Kathleen Alcalá is a Clarion West graduate and instructor, the award-winning author of six books, a recent Whitely Fellow, and a previous Hugo House Writer in Residence. Her latest book, The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island, explores relationships with geography, history, and ethnicity. Ursula K. Le Guin said of Alcalá’s story collection Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist: “Not one tale is like another, yet all together they form a beautiful whole, a world where one would like to stay forever.”