reprinted from Shelf Awareness Pro, February 25, 2016
Seattle City of Literature has appointed Stesha Brandon as its interim executive director. Her role will be to strengthen the organization, lead the upcoming bid to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, and initiate a comprehensive search for a permanent executive director. Seattle has been invited to apply to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2017, after narrowly missing UNESCO’s 2016 endorsement.
“I am delighted to join this effort to designate Seattle a UNESCO Creative City, and excited to deepen our relationship with local literary and arts organizations,” she said. “We have a vital role in supporting Seattle’s literary community, and there is still valuable work to be done.” Brandon most recently served as program director of Town Hall Seattle. Before that, she was the events coordinator at University Book Store for more than 10 years. Brandon is also a veteran of numerous boards and committees, including the Bumbershoot Task Force and the Washington State Book Awards jury.
Seattle City of Literature board president Bob Redmond said the organization “has a great vision and has begun contributing both locally and internationally. To take the next steps we needed help, and Stesha is wonderfully qualified to provide that help. She knows both the for-profit and non-profit angles of the arts world, is well versed in literature and many other creative disciplines, and has great support from the community. We’re lucky to land her and look forward to the next steps for the organization.”
In an interview with the Seattle Review of Books, Brandon noted that “one of the cool things about the Seattle City of Literature project is that it’s about building understanding through the creative economy–so I’ll be using my background and the community ties that I built in both the for-profit world at University Book Store, and the non-profit world at Town Hall Seattle. Ultimately, Seattle City of Literature wants to support the literary and arts ecosystem in Seattle, and that means including all different kinds of contributors to the creative economy.”
For more about Seattle City of Literature, see our archives.