Danielle Hayden is a writer and a former writer-in-residence at the Seattle Public Library.

 

She received a journalism fellowship from the International Women's Media Foundation and writing fellowships from the Jack Straw Cultural Center and the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She was recently named a 2026 CityArtist by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and received a grant award. Danielle also received a literary grant award from Artist Trust, a scholarship from the Fine Arts Work Center, and a writers' residency with Anaphora Arts. She has completed juried workshops with Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Yale, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Seattle Times, Ponder Review, Seattle Magazine, and other outlets and anthologies. One of her poems, "Denizen," was put on public display by the Edmonds Arts Commission.

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Danielle is also a teaching artist who has worked with youth and adults through programs like Writers in the Schools (WITS), Poets in Schools, and nonprofit arts education organization Spark! Creativity. Currently, she is both a teacher with and director of Golf Pencil Group, an organization that offers writing classes to people who are incarcerated.

 

Danielle is the creator and organizer of two local outdoor reading series: Prose in the Park and Poetry in the Park. She also created the website 3pistolary.com, which encourages people to write and send three personal letters, and the initiative Words of Remembrance for the creation of pet obituaries and memorials. She is on the Board of Directors at Hugo House in Seattle and volunteers in a few other, non-bookish ways as well.

 

She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard University.