HNA Directors
Garry Gay
Garry Gay founded the Haiku North America conference in 1991. He was born in Glendale, California, 1951 and received his B.P.A. degree in photography in 1974. He has been a photographer by profession for more than 35 years. He started writing haiku in 1975. Greatly influenced by Bashō’s Narrow Road to the Deep North, he has steadily written haiku over the past four decades. He is one of the cofounders of the Haiku Poets of Northern California. He became their first president from 1989–90 and in 2001–2007 again served as president. As president in 1989 he founded the Two Autumns reading series. In 1991 he was elected as president of the Haiku Society of America. In 1996 he also cofounded the American Haiku Archives in Sacramento, California. Garry is the creator of the poetic form called rengay. He is the author of The Billboard Cowboy, The Silent Garden, Wings of Moonlight, River Stones, and Along the Way. He currently lives in the California wine country in the small town of Windsor with his wife Melinda and daughter Alissa.
Deborah P Kolodji
Deborah P Kolodji is the California regional coordinator for the Haiku Society of America and moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group. The former president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Kolodji is also is a member of the Haiku Poets of Northern California , the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, Haiku Canada, and the California State Poetry Society. Author of four chapbooks of poetry, her first full-length book of haiku and senryu is Highway of Sleeping Towns, from Shabda Press. Debbie has published more than 900 haiku in publications such as Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Bottle Rockets, A Hundred Gourds, Acorn, Rattle, and Mayfly, as well as speculative poetry in Strange Horizons, Star*Line, Grievous Angel, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Tales of the Unanticipated, Tales of the Talisman, and Dreams and Nightmares. She has also published short stories in Thema and Tales of the Talisman and a short memoir in Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s Soul. Her work has been anthologized in such publications as The Rhysling Anthology, Red Moon Anthology, Dwarf Stars, Aftershocks: Poetry of Recovery, New Resonance 4, and The Nebula Awards Showcase: 2015. Debbie coorganized the 2013 HNA conference aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, and joined HNA as a director in 2016.
Deborah P Kolodji is the California regional coordinator for the Haiku Society of America and moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group. The former president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Kolodji is also is a member of the Haiku Poets of Northern California , the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, Haiku Canada, and the California State Poetry Society. Author of four chapbooks of poetry, her first full-length book of haiku and senryu is Highway of Sleeping Towns, from Shabda Press. Debbie has published more than 900 haiku in publications such as Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, Bottle Rockets, A Hundred Gourds, Acorn, Rattle, and Mayfly, as well as speculative poetry in Strange Horizons, Star*Line, Grievous Angel, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Tales of the Unanticipated, Tales of the Talisman, and Dreams and Nightmares. She has also published short stories in Thema and Tales of the Talisman and a short memoir in Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s Soul. Her work has been anthologized in such publications as The Rhysling Anthology, Red Moon Anthology, Dwarf Stars, Aftershocks: Poetry of Recovery, New Resonance 4, and The Nebula Awards Showcase: 2015. Debbie coorganized the 2013 HNA conference aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, and joined HNA as a director in 2016.
Paul Miller
Paul Miller is the Treasurer for Haiku North America. Paul’s poetry and essays have been published internationally. His first book Finding the Way won the 2003 Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award. His most recent collection, Called Home, is available from Red Moon Press. He is the controller of a national brokerage, served as treasurer of the Haiku Society of America for more than a decade, and continues to serve as treasurer of the Haiku Poets of Northern California. He also been editor of Modern Haiku magazine since 2013.
Michael Dylan Welch
Michael Dylan Welch helped to found the Haiku North America conference in 1991. He edited the journal Woodnotes from 1989 to 1997, and later served as editor/publisher of Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem and of Press Here haiku and tanka books. He cofounded the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in 1996, founded the Tanka Society of America in 2000, and then National Haiku Writing Month in 2010. His haiku, tanka, and longer poetry has been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies in more than twenty languages, and he has won first prize in each of the Henderson, Brady, Drevniok, Tokutomi, and Bacopa contests, among others. Michael lives near Seattle with his wife and two children in Sammamish, Washington and has served two terms as poet laureate of Redmond, Washington. His personal website is called Graceguts.
HNA is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation based in California, led by the preceding four directors. In addition, a local organizing team takes on the responsibility for running each biennial conference.
