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Redefining Seattle’s literary scene, Anastacia-Renee, Seattle Civic Poet 2017-19

Seattle created the Civic Poet program in 2015 to invest in and foster the city’s rich literary community. Anastacia-Renee is the second Civic Poet, serving from 2017-19 and as her commission comes to a close we wish to recognize, cheer and share our gratitude for Anastacia-Renee and all who have contributed their valuable time, participated, and most importantly who generated literary work that overwhelmingly exceeded the expectations that the City and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture had for the program. Anastacia-Renee’s contributions paves the way for future Civic Poets and community engagement through the literary arts.

In her two year tenure, Anastacia-Renee convened, recited, performed, curated, advised, led, taught, and listened to close to 7,000 residents of all ages, in a range of traditional and non-traditional venues city wide. She also engaged the community through her readings, workshops, consultations, City Council Civil Rights Utilities Economic Development and Arts Committee (CRUEDA) meeting openers, Speak to Me series, featured guest on TEDx and Lit Crawl, national holiday functions and many more one-time engagements for small neighborhood-based agencies/groups.

Georgia McDade, Storme Webber, and Mary Anne Moorman sit at a table, leaning in with smiles.

Anastacia-Renee raised awareness for the literary arts community and the Living Legacies tribute topped her two-year tenure with an event in June at King Street Station that acknowledged, celebrated, and raised three highly accomplished writers to the forefront of Seattle’s robust literary community, Mary Anne Moorman, Storme Webber, and Georgia McDade.