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Hugo House is a non-profit community writing center in Seattle, Washington.
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Hugo House was founded in 1997 by Linda Jaech, Frances McCue, and Andrea Lewis. These three writers believed Seattle needed a center for local writers and readers to find a community and create new work. In 1999, Laura Hirschfield described the nonprofit organization: "Richard Hugo House is a two-year-old literary arts center in Seattle named after the Seattle-born poet and creative writing teacher Richard Hugo who wrote squarely and poignantly about people and places often overlooked."[1]
Several new programs were created at Hugo House during the 2000s by Program Director Brian McGuigan, including Cheap Wine and Poetry (in 2005)[2] Cheap Beer and Prose (in 2008),[3] and the Made at Hugo House fellowship.[4] McGuigan left Hugo House in 2014.
Tree Swenson was the executive director of Hugo House from 2012 to 2020.[5] The current Interim Executive Director is Rob Arnold.
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Hugo House first occupied a 16,206-square-foot (1,505.6 m2) Victorian house originally built in 1902. Previous occupants of the building included New City Theater and before that the Bonney-Watson mortuary and funeral home.
In addition to administrative offices, the House included:
- an 88/150 theater
- a cabaret stage and cafe
- three multipurpose rooms
- a conference room
- an art gallery
- private meeting spaces
In June 2016, the organization moved to a temporary space adjacent to the Frye Art Museum on First Hill when the original house on Capitol Hill was razed.[6][7] The property was redeveloped with a six-story mixed-use building which, starting in September 2018, serves as the permanent home for Hugo House.[8][9]
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Hugo House presents a number of programs, including:
- Hugo Writing Classes
- Hugo Classes for Youth
- Stage Fright Teen Open Mic
- Hugo Works in Progress
- Hugo Literary Series
- Word Works: Writers on Writing
- Writers-in-Residence
- Made at Hugo House Fellowship
- Zine Archive and Publishing Project (formerly a program of Hugo House, now independent)
- A Study in Social Entrepreneurship: Richard Hugo House, Laura Hirschfield, Grantmakers in the Arts Newsletter, Volume 10, Number 2, Autumn 1999
- All eyes on a timely topic at Hugo House, John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/4/2002,
- Open House, Christopher Frizzelle, The Stranger, 7/24/2003,
- Making Things Better, Frances McCue, Community Arts, 10/2004
- Not With a Bang, But a Whimper, Paul Constant, The Stranger, 9/16/2008
- Hugo House names interim director, John Marshall, Seattle PI, 10/23/2008
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