Jim Natal
Founder, Literary Southwest Program Director 2008 - 2022
Jim Natal helped found the Hassayampa Institute’s The Literary Southwest series at Yavapai College in 2008 and has served as series director until 2022. Prior to that he curated and co-hosted literary series and events in Los Angeles for more than 10 years.
Natal is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Spare Room: Haibun Variations and 52 Views, both written entirely in the centuries-old Japanese haibun form. His previous full-length collections include Memory and Rain; Talking Back to the Rocks; and In the Bee Trees.
He is a multi-year Pushcart Prize nominee whose poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. A former executive for the National Football League’s Creative Services Group in Los Angeles for 25 years, Natal received his MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles in 2005.
With his wife, graphic designer and book artist Tania Baban, he founded indie publishing house Conflux Press in 2003.