Celebrating the Literary Achievements of English Faculty at The Bush School

Elita, the debut novel by Seattle short story author and Middle School English faculty Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, will launch Thursday, January 30 at Elliot Bay Book Company. This dark and captivating thriller shadows Bernadette Baston, a child linguistics scholar, as she uncovers the mystery of Atalanta, a non-speaking girl living on a remote island in 1950s Puget Sound. Readers will devour this psychological mystery brimming with themes of motherhood, societal gender roles, and self-identity during the mid-twentieth century. Join Kirsten and fellow authors Tara Conklin and Kristen Millares Young on Thursday, January 30 from 7-8 p.m., as they discuss their new books and celebrate their achievements with the community. 

"As I've shared Elita with readers, I've been expressing my gratitude for the people whose influence and support helped me shape and finish the novel," shared Kirsten. "Art-making, I keep saying as I share this book, is a collaborative endeavor. I strongly believe that. Bush is unique in that, as a community, we possess that collaborative spirit. We're genuinely in it together, for one another, and in teaching here I've felt a real sense that I am working and thinking and creating within the embrace of the larger school community. I'm grateful to be part of that. It's a lovely place to be a teaching writer."

Discover Kirsten’s other literary works, including Swimming with Strangers, This Life She’s Chosen, and What We Do with the Wreckage, which won the 2017 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Kirsten's fourth collection of stories, Outer Stars, which has won the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, will be published in the fall of this year.

Upper School English faculty Molly Olguín’s debut collection The Sea Gives Up the Dead, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press on Tuesday, April 29 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop. The Sea Gives Up the Dead won the 2023 Grace Paley Award for Short Fiction and was also selected by the American Booksellers Association as a Winter/Spring 2025 Top 10 Debut Book for their Indies Introduce Series. 

“I’m so excited for this collection of weird, queer fairy tales to exist in the world,” said Molly. “The collection is part historical fiction, part fantasy, part horror. It even features a monster or two.” 

This award-winning collection of multi-genre stories will carry readers on an emotional and imaginative wave with every page turn. Fans of horror, fantasy, and science fiction will adore the colorful characters and relatable themes presented through a queer, fantastical lens.

"I am so grateful to be in this community, particularly with Kirsten and Jasminé!" said Molly. "The two of them have both been amazingly generous with advice, guidance and friendship as I learn how to navigate the publication journey of my debut book. I can truly say that the connections I've made at Bush have made me a better writer."

Molly’s written work has been featured in magazines such as Quarterly West and The Normal School. Alongside Jackie Hedeaman, she is the creator of the podcast drama The Pasithea Powder.

Craving a collection of thought-provoking poems? Upper School English Faculty and published poet, Jasminé Smith, is the recipient of the 2025 National Endowment of Arts (NEA) Poetry Fellowship Award. In her 2021 debut collection, South Flight, readers follow Beatrice Vernadene Chapel, a Black woman living in the 1920s Jim Crow Era, as she overcomes the dangers she faces in the wake of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Jasminé’s blues-fused piece shines a light on Oklahoma Black History and dissects insightful themes about the Diaspora of Black Americans. 

Her poetic and editorial work is featured in publications such as Black Renaissance Noir, POETRY, This is the Honey: A Contemporary Anthology of African American Literature, World Literature Today, LA Review of Books, among others.