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Selected readings, workshops, and other appearances are listed here. In addition, I curate and MC SoulFood Poetry Night (see YouTube for past live-streams) in Redmond, Washington (third Thursday of each month at SoulFood CoffeeHouse), and the Redmond Association of Spokenword readings (last Friday night of each month at Centro Cultural Mexicano in Redmond). I also participate in monthly meetings of the Haiku Northwest group (second Thursday of most months, plus quarterly weekend meetings in 2025). Also see selected previous event photos below the following calendar, or visit the Workshops page to learn more about the various workshops and presentations I can provide. To schedule a poetry reading, workshop, lecture, or presentation, please contact me.
—Michael Dylan Welch
Now — 2025
Now — 2025
Upcoming events: I have numerous workshops, presentations, and readings slated for 2025, and I’ll post information about them as soon as they’re confirmed. Some of these events are online, usually on Zoom, as indicated. Keeping up appearances!
1 January 2025: Haiku of the Day on the Haiku Foundation website.
5 January 2025: Speaking at the annual meeting of the Western Washington Poets Network at BookTree, 609 Market Street, Kirkland, Washington, at 5:00 p.m., followed by an open-mic reading at 8:00 p.m. My talk is about statistics related to the first year of the WWPN website, which I started when cofounding the organization in October of 2023. See my website report.
Every two weeks in 2025 (starting 10 January): Serving as 2025 guest haiku editor for Pulse—Voices from the Heart of Medicine, with selected healthcare-themed poems appearing every other Friday throughout 2025. See the Staff page.
16 January 2025: Reading at SoulFood Poetry Night in celebration of the Haiku Northwest 35th anniversary anthology, Glimmering Hour (available on Amazon), 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., SoulFood CoffeeHouse, 15748 Redmond Way in Redmond, Washington. $5.00 admission fee. [rescheduled from 21 November 2024]
31 January 2025: Submission period ends for First Frost, the haiku journal I coedit with Eric Burke, Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco, and Dale Wisely.
February 2025: Coordinating the fifteenth annual National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo) and providing daily writing prompts on the NaHaiWriMo page on Facebook, with more than 4,000 followers. Please join us in writing at least one haiku a day in the month of February—the shortest month of the year for the shortest genre of poetry!
1 February 2025: Submission deadline for the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Bloodroot Haiku Award, which I’m judging (previously called the Griffin-Farlow Haiku Award, which I judged in 2015). I expect results to be announced in May, and appear later in the year in the society’s annual journal, Pinesong. See submission guidelines.
3 February 2025: Speaking to Michael Dudley’s haiku mentoring group, via Zoom (private event). 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
8 February 2025: Overview of National Haiku Writing Month (see NaHaiWriMo on Facebook) for a free quarterly meeting of Haiku Northwest, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Bellevue Library, 1111 110th Ave NE, Bellevue, Washington, including a discussion on the pros and cons of writing prompts.
28 February 2025: Submission deadline for the Iowa Poetry Association’s 80th annual Lyrical Iowa contest, which includes a haiku category that I’m judging. See submission guidelines and judges’ bios.
1 March 2025: Free “Haiku on Steroids” workshop at BookTree, 609 Market Street, Kirkland, Washington, at 4:24 p.m., followed by a reading at 6:15 p.m. from Glimmering Hour (available on Amazon), Haiku Northwest’s 35th anniversary anthology (plus an open-mic reading).
27 March 2025: Featured poet, with Nick Satnik, at Words and Wine, J. Bookwalter Tasting Studio, 14810 NE 145th Street, Suite C, in Woodinville, Washington. 6:30 p.m. Free. + + +
30 March 2025: “Haiku Targets” workshop at Black Dog Arts Café, 8062 Railroad Ave SE, Snoqualmie, Washington. Free, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
6 April 2025: ONLINE. Tanka Society of America 25th Anniversary Celebration featuring my presentation (as TSA founder) on this history and achievements of the society, a presentation by Kazuaki Wakui on the Sanford Goldstein Museum in Japan, a Goldstein memorial reading, and an anonymous tanka workshop, among other presentations and announcements. Free on Zoom, from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. See detailed schedule and Zoom link.
