps out at you as a haiku, or you may hear a song that has lines in the lyrics that resemble or make you think of haiku. You will learn more about found haiku and practice writing them. We’ll then have our usual haiku sharing and feedback session. Please share up to five of your own haiku for friendly feedback, printed out to share with others (15 to 20 copies). We’ll also have a book exchange table (add/take a book). Please also bring snacks to share (optional).


December 12

Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Please also check the schedule for the Seattle Japanese Garden (see this website also). Several of the garden’s events typically include a haiku component, such as the moonviewing festival, which usually includes a haiku contest.

Click also to see event listings for 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009.