Spark Artist

Portland native Claire Willett is an award-winning novelist, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, nonprofit grantwriter, fan fiction author, former Catholic youth minister, and niche internet microcelebrity. Her largest current project is a science fiction trilogy in which the agents of a 22nd-century time travel bureau explore key events of the 1960s and 70s in a way that illuminates the struggles of our lives today. The first installment centers Nixon’s White House and the Watergate scandal. It was published in September 2015 by Retrofit (now Axiomatic Publishing) in Los Angeles, under the title The Rewind Files, and revised in 2025 for re-publication under the title Chronomaly with two forthcoming sequels. Other recent works range from The Broken Heart Spread - a 2021 film about a modern witch using tarot to help her clients navigate messy romantic entanglements - to How Can I Keep From Singing, exploring the intersection of faith and queerness on a Catholic college campus, which was University of Portland's first-ever commissioned original play in 2022. Claire is well known across the internet for her queer feminist commentary on politics and pop culture, which has appeared in many online media outlets, podcasts, and a large audience on Bluesky and Twitter. In spring 2025 Oregon ArtsWatch created a new investigative and analytical reporting position for her to cover arts philanthropy, including the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal arts funding.