Natalie Singer-Velush Receives Honorable Mention from AWP’s Intro Journals Project

Natalie Singer-Velush (Creative Writing & Poetics, 2016) was named among the 2016 Winners of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Intro Journals Project, with an Honorable Mention for Creative Non-Fiction for her submission “There is But One Choice: Confession or Some Form of Extinction.” The Intro Journals Project is a literary competition for the discovery and publication of the best new works by students enrolled in AWP member programs, as nominated by the programs. Winning selections are published in participating journals, including Tampa Review, Colorado Review, and Iron Horse Literary Review, among others. The essay contains an excerpt from her memoir, California Calling, for which she is seeking a publisher.

Natalie Singer-Velush is a journalist, essayist, poet, editor and teacher. She is a former courts and crimes newspaper reporter and chronic nostalgic obsessed with interrogating identities and cross-examining her own stories over and over. Natalie’ Master’s thesis memoir, California Calling, was named a finalist in the Autumn House Press nonfiction book contest. She is an invited 2016/2017 Writer Ambassador for On the Boards, a contemporary performing arts collective in Seattle; her critical responses to the season’s performances will create a bridge of dialogue between artists and the community. She is also a teacher with Pongo Teen Writing, writing poetry with youth inside King County’s juvenile detention. Natalie is a content strategist and Executive Editor of ParentMap magazine in Seattle and serves on the board of the Society of Professional Journalists Western Washington where she is the Communications and Social Media chair. As a mother/artist, Natalie is concerned with the experiences of, and access granted to, parent artists and mothers in particular. In a culture where mothers navigate near-constant tension and marginalization around their identities as women and caregivers, mother/artists often struggle to access the resources available to other artists and which are critical to sustain a creative self. Through her creative and community work, Natalie is committed to supporting mother/artists so that their voices may be heard and their work elevated.

Natalie currently also serves as an Alumni Ambassador for the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics program.