As you probably remember, Ryan Boudinot sparked a ton of backlash with that piece he wrote about MFA writing students.

After it came out, the board of his organization, Seattle City of Literature, quit.

The board refused to talk to me about why.

After I reported on the board's disbanding, Seattle City of Lit managing director and cofounder Rebecca Brinson e-mailed me to explain that "disagreements about leadership and how the organization should be represented in public discourse had become unresolvable," and that "we probably would have been able to navigate this relatively smoothly" if "his author line in the original piece had identified him as Ryan Boudinot, novelist, and not Ryan Boudinot, executive director of Seattle City of Literature."

Huh. Anyway, Brinson quit, and so did the board. According to a list I was given, that board consisted of Jim Vana, Chelsey Slattum, Sabrina Wilbert, Janelle Milodragovich, and Paul Constant.

Yesterday, the Seattle City of Literature website was updated, according to a note posted on the homepage, announcing an entirely new board for the organization. Here are the names:

Bob Redmond, "a former writer-in-residence for the Richard Hugo House and past editor of Real Change newspaper"
Eric Reynolds, "the associate publisher of Seattle’s beloved Fantagraphics Books"
Fleetwood Robbins, a literary agent
Alix Wilber, a novelist, essayist, and former literary editor at Amazon
JC Sevcik, who wrote this rebuttal to Boudinot's MFA piece
Colin McArthur, a writer and actor
Didi Kader, "a public relations professional and non-fiction writer"
Conrad Groth, who has a B.A. in Creative Writing from UW

There are more detailed bios for each of these people right here. Boudinot, who is also on the board, is referred to in his bio as "founder." Slash instigator. Slash lightning rod.