ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pacific Northest native TAMARA KAYE SELLMAN is a publishing professional and writer living and working in Bainbridge Island, Washington.She specializes in literary fiction, magical realism, food and garden writing, freelance feature/interpretive journalism, independent publishing, and facilitating writers workshops (generative, motivational or educational).
Sellman's fiction, poetry, columns, editorials, reviews, and other writings have been published widely and internationally. Most recently, her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Terrain, Serendipity, The Hiss Quarterly, Long Story Short, Tiny Lights, Cantaraville II, Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, 13th Moon and the Poetry Corners project [Bainbridge Island.]
She is the voice behind the creativity culture blog, Rhymes With Camera; the multi-voiced magical realism blog, The Big Blog of Marvel; and Writer's Rainbow, the companion blog to Writer's Rainbow Literary Services LLC. She contributes literary podcast reviews in a column at Metaxu Cafe and is in the process of building a blog [Salish Stories] to generate buzz around the fictitious community from which her literary stories spring.
She has earned other honors, including 2007 Story of the Year for Long Story Short; Editor's Pick at Cezanne's Carrot (Spring, 2006); the Northwest Cultural Council 2nd Place prize for poetry in 2004; a James Hearst Poetry Prize (North American Review) honorable mention for 2003; honorable mentions in competitions sponsored by Authors in the Park, Whelks Walk Review, AIM—America's Intercultural Magazine, ByLine, the Illinois State Poetry Society, and the Louisiana State Poetry Society; Rosebud's Best of 1997; 2nd Place prize for fiction at the Clackamas Literary Review (2006); the Peninsula Writers Association poetry contest (which she won in 2005); and the King County Arts Commission's bus poetry contest.
Her work has also been anthologized, in Freak Lightning, edited by Pamelyn Casto (forthcoming): Jane's Stories II, edited by Glenda Bailey-Mershon; MOTA: Courage, edited by Karen Joy Fowler; Voices Along The River, published by the Kellogg Environmental Center; Cantaraville II, edited by Cantara Christopher; O Taste and See: Food Poems, edited by David Lee Garrison and published by Bottom Dog Press; and HairTrigger XIII, a student-edited anthology from Columbia College Chicago. Click here for a comprehensive list of literary publishing credits.
Sellman holds a undergraduate degree with honors from Columbia College Chicago with an emphasis on journalism and a specialty in magazine editing and publishing. She also took extensive coursework in the Story Workshop undergraduate program at Columbia under Zoe Keithley and Shawn Shiflett. She published her first short story, "A Fish Story: Or, The Secret Behind Emmett's Shirtsleeves," in Columbia's award-winning journal, HairTrigger XIII.
Professionally, Sellman serves as the director of the Field's End Writer's Conference and operates Writer's Rainbow Literary Services, LLC. The founder of the electronic anthology, MARGIN: Exploring Modern Magical Realism (http://www.magical-realism.com), she is now the director of its global interactive community, MRCentral.net.
She has worked previously in cookbook editing, desktop publishing, print production, and public relations/marketing. Sellman holds memberships with the the Richard Hugo House in Seattle, the Field's End writer's community of Bainbridge Island, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, PEN-Washington, PoetsWest, the Speculative Literature Foundation, and SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network). She is a former founding member of Jane's Stories Press Foundation, a women's writing collective.
Local community involvements include appearances as featured poet for the BIB "Poetry Is...: Island Poets In Performance And Conversation" series, guest speaker at the Richard Hugo House, small press publishing and bookselling panelist for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and the It's About Time reading series. She has served as the featured reader for a variety of events including the Ovation! Musical Theater production of "A Wave of Caring: A Tsunami Relief Benefit." She has also read her work at Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University, the Poulsbohemian Coffeehouse, Jewel Box Theater, Penny Cafe, Barnes & Noble Woodinville, Lottie Mott's and other venues. She has thrice contributed to the BIAHC annual Poetry Corners event four times since 2000 and co-hosted The Hive, a local writers' marketing group, with Kelli Russell Agodon, from 2000 to 2007. Sellman has also participated in fundraising events, including the production of Southern Revival: Deep Magic for Hurricane Relief to benefit First Book, the Writer's Harvest reading annually sponsored by Barnes & Noble to raise funds for food banks, and Poets for Peace for fundraising in the wake of September 11.
When she's not working, Sellman enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters. Other interests include reading, gardening, cooking, yoga, reflexology, hiking, shellfishing (clams, oysters, crab), "freak TV" and drinking lattés with friends at the local coffeehouse.
