Hugo House
Hugo House is a non-profit community writing center in Seattle, Washington.
About
Hugo House was founded in 1997 by Linda Jaech, Frances McCue, and Andrea Lewis. These three writers believed Seattle needed a center for local writers and readers to find a community and create new work. In 1999, Laura Hirschfield described the nonprofit organization: "Richard Hugo House is a two-year-old literary arts center in Seattle named after the Seattle-born poet and creative writing teacher Richard Hugo who wrote squarely and poignantly about people and places often overlooked."
In 2005, Brian McGuigan began working at Hugo House, where he developed new programs such as Cheap Wine and Poetry and Cheap Beer and Prose, the Made at Hugo House fellowship. He left Hugo House in 2014 to work on a memoir.
In 2012, Tree Swenson became the Executive Director of Hugo House.
House
Hugo House occupies a 16,206-square-foot (1,505.6 m2) Victorian house originally built in 1902. Previous occupants of the building include New City Theater and before the Bonney-Watson mortuary and funeral home.
In addition to administrative offices, the House include:
- an 88/150 theater
- a cabaret stage and cafe
- three multipurpose rooms
- a conference room
- an art gallery
- private meeting spaces
Programs
Hugo House present a number of programs, including:
- Hugo Writing Classes
- Hugo Classes for Youth
- Stage Fright Teen Open Mic
- Hugo Works in Progress
- Hugo Literary Series
- Word Works: Writers on Writing
- Writers-in-Residence
- The Cheap Wine & Poetry / Cheap Beer & Prose Series
- Zine Archive and Publishing Project (formerly a program of Hugo House, now independent)
Articles
- A Study in Social Entrepreneurship: Richard Hugo House, Laura Hirschfield, Grantmakers in the Arts Newsletter, Volume 10, Number 2, Autumn 1999
- All eyes on a timely topic at Hugo House, John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/4/2002,
- Open House, Christopher Frizzelle, The Stranger, 7/24/2003,
- Making Things Better, Frances McCue, Community Arts, 10/2004
- Not With a Bang, But a Whimper, Paul Constant, The Stranger, 9/16/2008
- Hugo House names interim director, John Marshall, Seattle PI, 10/23/2008