JeLisa Marshall 4/23/26 JeLisa Marshall 4/23/26

Evergreen Style: Prairie Underground

While Earth Month has been celebrated worldwide in April for more than 50 years, the fashion industry’s responsibility to the planet extends far beyond a single month. At Prairie Underground, a fashion label designed and manufactured in Seattle for over 20 years, sustainability is not a momentary focus but an everyday practice. Camilla Eckersley, one of its co-founders, is committed to creating an industry that is fair, fun, and environmentally responsible.

Raegan Ballard-Gennrich 4/17/26 Raegan Ballard-Gennrich 4/17/26

Perennial Conventions: Spring Awakening

Welcome to Spring! The season featuring wet earth, chatty birds, wardrobe uncertainty, and soon…babies, babies, babies. Both a season on its own as well as a transitionary period. Winter fitfully thawing into Summer as the frigid rot fertilizes the new growth.

Lynette Evans 4/15/26 Lynette Evans 4/15/26

Soft Life, Hard Lessons: No More Dry Biscuits

I have realized that my heart, the very center of my desire, has the amazing capacity to recognize beauty in more than one mirror. I find myself in a season I never expected: navigating deep feelings while standing firmly on newly discovered ground. This wasn’t a planned destination; I didn’t set out to audition hearts or be out here all in my feels. But here we are! As a woman who has been refined by the scorching fires of two divorces, I have realized that healing doesn't make your heart smaller—it makes it more discerning.

Zach Youngs 4/14/26 Zach Youngs 4/14/26

Sound Cinema: Bainbridge Cinemas

Bainbridge Cinemas caters to a wide demographic. It is meant to be a theater that offers broad audience fare so that those that live on Bainbridge Island do not have to make a trek to the mainland if they want to see the latest releases on the big screen. Like most theaters, the theatrical window can be a bit tricky to manage, but in the old sense of the theater experience, if it plays, it stays.

Parker Dean 4/9/26 Parker Dean 4/9/26

Parker’s Pages: Schrader’s Chord

Author Scott Leeds lives in the Pacific Northwest, and just like many of the other authors I have covered before, his work perfectly encapsulated what it feels like to live and be in Seattle and its neighboring cities. There’s a certain way that writers from the PNW write about the rain, the fog, and the dark. Leeds is no different, and effortlessly brings Seattle to life.

Lynette Evans 3/24/26 Lynette Evans 3/24/26

Soft Life, Hard Lessons: The Archetypes of the Ascent

I look back at the years between those two endings, and I see three specific archetypes. These weren't just men; they were tutors who held up mirrors to my soul, helping me identify the high-caliber requirements I didn't know I was allowed to have.

Parker Dean 3/19/26 Parker Dean 3/19/26

Trans* Talk: T4T Relationships

I entered my first T4T relationship in September of 2024, and it completely changed my perspective on what love could be. It obviously doesn’t hurt that my partner is one of the funniest, kindest, and smartest men I know, but a big part of our relationship is built on our experience as Trans* people. For me, a relationship with another Trans* person, whether that relationship is platonic, romantic, or otherwise, has its own unique perspective and feeling, one that is inaccessible for me in a cis relationship. But I know that not all Trans* individuals have this experience, so I sought out members of my community to share their input on T4T love.

Zach Youngs 3/10/26 Zach Youngs 3/10/26

Sound Cinema: Historic Admiral Theater

I happened to be in Pier 4, but even amid the modern seating, state-of-the-art sound, and digital projection, there was still a piece of the old theater in the partial mural on the auditorium wall. It was a bit haunting, like looking at something that was not supposed to exist anymore. It kept catching my eye as I sank into the comfy seat with ample leg room.

Parker Dean 3/5/26 Parker Dean 3/5/26

Parker’s Pages: A Future of Her Own

A Future of Her Own by Samantha Quamma is a delightful book that combines historical fiction, activism, and a kick-ass heroine to make something positively brilliant.

Lynette Evans 3/1/26 Lynette Evans 3/1/26

Soft Life, Hard Lessons: The Ghost of 22

It wasn't until my life was threatened that I found the boldness to move. I learned that staying isn't succeeding if you are being annihilated in the process. It is always, always okay to leave a table where love is no longer being served—even if you’re the one who set the place.

Parker Dean 2/20/26 Parker Dean 2/20/26

Trans* Talk: SweeThe4rTs Art Show

On February 13, Common Objects opened its doors for SweeThe4rts, a T4T art show and market, created by the Trans community, for the Trans community to share art centered on the relationships between Trans folks.

Lynette Evans 2/13/26 Lynette Evans 2/13/26

Soft Life, Hard Lessons: The Luxury of Letting Go

“Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. You look ten years younger.”

That’s what a man told me recently, and I had to smile. He didn’t know he was looking at a woman who had survived a tsunami. He didn’t know that just as I had finished a hard, honest conversation with myself about the state of my marriage, a hidden betrayal hit me with a force that nearly annihilated me. I had no time to brace for the impact; I just had to decide if I was going to swim or float away aimlessly.