10 April 2025: ONLINE. “Haiku Targets” workshop for “Poetic Possibilities,” a week-long writing intensive sponsored by the Federation of BC [British Columbia] Writers, tailored for those writing longer poetry and fiction. Click to register. One fee of CDN$95 (or CDN$65 for earlybird member pricing) covers all events (two or three per day) from April 7 to 11, 2025. My session is from 2:00 to 3:00+ p.m. on 10 April.
13 April 2025: ONLINE. “e-motion” PowerPoint haiku sequence (with my photographs) and “How to Haiga” presentation for the San Diego Haiku Group in San Diego, California. 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.
14 April 2025: “Forest Bathing and the Art of Haiku” presentation for Alpha Delta Kappa teachers of the Bellevue School District, Ardmore Elementary School, Bellevue, Washington. 4:00 p.m. (private event). ADK is an international honorary organization for women educators.
17 April 2025: For International Haiku Poetry Day, SoulFood Poetry Night features Michael Dylan Welch and Curtis Manley reading haiku, free, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. (including an open mic) at SoulFood CoffeeHouse, 15748 Redmond Way, Redmond, Washington.
27 May 2025: ONLINE. Free “Haiku Targets” workshop for Bellevue, Washington’s 2025 Japan Fair, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Please register here.
9 June 2025: Submission deadline for Bellevue, Washington’s fifth annual Japan Fair community haiku contest that I’m judging. Read submission instructions and enter your haiku here [links to come]. Free to enter. Winners announced on 12–13 July 2025 during the Japan Fair at Meydenbauer Center, 11100 NE 6th Street in Bellevue, Washington.
12 June 2025: ONLINE. Introducing and celebrating the extensive new Brussels Sprout pages on the Haiku Northwest website, as part of the monthly Haiku Northwest Zoom meeting, 7:00 p.m. Includes readings of all Editors’ Choice Award winners from 23 issues of this historic haiku magazine edited by Francine Porad in the Seattle area from 1988 to 1995.
23 June 2025: My “Step Quota” haibun scheduled to be featured on the Rattle website, with an audio recording.
31 July 2025: Submission period ends for First Frost, the haiku journal I coedit with Eric Burke, Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco, and Dale Wisely.
24–28 September 2025: Haiku North America conference, for which I serve as a director, at the Holiday Inn in San Francisco, California. I’m giving opening welcome speeches, a closing speech, leading the conference anthology reading (with Chuck Brickley), and giving other presentation (to be announced), introducing the Higginson lecture, and other activities. See the schedule and the registration page (links to come).
29 September 2025: Directing the Tanka Monday conference (plus readings on Sunday night), sponsored by the Tanka Society of America, at the Holiday Inn in San Francisco, California (location to be confirmed). See the schedule and the registration page (links to come).
1–31 October 2025: Haiku submission period for Pulse, for which I serve as haiku editor.
23–26 October 2025: Directing Haiku Northwest’s eighteenth annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway at the Seabeck Conference Center in Seabeck, Washington. Our featured guest is Kristin Lindquist, and our theme will relate to birds. See the website link for details, and please join us!
Then — 2009 to 2024
Then — 2009 to 2024
Selected Event Photos
Selected Event Photos
“Haiku Targets” presentation at the Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver British Columbia, 20 March 2006, as part of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (for which I’ve served as a judge and consultant for numerous years).
Delivering my keynote speech at the November 2013 Haiku International Association annual convention in Tokyo.
Audience view of my keynote speech at the November 2013 Haiku International Association annual convention in Tokyo.
Showing off my “I Heart Haiku” T-shirt after giving my keynote speech at the November 2013 Haiku International Association annual convention in Tokyo.
Teaching haiku to fourth graders at Cherry Crest Elementary School in Bellevue, Washington on 7 May 2009.
Teaching collaborative writing at the Poetry Yurt on Gabriola Island, British Columbia on 23 July 2013.
