2025 Events

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 2025 will be on Zoom (join our mailing list to receive each Zoom link), but we also have quarterly 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. Quarterly meetings occur 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 one or two regional meetings, and may have additional events. For more information, please contact the HSA regional coordinator for 2025, Richard Tice. Haiku Northwest is independent of the HSA Washington state region.

2025 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 9

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

“A Poets’ Retrospective and Celebration of 2024,” celebrating your best haiku from 2024, led by Richard Tice


January 16

Glimmering Hour Reading, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at SoulFood CoffeeHouse, 15748 Redmond Way in Redmond, Washington, plus open-mic reading


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 8 (Saturday)

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

Bellevue Library, at 1111 110th Ave NE in Bellevue, Washington

(free parking in library garage)

Meet in the large meeting room to celebrate National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), hosted by Michael Dylan Welch


1. Welcome, round of introductions

2. “Lost in Translation — Shiva Bhusal, featured reader

Shiva Bhusal grew up in Nepal and attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He works as a software engineer and lived in Bellevue for three years. His poems and prose have been published in Frogpond, Wales Haiku Journal, Modern Haiku, Ribbons, South Florida Poetry Journal, the Kathmandu Post, and elsewhere. In addition to software engineering and writing, he loves playing cricket and ping-pong.

3. Announcements

4. Short break

5. Overview of NaHaiWriMo (where the goal is to write at least one haiku a day for the month of February—the shortest month for the shortest genre of poetry) by Michael Dylan Welch

6. Discussion on the pros and cons of daily writing prompts

7. Writing exercise, with optional sharing

8. Break

9. Our usual sharing/critique session (bring copies of your poems to share with everyone, with all of your poems on a single sheet)


February 13

Glimmering Hour Reading, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. on Zoom, including a memorial reading of members who have died. Join the Zoom meeting.


March 1

“Haiku on Steroids workshop by Michael Dylan Welch, 4:24 to 6:00 p.m. (free), at BookTree, 609 Market Street in Kirkland, Washington, followed by Glimmering Hour Reading, 6:15 to 8:30 p.m. also at BookTree, plus open-mic reading


March 1–31

Enter the sixth 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 13

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

Hosted by Dianne Garcia

Presentation by Richard Tice: “What Is Japanese Haibun, examining haibun as it is understood and represented in Japanese literature.


April 10

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


April 11–13

Seattle Cherry Blossom and Japanese Cultural Festival

Seattle Center, Seattle, Washington


April 12–13

Sakura Days Japan Fair

VanDusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver, British Columbia


April 17 (Wednesday)

International Haiku Poetry Day


April 18–20

Sakura-Con

Washington State Convention Center


May 10 (Saturday, in person)

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

Location and program details to be announced


June 12

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


June 21

Mini-Conference for the Haiku Society of America Oregon Region

Newport Art Center / Sylvia Beach Hotel, Newport, Oregon

More details to be announced

[for details, email Tanya McDonald at tanyamc1375@gmail.com]

 

July 10

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

 

July 12–13

Japan Fair

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

(includes an annual haiku contest)


August 9 (Saturday, in person)

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

Location and program details to be announced


August 31

Porad Haiku Award Deadline

(received by this date)

See submission guidelines [to come]

See 2024 winners

Winners announced at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway on October 25, 2025


September 11

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


September [dates to be announced]

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

Seattle Japanese Garden


September 15

Today marks the 37th anniversary of Haiku Northwests first meeting in 1988 in Bellevue, Washington.


September 24–28

Haiku North America

San Francisco, California


September 29

Tanka Monday

Tanka Society of America

San Francisco, California


September/October [to be announced]

Japan Week

Sponsored by Bellevue College, Bellevue, Washington (public events on a date to be announced)

 

October 9

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

 

October 23–26

Seabeck Haiku Getaway (our eighteenth annual retreat)

Our weekend theme is to be announced with Kristen Lindquist as our featured guest.


November 8 (Saturday)

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

Location and program details to be announced


December 11

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

Haiku Northwest Zoom meeting, 10 April 2021. Please join us!

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.

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 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 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009.