MFA Faculty Mentors and visiting faculty

"I've made great strides in my poetry under the rigorous, encouraging, and always respectful guidance of my faculty mentor."

The heart of Lesley's MFA Creative Writing Program, our faculty mentors and visiting writers include two former U.S. Poet Laureates; former fellows from the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College; recipients of the Commonwealth Prize for Poetry; Canada's Governor General's Award for Literature; Guggenheim fellowships, NEA fellowships, the Norma Farber First Book Award, The Parents' Choice Award, the Parenting's Reading Magic Award, Pushcart Prizes, Whiting awards, numerous state arts council awards, Ingram Merrill Foundation grants, the PEN Discovery Award; and winners of or nominees for, the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Books by many of our faculty mentors have been named "notable books" by The L.A. Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In addition to their books, members of our faculty have published their work in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, New York Times Magazine, Antaeus, Paris Review, Smithsonian, Poetry, The Nation, Grand Street, Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, The Best American Essays, Triquarterly, and many other important journals and anthologies.

Faculty Mentors:

Tony Abbott, writing for young people, is the author of many works for children, including several series: Danger Guys, The Secrets of Droon, The Haunting of Derek Stone, and the forthcoming Underworlds (Scholastic 2011) and Goofballs (Egmont 2012); and the novels Kringle, Firegirl, The Postcard, and Lunch-Box Dream. He is editor-in-chief of the literary blog, Friday Book Report (www.fridaybookreport.com). Awards: SCBWI’s 2006 Golden Kite Award for Fiction, 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, Junior Library Guild selection, Children’s Book of the Month Club selection, Texas Library Association Bluebonnet finalist, State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio selection. Website: www.tonyabbottbooks.com. 

Anne Bernays, fiction, nonfiction, author of ten novels, including The Man on the Third Floor (2012), Trophy House, Professor Romeo and Growing Up Rich, as well as three works of nonfiction: Back Then: Two Literary Lives in 1950s New York and The Language of Names (written with Justin Kaplan), and What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers (written with Pamela Painter). Awards: Edward Lewis Wallant Award; Residency at Bellagio (Rockefeller Foundation); New York Times Notable Book of the Year (Professor Romeo, The Language of Names). Affiliations: PEN New England; National Writers' Union.

Suzanne Berne, nonfiction and fiction, is the author of three novels: The Ghost at the Table, A Perfect Arrangement, and A Crime in the Neighborhood; and the nonfiction book, Missing Lucile: Memories of a Grandmother I Never Knew. She has written frequently for the New York Times and her short stories and essays have been published in such places as The Threepenny Review, Agni, Vogue, Ploughshares, The The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and The London Sunday Times. Awards: Boston Globe Best Books of 2006; New York Times Notable Book; Great Britain’s Orange Prize. Affiliations: Boston College.Website: www.suzanneberne.net.

Jami Brandli, writing for stage and screen. Jami Brandli has had plays produced and/or staged in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Detroit, New Mexico and Washington DC where she was accepted as a Visiting Artist at the Kennedy Center for their Playwriting Intensive (2006, 2007). She was also a contributing writer for both stage and screen for the Elliot Norton Award winning production of PS: Page Me Later. Her plays have been published in the Smith & Kraus Anthologies The Best Ten-Minute Plays, 2007 and 2008. She served as the 2007 Chair of the Women in Film and Video/NE's screenwriting competition and was finalist for Disney ABC's 2008 Writing Fellowship. Her full-length play, The SInker, won the 2009 Jury Prize for HotCity Theatre's Greenhouse New Play Series, and will receive its world premiere in St. Louis, May 2010. She is also a Respondent for the Kennedy Center national Playwriting Program, Region 8. Her short film, Flooding, was recently screened in Los Angeles, and is being considered for film festivals throughout the country. Her short stories have been published in Quick Fiction, Salt Hill, Other Voices, and Memorious where her story, "Night Shift," was nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Awards: Elliot Norton Award, Visiting Artist at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, SAC/Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship, Visiting Playwright, 2009 ATHE Development Workshop. Affiliations: Emerson College, UCLA Extension, Grub Street, The Dramatists Guild, Moving Arts Theatre Company, AWP, The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Barry Brodsky, Writing for Stage and Screen, is the author of published plays All Other Nights, The Twelve-forty, and The Surrender; produced plays also include The Boys of Winter, Patriotic Duty, King Street Mixup, After Shabbos, Late Truck, Miss Colleen’s Abortion, Stopwatch, Debating Malcolm, and The Last Interview; optioned screenplays include The Cantor and A Family Game (adapted from the short story by Brendan Dubois). Barry is the Director of Emerson College's Screenwriting Certificate Program. He has been teaching Screenwriting at Emerson and at U.Mass-Boston since 1998, and has been teaching playwriting since 1990. Awards: two-time semi-finalist in the Chesterfield Film Writer's Competition. Nominee for Best New Play in 2008 by Independent Reviewers of New England for The Boys of Winter. His play Returnees was named a finalist in 2008 at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He holds a B.A. from UMass Boston and an M.F.A. from Brandeis University. Affiliations: Emerson College, Boston University Film School, University of Massachusetts, Boston Past Affiliations: Brandeis University, Mass. College of Art, Roxbury Community College, Bristol Community College. He can be contacted at Brodskybarry@gmail.com

