2009 Stranger Genius Awards Shortlist: Literature

Nico Vassilakis

Is the recent passing of the Subtext Reading Series a sign that
experimental literature in Seattle is going extinct? Not as long as
Nico Vassilakis lives here. A founder of Subtext, Vassilakis has long
explored the fringes of poetry, playing with words less as containers
of meaning than as abstract images. In his newest collection,
Disparate Magnets, Vassilakis manipulates the sounds and
appearances of words to create poetry unlike any you’ve seen before. By
boldly examining the durability of these strange little collections of
symbols we use to push ideas around, Vassilakis is making it easier for
more conventional authors to get frisky with their words, too. PAUL
CONSTANT

Kim-An Lieberman

Born in Rhode Island to Vietnamese and Jewish parents, Kim-An
Lieberman’s latest collection of poems, Breaking the Map,
examines her heritage in intelligent, unsentimental ways. Even when she
doesn’t write autobiographical poems (as in “Wings,” where a woman
discovers her husband’s secret: “She was facing him in the grey wash of
morning, / stroking the knoll of his shoulder blade, when twin quills
broke suddenly through the skin”), she’s writing about why we’re here.
She finds delicious, unexpected answers. PC

Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid

Seattle is home to many writers whose work I love, but Rajkhet
Dirzhud-Rashid is the only one whose work I stalk. Every Friday, I
track down the latest issue of the Seattle Gay News, in which
Dirzhud-Rashid’s weekly column Lipstick and Lust glitters like a
diamond from outer space. Ostensibly chronicling Dirzhud-Rashid’s
sexual adventures and cosmetic preferences, Lipstick and Lust takes
readers on a roller-coaster ride through our columnist’s life and
psyche, from dramatic battles with rude bus drivers and intrusive
Seattle Housing Authority representatives to semigraphic depictions of
S&M encounters at the pansexual play space the Wet Spot (aka the
Center for Sex Positive Culture). There is no filter (Dirzhud-Rashid
crows about details other writers would kill to keep hidden) and,
seemingly, no editor (her off-the-wall grammatical flourishes are half
the fun). Nevertheless, there’s more life in one Lipstick and Lust than
in a hundred columns by Jean Godden. If Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid were a
character someone created, that someone would be on this list. But
Dirzhud-Rashid is her own creation. She must be honored as such. DAVID
SCHMADER

Summer Robinson

Summer Robinson’s Pilot Books isn’t a bookstore; it’s a playful
literary tree fort that happens to sell books. With only a few hundred
small-press books in stock, Robinson bolsters publishing’s personal
side. She hosts writing groups every week and an intimate reading
series for authors who the big stores sometimes skip. Every time you
go, you’re reminded why you read in the first place. PC