Jay Ponteri directed the creative writing program at Marylhurst University from 2008-2018 and is now the program chair of PNCA’s Low-Residency Creative Writing program. His book of creative nonfiction Someone Told Me was published by Widow+Orphan House, Summer 2021. He’s also the author of Darkmouth Strikes Again (Future Tense Books, 2014) and Wedlocked (Hawthorne Books, 2013), which received an Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. Two of Ponteri’s essays, “Listen to this” and “On Navel Gazing” have earned “Notable Mentions” in Best American Essay Anthologies. His work has also appeared in many literary journals: Dismantle, Gaze,Eye-Rhyme, Seattle Review, Forklift, Ohio, Cimarron Review, Tin House, Clackamas Literary Review and elsewhere.While teaching at Marylhurst, Ponteri was twice awarded the Excellence in Teaching & Service Award. In 2007, Ponteri founded Show:Tell, The Workshop for Teen Artist and Writers, now part of summer programming at Portland’s Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC.org) on whose Resource Council he serves.