Jane Brox, nonfiction, author of Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm, Five Thousand Days Like This One, and Here and Nowhere Else. Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship, New England Book Award for nonfiction; the L.L. Winship/PEN New England award; finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award; National Endowment for the Arts fellowship; and two Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowships. Past Affiliations: Harvard University; Harvard Extension School.

Sharon Bryan, poetry, author of Sharp Stars, Salt Air, Objects of Affection, and Flying Blind. Editor of Where We Stand: Women Poets on Literary Tradition and co-editor of Planet on the Table: Poets on the Reading Life. Awards: Two NEA Fellowships in poetry, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Discovery Prize awarded by The Nation, as well as other literary prizes. Past Affiliations: She has taught as a visiting writer at many universities around the country, most recently the University of Connecticut.

Teresa Cader, poetry, author of History of Hurricanes, Guests and The Paper Wasp. Awards: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America (PSA); The Journal Award in Poetry; Bunting Institute Fellowship in Poetry; George Bogin Memorial Award from the PSA; Massachusetts Artist Foundation; Massachusetts Cultural Council; the John Athernon Fellowship in Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony; the international Legacy Project. Past affiliations: Department of Literature, M.I.T.; the Graduate Program in Creative Writing, Emerson College; Visiting Writer and Lecturer at UMass, Boston; poet-in-residence at many public and private schools.

Rafael Campo, nonfiction and poetry, author of The Enemy; Landscape with Human Figure; The Other Man Was Me; What the Body Told; Diva; The Desire to Heal: A Doctor's Education in Empathy, Identity, and Poetry; and The Healing Art: A Doctor's Black Bag of Poetry. Awards: Winner of the Sheila Motton Award for the best book of poetry from the New England Poetry Club; he also received their 2008 May Sarton Award, “for a poet whose work is an inspiration to other poets.” Rafael was also named the recipient of the American College of Physicians’ 2009 Nicholas Davies Memorial Scholar Award, “for outstanding contributions to humanism in medicine.” Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; winner of the Lambda Literary Award; National Poetry Series selection; winner of the Lambda Literary Award for memoir; Gold Medal from Forward magazine; Guggenheim Fellowship; honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Amherst College. His work has also been selected for inclusion in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. Current Affiliation: Stanford Humanities Center and the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa) Writer-in-Residence, spring 2012. Past Affiliations: Fanny Hurst Visiting Poet at Brandeis University. Website: www.rafaelcampo.com

Leah Hager Cohen, nonfiction and fiction, is the author of The Grief of Others; Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World; Glass, Paper, Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things; The Stuff of Dreams: Behind the Scenes at an American Community Theater; Without Apology: Girls, Women, and the Desire to Fight; and the novels Heat Lightning; Heart, You Bully, You Punk; and House Lights. Her novel The Grief of Others will be published by Riverhead Books in 2011. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review.  Awards & Honors: New York Times Notable Book (four times); American Library Association Ten Best Books of the Years; Toronto Globe and Mail Ten Best Books of the Year; Booksense 76 Pick. Affiliation: Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters, College of the Holy Cross. Past Affiliations: Boston University, Emerson College. Website: www.leahhagercohen.com.

