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 The Slowdown, The Southern Review, Gulf Coast, Verse Daily, and The Best of Iron Horse. He’s the author of Trailer Park Psalms, which was published in 2023 as winner of the University of Pittsburgh’s Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Heavy Lead Birdsong, published by Write Bloody in 2008.

​​​A passionate educator, he 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, where he’s a founding board member of the Salish Sea Poetry Festival, Bellingham’s free, weekend-long poetry celebration.