Meet Frances McCue
As a poet who has won local and national awards for her four poetry books and two works of nonfiction, McCue knows the craft and process of writing. She’s a professor at the University of Washington where she teaches writing and literature.
For her newest book, The Poet in the C-Suite, she connected with hundreds of leaders, students and poets. McCue was also a co-founder/director of several startups: Richard Hugo House, a literary center in Seattle, Pulley Press, a publishing house that celebrates rural poets and poetry, a feature documentary film Where the House Was, and other adventures.
Imagination is everyone’s business. Please join me! I’d be happy to hear from you. Services I offer include keynotes, workshops, readings, and community conversations.
The Poet in the C-Suite
Bringing Artistry and Voice to Leadership, Innovation, and Teamwork
Creativity is one of the most sought-after qualities in today’s leaders. It is also difficult to identify and measure—and seemingly in short supply. All too often, “thinking outside the box” lacks spark and imagination. This book offers a fresh approach, revealing how poetry and the ways poets think can inform and inspire creative activity in other walks of life.
The book includes conversations with leaders who have some of the traits of thinking like poets, including a polar bear scientist, investment banker, media mogul, middle school principal, roboticist, a nurse/inventor and two craft beverage entrepreneurs.
Speaking Engagements
Reflect on your inner poet.
It’s not just a C-Suite. It might be a classroom, a lab, a board meeting. Poetry asks us to pay attention, question familiar assumptions, and find language for what matters. Frances McCue explores how these practices can deepen our working lives, strengthen our organizations, and help us imagine what comes next.
Frances is available for speaking engagements to help leaders explore how to start and sustain creative thinking in their personal and professional lives, young job-seekers desperate to enhance their people skills, and those who desire to foster development of their authentic voice in a clear, creative, approachable way.
Richard Hugo House
A literary home for all writers.
Hugo House is a nonprofit literary arts organization, co-founded by Frances, that aims to open the literary world to everyone who loves books or has the drive to write.
Their mission is to celebrate the power of storytelling and nurture writers by providing a literary home to anyone passionate about stories. We help artists develop their craft, share their work, and sustain creative lives in community through inclusive literary programs, instruction, and events.
Pulley Press
Publishing thought-provoking poetry from rural America.
Pulley Press locates, celebrates and publishes poetry from America’s rural places. Pulley Press is a 501c3 nonprofit poetry imprint, which takes its inspiration from the industrial pulley: a sleek, ubiquitous tool that enables anyone to move heavy objects. In our case, we see the press itself as a device to help poets glide their poems into the hands of readers.
Pulley poets may be writing about their working lives and the places where they live. Within the intersection of landscape, workplace, and identity, the poets’ own back stories may influence their verse and bring new experiences to light.
Frances co-founded Pulley Press and now serves as editor.