Pat Lowery Collins, writing for young people, author of numerous works for children, including Daughter of Winter, Hidden Voices: The Orphan Musicians of Venice, The Fattening Hut, Schooner, Just Imagine, Signs and Wonders, and Come Out Come Out. Two other books, Feather and Shell and The Deer Watch, are forthcoming from Candlewick Press. Awards: New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Fellowship in Fiction; Massachusetts Cultural Council Professional Development Grant; Vermont Studio Center writer's grant in poetry; Boston Author's Club 2004 Julia Ward Howe Award; ALA 2005 Amelia Bloomer Project Selection; Reading Rainbow Selection; Child Study Association Children's Book of the Year selection; New York Public Library Books for the Teenage selection; Book Sense 76 selection; Millay Colony Fellow; YASIG Best of the Best for 2004. Past affiliations: Worcester Art Museum; Rivier College; Northshore Community College. Website: www.patlowerycollins.com.

Steven Cramer, poetry, author of Goodbye to the Orchard, Dialogue for the Left and Right Hand, The World Book, and The Eye That Desires to Look Upward. Awards: L.A. Times Book Prize Nomination, Massachusetts Honor Book Citation, and winner of the Sheila Motton Prize from the New England Poetry Club for Goodbye to the Orchard; Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fellowship; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Stanley Young Fellowship in Poetry, Bread Loaf Writer's Conference. Current affiliations: Program Director, MFA Program in Creative Writing, Lesley University; Steering Committee, Concord Poetry Center; Past affiliations: The Atlantic Monthly; Bennington College; Boston University; David R. Godine, Publisher; Program in Writing and Humanistic Study, M.I.T.; Queens University; Tufts University. Website: www.stevencramer.net

Jaqueline Davies, writing for young people, author of seven books for children—including the popular Lemonade War series and The Boy Who Drew Birds, and the young adult novel, Lost. Awards: The Sydney Taylor Honor Award, finalist for the Jewish National Book Award, The Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, New York Public Library's Best Books, Massachusetts Book Honor Award, Nutmeg Award, Booksense Children's Pick, Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Books, Cooperative Children's Book Center Choice, Junior Library Guild Selection, School Library Journal's Best Books of the Year, BBYA Best Books for Young Adults. Website: www.jacquelinedavies.net

David Elliott, writing for young people, author of Jeremy Cabbage and the Living Museum of Human Oddballs and Quadruped Delights; Wuv Bunnies from Outers Pace; Hazel Nutt, Mad Scientist; Hazel Nutt, Alien Hunter; Evangeline Mudd and the Great Mink Escapade, Evangeline Mudd and the Golden-Haired Apes of the Ikkinasti Jungle, The Transmogrification of Roscoe Wizzle, Cool Crazy Crickets, Cool Crazy Crickets to the Rescue, and the picture books On the Farm; And Here's to You! and An Alphabet of Rotten Kids. Recent picture books include Night-Night Knitty Kitty; What the Grizzly Knows, and Finn Throws a Fit. Forthcoming companion books to On the Farm include In the Wild and Under the Sea.   Awards: New York Times Best Selling Author; Children's Choice; Parent's Guide to Children's Media Award; Featured Books for Young People (Australia); Children's Literature Top Pick; Book Sense 76 Selection; Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year; Golden Duck Award; Work selected by Daniel Pinkwater for feature on NPR's Weekend Edition; ASPCA Henry Bergh Children's Book Award Finalist (pending); Gateway City Award Finalist (pending); ALA Notable Book; Numerous State Award Nominations. His book Evangeline was selected as a Chicago Public Library Best Book; his work has been selected for school and library reading lists across the country. Current Affiliation: Colby-Sawyer College. Website: www.davidelliottbooks.com.

Thomas Sayers Ellis, poetry, author of Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems, The Maverick Room, The Genuine Negro Hero, and Good Junk, and coeditor of On the Verge: Emerging Poets and Artists. Awards: 2005 winner of a Whiting Award in poetry;Two Individual Artists Fellowships, Ohio Arts Center; Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship; Current affiliation: Professor of Creative Writing, Sarah Lawrence College. Past affiliations: Associate Professor of English, Case Western Reserve University; Core Faculty, The Bennington Writing Seminars. Website: www.tsellis.com.