Teaching haiku at the Sakura Days Japan Fair at VanDusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver, British Columbia on 6 April 2013.
Facilitating the Ekphrastic Assimilations writing workshop at VALA Art Center in Redmond, Washington, on 16 September 2016.
“Becoming a Haiku Poet” workshop at Seattle Chōeizan Enkyōji Nichiren Buddhist Temple in Seattle on 19 May 2012.
Teaching my “Haiku Targets” class at LitFuse in Yakima, Washington, 24 September 2023.
Chatting with children’s book author Deb Lund at the Whidbey Island Writers Conference on 28 February 2008. I’ve given workshops and readings at this conference on haiku and longer poetry as well as all-day seminars on haiku and on “Microsoft Word for Poets and Novelists.”
Participating in a panel discussion on haiku poet Nicholas Virgilio (with Raffael de Gruttola and Kathleen O’Toole) at the 2009 Haiku North America conference at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, 6 August 2009.
Haiku reading at the Japanese Garden, Seattle, Washington, 29 June 2008, for the “Haiku Day” at the garden, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America and Seattle Parks and Recreation. +
Serving as MC for the national Haiku Society of America meeting at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, 26 June 2010.
Haiku reading at the “Found in Translation” exhibition at the TORA Gallery, in Mount Vernon, Washington, with koto accompaniment by Elizabeth Falconer, 20 November 2005.
Haiku performance with members of the Haiku Northwest group (left to right: Michael Dylan Welch, Marilyn Sandall, William Scott Galasso, and Connie Hutchison, with guitar accompaniment by Dejah Léger, not shown) at the Northwest Folklife Festival, 26 May 2008.
You can listen to a recording of the Haiku Northwest Folklife performance of May 2005.
Welcoming speech for the 2004 Poets in the Park conference, at Clise Mansion in Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington. I founded and directed this conference, which I directed again in 2005 and revived in 2014 (ongoing since then).
Teaching haiku for Camp Fire USA on Bainbridge Island, 15 March 2008.
Featured reading at Hibulb Cultural Center in Tulalip, Washington, 2 May 2019. The reading took place in the longhouse.
Welcoming speech at the 2011 Haiku North America conference, on 4 August 2011 at Seattle Center in Seattle, Washington.
“Calling All Poets” reading (me with Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken), Sammamish Library, 2 April 2013.
Staffing the haiku table at the 2014 moon viewing festival at the Seattle Japanese Garden. I have judged an annual haiku contest at this annual festival for many years.
Staffing a haiku table at the Seattle Japanese Garden, 25 August 2018, for their Moon Viewing Festival.
As Redmond poet laureate, I began a presentation series called “Poets Wanted: Dead or Alive,” featuring the poetry of famous poets. This presentation on Rumi took place at the library in Redmond, Washington, on 10 February 2014.
Directing the annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway at the Seabeck Conference Center in Seabeck, Washington, October 2017.
Television interview on 15 April 2018 about the Sakura Days Japan Festival at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia, at which I’ve given numerous readings and workshops, led haiku walks, and judged haiku contests since the inception of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival in 2006.
Leading a haiku workshop for the Sakura Days Japan Festival at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Writing instant haiku at Brick and Mortar Books in Redmond, Washington for Independent Bookstore Day on 28 April 2018.
Staffing the haiku table on 13 September 2019 with Michelle Schaefer at the annual Moon Viewing event at the Seattle Japanese Garden. [photo by SlickPix Photography]
Linda Poole, executive director of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, introduces me to lead a haiku workshop at the Vancouver Public Library, 28 April 2019.
Staffing my haiku book table in the Haiku Hut at the Sakura Days Japan Festival, VanDusen Botanical Garden, 15 April 2018.
Chalk haiku at VanDusen Botanical Garden, April 2016.
On the main stage, directing and serving as MC for Poets in the Park at Anderson Park in Redmond, Washington, 19 July 2014.
Directing the Seabeck Haiku Getaway, via Zoom, October 2020.
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