Blue Positive

Martha Silano (1961–2025) earned a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, then taught composition and creative writing at Bellevue College, which she joined in 2005. She grew up in central New Jersey and settled near Seattle. Blue Positive came from Steel Toe Books in 2006; The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception won the 2010 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, and This One We Call Ours won the Blue Lynx Prize from Lynx House Press. She also won the James Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review. Diagnosed with ALS in 2023, she died on 5 May 2025, aged 63; Terminal Surreal and Last Train to Paradise appeared posthumously.