Tony Eprile, fiction, author of The Persistence of Memory and Temporary Sojourner and Other South African Stories. Tony Eprile recently gave readings to students and met with writers in Syria, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, and Turkey, and also took part in the University of Iowa International Writing Program's "New Symposium" on Justice in Paros, Greece. Awards: Koret Foundation Jewish Book Prize for The Persistence of Memory, which was named a "notable book" or "best book" by The L.A. Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, 1994 and 1983; Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant; Shane Stevens Fellowship in Fiction, Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Past affiliations: Visiting Writer in Residence, Skidmore College; Visiting Writer, Williams College; Literature Faculty, Bennington College; Assistant Professor, Northwestern University; Visiting Writer, Wesleyan University; Visiting Writer, University of Iowa.

Laurie Foos, fiction, author of the novels Ex Utero, Portrait of the Walrus by a Young Artist, Twinship, Bingo Under the Crucifix, and Before Elvis There Was Nothing. Awards: Stanford Calderwood Fellowship, the MacDowell Colony; San Diego Current's Hot Tamale Award; Los Angeles Reader Top Ten Books of 1995; Village Voice Notable Books; Fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference and Wesleyan Writers' Conference; Current Affiliations: UCLA Extension Writers' Program. Past Affiliations: Lesley University's Lesley Seminars; Bentley College; Writers @ Work Conference. Website: http://www.lauriefoos.com.

Susan Goodman, writing for young people. Her latest books are See How They Run: Campaign Dreams, Election Schemes, and the Race to the White House; Saber-Toothed Cats; Life on the Ice; All in Just One Cookie (an ALA notable book) and Gee Whiz! It's All About Pee. She is also the author of The Ultimate Field Trip series and the Brave Kids series, as well as On This Spot: An Expedition Back Through Time; Choppers; The Truth About Poop; and Skyscraper. Awards: Maryland Blue Crab Young Reader's Award 2005; Booklist's Editor's Choice 2004, Book Link's Lasting Connections 2004; The Washington Post's Top Five Picture Books 2004, Junior Library Guild Selection; Reading Magic Award, ABA's Pick of the List; Best Trade Science Books, Children's Book Council/National Science Teacher's Association; Chicago Public Library's Best of the List, Parent's Guild Media Award, Parent's Choice Award, VOYA Nonfiction Honor List, Junior Library Guild Selection. Current Affiliation: PEN New England (Children's Book Caucus). Web site: www.susangoodmanbooks.com

Joan Houlihan, poetry, is the author of The Us, The Mending Worm, and Hand-Held Executions: Poems & Essays. Her essays on contemporary poetry are archived online at bostoncomment.com. Awards: Must-read book of 2009 (Massachusets Center for the Book), Green Rose Award for a Second Book (New Issues Press). Affiliations: Founding Director of the Concord Poetry Center, Concord, MA; Founding Director of the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference; Managing Editor, Contemporary Poetry Review. Websites: www.joanhoulihan.com, www.concordpoetry.org, www.colrainpoetry.com.

Alexandra Johnson, nonfiction, author of Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal, The Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life, and A Brief History of Diaries: From Pepys to Blogs, forthcoming in fall 2011. Awards: PEN Special Citation for distinguished nonfiction; Harvard University's CUE award for excellence in teaching, 1991, 1990, 1985, 1983; Harvard University's James Conway Award for Distinguished Teaching of Writing, 1995; Current Affiliations: Writing Program, Wellesley College; Bunting Institute, Harvard University; Harvard Extension School.

Rachel Kadish, fiction, author of the novels Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story (awarded the John Gardner Book Prize for 2006) and From a Sealed Room. Awards: 2008 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fiction Fellowship; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Bunting Institute/Radcliffe Institute Fellowship; Stanford University Writer in Residence/Koret Foundation Young Writer on Jewish Themes; MacDowell Colony's Robert Maxwell Award; Pushcart Prize winner; Whiting Foundation grantee. Current Affiliation: Visiting Associate, Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center. Past Affiliations: Boston College; New York University; Harvard University Summer School; The Radio Play/Public Media Foundation. Web site: www.rachelkadish.com.

