Poet
Teacher
Arts Instigator
Frances McCue is a poet and prose writer who has published six books—four of poetry and two of prose, including a book of essays about Richard Hugo and the Northwest Towns that inspired his poems: The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs and the poetry-novel The Bled. A recent collection, Timber Curtain, is an exploration of lost places in fast-developing cities and served as a shooting script for “Where the House Was,” a documentary film about the demolition of the Richard Hugo House building in Seattle.
McCue is an arts instigator who has spent her career connecting literature to community life. Known for her literary start-ups, she is the co-founder of Pulley Press, a new publishing imprint that celebrates poets and poetry from rural places, and she was the Founding Director of Richard Hugo House for its first decade. She also instigated the Poetry Brigade at the University of Washington and of the film, Where the House Was. Currently, she is a Teaching Professor at the University of Washington where she has been the winner of the UW Distinguished Teaching Award.
Books
Literary Start-ups
Pulley Press aspires to locate, encourage, and publish poetry by poets who write from America’s rural places.
Where the House Was is a film that follows the tear-down of a place for writers—Richard Hugo House.
The film witnesses the demolition of the building, but also grapples with the way time has shaped and reshaped the fate of the building over decades. The ultimate note is one of hope and appreciation. After all, where the old building once stood, a new one, built just for the writers, stands in its place.
Yes, things are changing, but no, not everything is doomed.
See the feature film.
