Shannon Laws, born in Seattle, Washington, lives ninety miles north in Bellingham where she was honored with a Mayor’s Arts Award in 2013, and 2017 in recognition of her valuable contributions to the arts & cultural environment of the city. In 2015 Laws received a Dr. Asha Bhargava Memorial Award – Community Champion for her poetry and work with World Peace Poets courtesy of the Writer’s International Network in Richmond, B.C., Canada.
She has performed at various Northwest Washington and British Columbia venues and events including the Jack McCarthy Evergreen Invitational Slam, Western Washington University’s Erotic Poetry Night, and the West Coast Tagore Festival hosted by Writers International Network (WIN) B.C. Canada. Also was featured poet at the Everett Poetry Night, Auburn Days, Poets in the Park (Redmond), Book Tree (Kirkland), King’s Books (Tacoma), and Bellingham venues, Village Books, Kitchen Sessions, Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Open Mic.
Shannon’s poetry has appeared in LEVITATE Literary Magazine (IL), CIRQUE Journal (North Pacific Rim), Clover-A Literary Rag (WA), Salmon Creek Journal (WA), Five Willows Literary Review (WA), From Bellingham With Love (WA), Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington, Last Call: An Anthology of Beer, Wine & Spirits Poetry (WA), and This Uncommon Solitude by Red Wheelbarrow Writers (WA).
She worked as a contributing poet for the Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater with the Bellingham Repertory Dance Company’s “Phrasings” collaboration and Adirondack Center for Writing’s “PoemVillage” in New York. Her poem “Lights Tonight,” was an Honorable Mention for the Women’s March on Bellingham, January 21, 2017.
Online poems have appeared at cirquejournal.com, WritingRaw.com, TweetSpeak, The Showbear Family Circus/lanceschaubert.org, VerseWrights, The Abstract Elephant Magazine LLC, and Lamentforthe-Dead.org.
She writes frequently on the working class, homelessness, the human condition, and the dynamics of romantic relationships.
Please visit her YouTube Channel, Channel Chickadee, for episodes of the Poetry Club Talks Podcast and the original recordings of the classic blues radio show she produced that aired from 2011 to 2018. https://www.youtube.com/@chickadeeproductions
RADIO
From 2011 to 2018 Shannon was a volunteer radio producer and host for three radio programs that broadcasted from non-profit, community stations: SPARK Radio 102.3 FM (Spark Museum of Electrical Invention), KZAX Make.Shift Radio 94.9 (Make.Shift Art Space), and KPNW Digital Radio. Learn more and LISTEN to her top ten programs HERE: https://shannonplawswriter.com/radio/ or go to the subheading in the menu “RADIO”, click the down arrow for the list of programs.
shannon p. laws 