Colette Marie grew up near Seattle and the Puget Sound, with a garden, chickens, cedar tree and small red barn in the back yard—her favorite placed to read. Her childhood was steeped in a love for books, music, dance, and the outdoors with its abundance of trees, water, flowers, farmland, and undeveloped open spaces.
In third grade, she decided she would be an author when she grew up and wrote a novel on a Smith-Corona typewriter, repeating the words really, very, and super in an effort to stretch the sentences out and reach one hundred pages.
She read Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings when she was fifteen, discovering the power a book can have when it gives voice to what has previously been unspeakable. As a result, she became a life-long fan of banned books and still hopes to write one of her own someday, preferably one that doesn’t include repeating the words really, very, or super.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Whitworth College, Colette moved to Boulder, Colorado where she attended Naropa University’s MFA Creative Writing program and worked in human services for thirty-three years, promoting community inclusion for people with developmental disabilities. She cultivated a writing practice as a way to listen for small voices, new understandings, and possibilities for joy.
She now lives in Walla Walla with her husband, works in the Academic Resource Center at Whitman College, recently completed an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Oregon University, and is writing a novel.
When she isn’t at the college or writing, she can often be found watching bees in the garden, dancing yankadi in the kitchen, or tearing up the lawn in her yard to make room for more native grasses and flowers. She adores her two small dogs, chocolate, and those acceptance letters she occasionally receives from publishers.
Her poetry has recently appeared in Oregon East and The Sun, and is forthcoming in The Healing Muse.
Colette Marie MFA 