Colette grew up south of Seattle, just a couple of miles from Puget Sound. Her childhood was steeped in a love for books, music, dance, and the natural world around her which still contained an abundance of trees, flowers, bees, farmland and open spaces.
At the age of six, she decided she would be an “arthur” when she grew up and wrote a novel in third grade 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.
In high school, she learned about banned books and read Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was amazed by the power of Angelou’s voice and her ability to say what had previously seemed unsayable.
Colette attended graduate school at the University of Colorado and Naropa University, before beginning a 33-year long career in human services in Boulder, Colorado where she worked as an advocate for community inclusion and participated in the dismantling of institutionalization practices for people with disabilities. She moved to Walla Walla with her husband, daughter, and two small dogs in 2018 and started a new job in the Academic Resource Center at Whitman College.
Outside of the office, and when she isn’t reading or writing, Colette can be found dancing yankadi in her kitchen or tearing up the lawn in her yard to make room for more flowers. She adores her dogs, chocolate, and those acceptance letters she occasionally receives from publishers.
After spending most of the first two years of the pandemic in graduate school, Colette completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Oregon University and is currently writing a novel, one that doesn’t involve repeating the words really, very, or super. She continues to be a fan of banned books and hopes to publish one of her own someday.
Her work has recently appeared in Oregon East and The Sun.
Colette Marie MFA 