Greg Olson

If anyone were ever destined to write about David Lynch and the world of Twin Peaks, it would be Greg Olson, founder of the Seattle Art Museum's award-winning film program. Born in Seattle, Olson grew up in the Twin Peaks region, where his father was a Swedish emigrant lumberjack in the same woods of northwestern Washington as Pete Martell. Olson is the author of David Lynch: Beautiful Dark (2008) and has also written about Lynch for Film Comment and Premiere (Japan). He introduced Lynch the only time the director has appeared live with one of his films in Seattle, for a screening of the famously esoteric INLAND EMPIRE, and has hosted numerous Twin Peaks cast members, including Sheryl Lee just prior to the premiere of The Return. When he is not writing about Lynch or Twin Peaks, he is still writing about film, having contributed reviews and articles to the University of Washington Daily, Bellevue Journal American, Seattle Times, Seattle magazine, and Moviemaker magazine, as well as eighteen essays for the book Vietnam War Films, and The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide’s sections on visionary director Michael Powell (The Red Shoes), film noir, and director Jacques Tati, one of Lynch’s favorites. And when he is not writing about film, he is curating film screenings, like the Seattle Art Museum’s film noir series, reportedly the longest-running noir series anywhere in the world. Olson is also on the founding boards of the Seattle Film Society and the Film Noir Foundation.