Lydia K. Valentine  

Lydia K. Valentine is the poet laureate of the city of Tacoma, Washington. In addition to being a poet, she’s a playwright, a director and dramaturg, an editor and educator. Her proudest accomplishment, though, is being a mom to two caring, creative, and intelligent humans. Through her own writing and the projects to which she contributes under Lyderary Ink, Lydia seeks to amplify the voices of those who are often stifled, ignored, and marginalized in what has been the accepted narrative of the United States. She is currently working on The Virus, a play set in the year 2095 (50 years after the eradication of COVID-19) which explores the legacy of both the pandemic and systemic racism, inequity, and injustice.

Lydia’s Poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bird,” appears in Not a Pipe Publishing’s anthology of resistance literature, Shout: An Anthology of Resistance Short Fiction and Poetry. Her book of poetry, Brief Black Candles, was released by Not a Pipe Publishing in November of 2020.