Emily Wittenhagen • December 3, 2015
Exploring the Barchives
While working in Seattle, I had a column for the bi-monthly magazine NW Lawyer, published by the Washington State Bar Association. To celebrate its 125th birthday, the magazine tasked me with mining through boxes of archival materials to pull out intriguing stories.
I ended up writing six columns, finding beauty in mundane memos, tracking down the origin story for a pair of oversized scissors, and other oddities, like a luncheon menu from 1895 that opens with broth of young pigeon and ends in cigars. I profiled an early activist for women's social justice, a lovably idiosyncratic old-school lawyer, and other histories.
Filson commissioned this profile piece on Liberty Miller, who at the time worked as the only year-round live-aboard for the Boat Company, an adventure that led to me editing her memoir.
My wee short poems are now in compilation form!
Micah & the Worry Stone is a children's book about courage, co-authored by Julie Campilio and me and illustrated by the talented Kara Larson. We'd love you to share it with the children in your life!
HOARSE was a lit journal co-edited with Elena Moffet, lovingly designed by Gregory Flores, and founded by the three of us in Seattle. We had really fun parties.
My poem 'Blue Field' was published in Anodyne Magazine, a Berlin-based trimesterly magazine giving voices to FLINTA (womyn/females, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans + agender people).
Emily Wittenhagen
writer, poet, editor