Michael Dylan Welch has written haiku since 1976. He is a past or current officer, director, or board member of the Haiku Society of America, the Haiku Poets of Northern California, Haiku Northwest, Haiku North America (cofounder, 1991), the American Haiku Archives (cofounder, 1996), and the Tanka Society of America (founder, 2000; president 2000-2004). Michael is poet laureate for the city of Redmond, Washington, is the proprietor of National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), and runs an extensive personal website devoted mostly to haiku (graceguts). He is also editor/publisher of Press Here haiku and tanka books (since 1989). He previously edited Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem (1997-2001) and Woodnotes (1989-1997). Michael’s own haiku and longer poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies in at least twenty languages, and he has won or judged numerous haiku and other contests. His books include True Colour (a collection of solo rengay), Here, There, and Everywhere (an anthology of longer poetry), various Haiku North America conference anthologies, With Cherries on Top: 31 Flavors from NaHaiWriMo (a free PDF book with his photographs featuring poems by NaHaiWriMo contributors), Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends (edited with Alan Summers), and several art books from PIE Books in Tokyo with translations from the Japanese (with Emiko Miyashita), including 100 Poets: Passions of the Imperial Court, a translation of the thirteenth-century waka collection, Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, a poem from which was published on the back of 150,000,000 U.S. postage stamps in 2012. Michael lives with his family in Sammamish, Washington.