Zach Youngs 2/10/26 Zach Youngs 2/10/26

Sound Cinema: Firehouse Theater

The theater is unassuming, tucked off to the right of SR 104 in the town of Kingston. Those waiting for or heading to the ferry to Edmonds likely drive right by it. Yet, Smith's original mission of creating a movie theater where locals can come and see something on the big screen is alive and thriving—especially on $9 Wednesdays when the afternoon crowd buzzes. The theater functions as a community hub and a place where people can see a blockbuster or the independent, art house, international, and repertory films the big chains disregard.

Raegan Ballard-Gennrich 2/1/26 Raegan Ballard-Gennrich 2/1/26

Perennial Conventions: Tending

I no longer have social media (future article on this to come), but I do watch a lot (too much) of YouTube. And for me, January 1—and earlier, in truth—began the seemingly endless bombardment of New Year-inspired content. Planner updates, journaling tips, weight loss and dieting advice. Mere weeks after winter has begun we’re inundated with peppy people telling us how to get our lives together. I’ve never really bought into this, though I know how easy it is to be swept up into the fervor of goal-setting energy.

Lynette Evans 1/26/26 Lynette Evans 1/26/26

Soft Life, Hard Lessons: Orbiting, Audacity, and Trusting Your Gut

Welcome back to the laboratory. This week, the research is clear: the “Great Fade-Out" has been replaced by the "Great Orbit," and frankly, I’m running out of space in my atmosphere for all this funk.

Parker Dean 1/24/26 Parker Dean 1/24/26

Trans* Talk: Academic Freedom

Over the holidays, I was alerted to an unfolding story about a Transgender Oklahoman instructor at the University of Oklahoma who was fired after giving a failing grade to a student. At first glance, this story seemed cut-and-dry—a teaching assistant ousted unfairly due to a bigoted student. But the more I learned, the more that the alarm bells rang.

Parker Dean 1/19/26 Parker Dean 1/19/26

Parker’s Pages: Waxing Off

We are starting the year off with a great read by one of our very own Creatives here at the Evergreen Echo! Waxing Off by E.E.W. Christman is a Queer, urban fantasy novella with elements of horror, self-exploration, and romance. It is a quick and delightful read, pulling you right into the action. Oh, and did I mention there are werewolves and pecan pancakes?

Calista Robbins 1/17/26 Calista Robbins 1/17/26

The Divided Line: Caleb [Part 2]

Caleb knew it was only a matter of time before the stalemate broke, before the soldiers realized that this fever of theirs would neither extinguish silently nor dissipate without action.

The energy that’d surged through the mourners as the night encroached had unleashed a sort of choreomania set in a new dark age, dancing and keening the only reprieve to the grief of so much devastation.

And maybe that was what the soldiers and their regime feared the most—this mania.

Zach Youngs 1/13/26 Zach Youngs 1/13/26

Sound Cinema: The Beacon

As the youngest theater to be featured in Sound Cinema, The Beacon emerged as a wonderful, ethereal being from beyond known space and onto our plane of existence in 2019. This space is a movie palace. Unlike the other spaces I’ve covered, The Beacon is not a movie palace in the sense of the grandiosity of its auditorium or the ornate fixtures that adorn the walls. This is a palace to the strangeness, brilliance, and beauty that the medium of cinema can offer. It is a cinephile's paradise in the heart of Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood.

Lynette Evans 1/12/26 Lynette Evans 1/12/26

Soft Life, Hard Lessons: Swipe Left on My Spirit

Let me bring you into my soft-life laboratory, because post-divorce dating has a sense of humor I did not sign up for. I told myself I’d try something new. Stretch my faith. Dip a toe into modern romance.

So I downloaded Bumble and Hinge.

Yes. Me.

A grown woman with three children, all my edges, rooted faith, and a therapist who said, “We ain’t taking this ish into 2026.”

Start Reading

Welcome back to the laboratory. This week, the research is clear: the “Great Fade-Out" has been replaced by the "Great Orbit," and frankly, I’m running out of space in my atmosphere for all this funk.

Caleb knew it was only a matter of time before the stalemate broke, before the soldiers realized that this fever of theirs would neither extinguish silently nor dissipate without action.

The energy that’d surged through the mourners as the night encroached had unleashed a sort of choreomania set in a new dark age, dancing and keening the only reprieve to the grief of so much devastation.

And maybe that was what the soldiers and their regime feared the most—this mania.

Let me bring you into my soft-life laboratory, because post-divorce dating has a sense of humor I did not sign up for. I told myself I’d try something new. Stretch my faith. Dip a toe into modern romance.

So I downloaded Bumble and Hinge.

Yes. Me.

A grown woman with three children, all my edges, rooted faith, and a therapist who said, “We ain’t taking this ish into 2026.”