About Claire

Portland native Claire Willett is a playwright, journalist, nonprofit grantwriter, science fiction novelist, niche internet microcelebrity, frequent podcast guest, former Catholic youth minister, amateur practitioner of tarot, Dungeons & Dragons player, and many more things. She has a B.A. in Theatre from Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA), is a graduate of the Paul A. Kaplan Theatre Management Program at Manhattan Theatre Club (New York, NY), and resides in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, where she has 20 years of experience in communications, grantwriting, public relations, social media strategy and content creation for nonprofits all over the Pacific Northwest. In 2025 she was brought on board at Oregon ArtsWatch to take on their newly-created funding and philanthropy beat, covering topics from the Trump administration's dismantling of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities to shifts in the grantmaking landscape throughout Oregon.

Claire's past nonprofit clients include: Age & Gender Equity In the Arts, The ALS Association of Oregon & SW Washington, Anonymous Theatre, Artists Repertory Theatre, Benton County Natural Areas, Parks & Events (Corvallis, OR), Center for Diversity & the Environment, Curious Comedy Theatre, Echo Theatre Company, Fertile Ground New Work Festival, Free Geek, Fuse Theatre Ensemble, Global Health Promise, Hand2Mouth Theatre, Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, Isinglass, Living Stages, MetroEast Community Media, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Obo Addy Legacy Project, The Old Church, Oregon ArtsWatch, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Oregon Tilth, Outdoor School, Outward Bound, Polaris Dance Theatre, Portland Actors Conservatory, Portland Metro STEM Partnership, Portland Opera, Portland Revels, Public Playhouse, Portland Area Theatre Alliance, Route 11 Dance Festival (Lexington, VA), Staged!, STEM Beyond Schools, Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre, Theatre Vertigo, Third Rail Repertory Theatre, Walla Walla Symphony (Walla Walla, WA), Wind & Oar Boat School, and Wordstock.

Claire is a past recipient of the Oregon Literary Fellowship for Drama, has received creative project grants from the Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Oregon Arts Commission, was a founding artist of Portland's Fertile Ground Festival of New Work, and spent six years as a company member of the award-winning Portland-based writers' collective Playwrights West. You can learn more about her plays on the New Play Exchange. Her first novel, a time travel adventure about Watergate, was released in September 2015 by Retrofit (now Axiomatic Publishing) in Los Angeles under the title The Rewind Files, and is currently being rewritten for re-publication under the title Chronomaly, with two sequels - All Things Fall and Zero Hour - scheduled for completion by next year. You can learn more about Claire's books, podcast appearances, pop culture commentary and more on her website.