Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Ryler Dustin has represented Seattle on the final stage of the Individual World Poetry Slam, and his poems appear in outlets like Gulf Coast, The Slowdown, The Southern Review, Verse Daily, The Best of Button Poetry, and The Best of Iron Horse. He’s the author of Trailer Park Psalms, selected by Jeffrey McDaniel for the University of Pittsburgh’s 2022 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize and Heavy Lead Birdsong, published by Write Bloody in 2008.

​​​A passionate educator, he has led an award-winning youth writing program at Project Row Houses in Houston, visited classrooms through Writers in the Schools, and taught creative writing, literature, and composition at Western Washington University, Albion College, and elsewhere. He received an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and has lived and held residencies in Spain, Michigan, Jack Kerouac’s former home, and an off-grid cabin in the Oregon wilderness. He now lives in his hometown of Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and an anxious dog he met while hiking.

He a founding organizer of the Salish Sea Poetry Festival, a free, weekend-long celebration in Bellingham.