Hester Kaplan, fiction, author of The Edge of Marriage, a short story collection, and the novels Kinship Theory, and The Tell (2013). Awards: Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Merit Award; McGinnis Ritchie Award for Nonfiction; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for 2007-08; Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction; Writer's Community/YMCA Writer-in-Residence Award; Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship; work chosen for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 1998 and 1999. Current Afficilation:  Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT. Past Affiliation: Rhode Island School of Design.

Michael Lowenthal, fiction, author of the novels Charity Girl, Avoidance and The Same Embrace. Awards: James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award; Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship; New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Fellowship; St. Botolph Club Foundation Fellowship; Fellowships to Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and Wesleyan Writers' Conference; residency at the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers; Pushcart Prize Special Mention (three times); Lambda Literary Award finalist (twice). Current Affiliations: Boston College; PEN New England (Executive Board). Past Affiliations: University Press of New England. Web site: www.michaellowenthal.com

William Lychack, fiction, author of the novel The Wasp Eater and a collection of stories, The Architect of Flowers. Awards: inclusion in Best American Short Stories and The Pushcard Prize; Sherwood Anderson Fellowship, 2011; Discover Great New Writers Selection, Barnes & Noble, 2011; Christopher Isherwood Foundation Award, 2008; Editor's Choice, the New York Times Book Review, 2004. Past Affiliations: Connecticut College, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Phillips Academy, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, New England Review, Guideposts Magazine, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Pushcart Press, The Village Voice. Website: www.lychack.com

Chris Lynch, writing for young people, author of Hothouse, Prime Evil, Angry Young Man, the Cyberia series, The Big Game of Everything, Inexcusable (National Book Award Finalist) Me, Dead Dad, & Alcatraz and the Michael L. Printz Honor Book Freewill, as well as Iceman, Shadow Boxer, Gold Dust, and Slot Machine, all four ALA Best Books for Young Adults. He is also the author of Extreme Elvin, Whitechurch, and All The Old Haunts. Awards: National Book Award Finalist, Michael L. Printz Honor Book winner,  ALA Best Books for Young Adults. Website: www.chrislynchbooks.com

Rachel Manley, nonfiction, author of the memoirs The Applestrudel Tree (2012), Horses in Her Hair, Slipstream: A Daughter Remembers and Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood as well as three books of poetry: A Light Left On, Poems 2, and Prisms. Awards: 1997 Governor General's Award for Literature (Canada); The Jamaica Centennial Medal for Poetry, The Mary Ingraham Bunting Fellowship (Literature) Radcliffe College; Virginia Center for Creative Arts Fellowship; Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellowship, Bellagio, Italy; Pierre Berton Fellowship-Yukon, Canada; Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship; New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship; Hawthornden Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland Writer's Fellowship.

Cate Marvin, poetry, author of World's Tallest Disaster; Fragment of the Head of a Queen, and co-editor with Michael Dumanis of Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. Awards: 2008 Texas Institute of Letters Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for the Best Book of Poetry; 2007 Whiting Writer's Award; New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; Kathryn A. Morton Prize; Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. Current Affiliations: College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Website: http://www.catemarvin.com

Kyoko Mori, fiction and nonfiction, author of Yarn: Remembering a Way Home; Stone Field, True Arrow; Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures; The Dream of Water: A Memoir; One Bird; Fallout (poems), and Shizuko's Daughter. Awards: PEN's Martha Albrand Award nomination; The Best Novel of the Year from the Council of Wisconsin Writers; the Best American Essays 2004. Current Affiliations: Harvard University; George Mason University. Past Affiliations: St. Norbert College; the Stone Coast low-residency MFA.

Pamela Petro, nonfiction, is the author of Travels in An Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh, Sitting Up With the Dead: A Storied Journey through the American South and The Slow Breath of Old Stone: A Romanesque Love Story. She has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, Granta, Ms. Magazine and many other publications in the U.S. and Britain. Petro is also a visual artist who creates environmental installations of "petrographs" (silver gelatin images printed on stone). Awards: Bedford Pace Award for Writing on Britain; Black Rock Arts Fellow; Artist in Residence at the Grand Canyon. Current Affiliations: Smith College. Past Affiliations: Brown University Learning Community; New York Public Library. Website: www.petrographs.blogspot.com.

Katherine Russell Rich, nonfiction, is the author of The Red Devil and Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language . Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship, New York Public Library Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts award for Literary Nonfiction. Past Affiliations: assigning editor at a number of magazines, including “GQ” and “Allure.”

