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. The first few meetings 2024 will be on Zoom (join our mailing list to receive each Zoom link), but we are exploring when and how to resume 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!
In addition to the following events, the Washington region of the Haiku Society of America plans to have an annual regional meeting on a spring date to be announced, 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. Anne’s 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 29–31
Washington State Convention Center
April 11
Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
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
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
Twelve Washington artists/writers will present their works combining art and haiku: David Berger, John Burgess, Emily Kane, David Lasky, Dorothy Avery Matthews, Carole MacRury, Sally Penley, petro ck, Susan Roberts, Sheila Sondik, Ann Spiers, and Michael Dylan Welch, sharing and reading sumie, painting, photography, calligraphy, multimedia, and comics, combined with haiku and senryu, hosted by Richard Tice
For the Zoom link, contact Richard Tice at ret.hsa@outlook.com
April 30
Submission deadline for Haiku Northwest’s 35th anniversary anthology
(for Washington state residents only; submissions open March 18)
May 11 (Saturday)
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.
June 13
Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Impressionist art presentation by Bill Fay, with a focus on ekphrastic haiku writing, plus our usual time for haiku sharing and critique.
June 21–23
Haiku Oregon Weekend
Location in Portland, Oregon to be announced, along with schedule, sponsored by the Oregon region of the Haiku Society of America [for details, email Tanya McDonald at tanyamc1375@gmail.com]
June (date to be announced)
Mini-Conference for the Portland Haiku Group
Newport Art Center / Sylvia Beach Hotel, Newport, Oregon
[for details, email Shelley Baker-Gard at sbakergard@msn.com]
June 29–30
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.
Featured reading by John Brandi.
August 10 (Saturday)
Quarterly Meeting, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Program details to be announced.
August 31
Porad Haiku Award Deadline
(received by this date)
See submission guidelines [to come]
See 2023 winners
Winners announced at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway on October 26, 2024
September (dates to be confirmed)
Moon Viewing Festival, with haiku contest each night, 7:00 p.m.
September 12
Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
September 15
Today marks the 36th anniversary of Haiku Northwest’s first meeting in 1988 in Bellevue, Washington.
September 23–28 (dates to be confirmed)
Sponsored by Bellevue College, Bellevue, Washington (public events on September 28)
October 10
Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
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.
Program details to be announced.
December 12
Monthly Meeting, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
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!
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.