Sierra Nelson is a Seattle-based poet and teaching artist. Her books include The Lachrymose Report (PoetryNW Editions), and collaborations with artist Loren Erdrich I Take Back the Sponge Cake (Rose Metal Press) and Isolation (Hudson Print). For over twenty-five years, Sierra has taught creative writing, working with youth and adults in diverse settings including hospitals, public schools, libraries, parks, aquariums, beaches, museums, universities, and detention centers. Since 2009, via the Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools (WITS) Program, Sierra has partnered with Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Palliative Care & Bioethics Program, to mentor creative writing by pediatric patients and their families—and more recently working with the Journey Program as well. In 2010, Sierra helped forge a collaboration between Seattle letterpress artist collective Partners in Print, WITS, and Seattle Children’s: the annual Words of Courage project, which creates artist-designed, hand-printed broadsides featuring poetry by patients at Seattle Children’s. These beautiful poetry prints go to the poets and their families and are also enjoyed by the wider community, including in a touring exhibition to select Seattle Public Library branches.