What No One Ever Tells You

What would you do if you were speaking and no one was listening? Writing and no one was reading? Existing without any feedback? For many of the authors and poets in What No One Ever Tells You, this question isn’t a matter of theory. And the answer, for many, has been the sublimation of truth, emotions, and the creative impulse–voices relegated to the underground. Published in December 2018, What No One Ever Tells You is an amplifying collection of voices that continue to speak. It is the first anthology of student work from Underground Writing, a literature-based creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-risk communities in Northern Washington through literary engagement and personal restoration. Made possible, in part, by a grant from the Washington State Arts Commission, the book includes nearly 100 pages of student writing, micro essays by Underground Writing’s Teaching Writers, a list of resources, site profiles, and a Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Quiara Alegria Hudes. As Hudes says in her Foreword: These authors may be far from the levers of change, but they have decided to write their truth, and in doing so, they have certainly changed me.