Website: www.katherinerussellrich.com.

Christina Shea, fiction, author of the novel Moira's Crossing, and Smuggled. Awards: Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Selection; Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute Fellowship; Soros Foundation Grant. Past Affiliations: Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Attila Jozsef University, Hungary.

Kate Snodgrass, writing for stage and screen, is the Artistic Director of both the Elliot Norton Award-winning Boston Theater Marathon and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott’s Boston Playwrights' Theatre. She is the author of the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville’s Heideman Award-winning play Haiku, and she has won two "Best New Play" IRNE Awards (Observatory, 1999, and The Glider, 2004, also nominated for the American Theatre Critics Association’s Steinberg Award). Acknowledged by StageSource in 2001 as a “Theatre Hero,” Kate is the National Chair of Playwriting at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and a Playwriting Fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company. Awards: Elliot Norton Award, Heideman Award, IRNE award (twice), Dramatists' Guild Commendation. Current Affiliations: Boston University, member of A.E.A., A.F.T.R.A., and the Dramatists' Guild. Past Affiliations: MIT, Wellesley College, Suffolk University, ART Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, Boston College.

Janet Sylvester, poetry, author of That Mulberry Wine, A Visitor at the Gate, and The Mark of Flesh. Awards: Pushcart Prize; Fellowship in Poetry at The Breadloaf Writers Conference; DeWitt Wallace/Reader's Digest Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony; PEN Discovery Award. Current Affiliation: visiting writer, University of Tampa. Past Affiliations: Harvard University; MFA/PhD programs in creative writing at University of South Carolina; Ohio University; Old Dominion University; Wichita State University, Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College, VA.

Sinan Ünel, writing for stage and screen. Sinan Ünel’s plays have been produced at: The Huntington Theatre Company, The Long Wharf Theater, The Arcola Theatre (London), Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, The Lark Theatre Company (New York), The Gate Theatre (London), Provincetown Theatre Company, Provincetown Theatreworks, Landes-theater (Germany), Theater Kosmos (Austria), Theatre at Boston Court (Pasadena, CA). Awards: The John Gassner Memorial Award, The Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award; he was a fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company from 2003 to 2005. His script Race Point was the winner of the 2001 New Century Writer. Affiliations: The Lark Play Development Center, The Huntington Theater Company, Boston Playwrights’ Theater, Provincetown Theater Company, Cape Cod Writers’ Center.

A. J. Verdelle, fiction, author of The Good Negress and other academic and nonfiction works. She is currently at work on another novel, a short biography of Benjamin Banneker, and a handbook on revision for student writers. Awards: Vursell Distinguished Fiction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; Whiting Award in fiction; Bunting Fellowship; NEA Critical Studies Award; finalist for PEN/Faulkner Award; Los Angeles Times Book Prize; IMPAC/Dublin International Book Prize. Past Affiliations: Princeton University, MFA Program at Vermont College.

Visiting Writers and Artists

Steve Almond is the author of the story collections My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B.B. Chow, the novel Which Brings Me to You (with Julianna Baggott), and the non-fiction books Candyfreak, (Not That You Asked), and Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. He is also, crazily, self-publishing a book called This Won't Take But a Minute, Honey, which is composed of 30 very brief stories, and 30 very brief essays on the psychology and practice of writing.

Ellen Driscoll, sculptor and installation artist, with numerous solo exhibitions, including New York City's Whitney Museum of American Art and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. In 2001 she completed a major public commission, "As Above, So Below," for Grand Central Station. Web site: www.ellendriscoll.net

Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog, Bluesman: A Novel, and The Cage Keeper and Other Stories.

David Ferry, author of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations; and translator of The Epistles of Horace, The Georgics of Virgil, Gilgamesh, and The Odes of Horace.

Nikky Finney is the author of Head Off and Split, Heartwood, The World is Round, Rice, and On Wings Made of Gauze, and edited The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South.

Jack Gantos is the celebrated author of Joey Pigza Loses Control, a Newbery Honor Book. He is also the author of the popular picture books about Rotten Ralph, and Jack's Black Book, the latest in his acclaimed series of semi-autobiographical story collections featuring his alter ego, Jack Henry. He has written many other books, including Hole in My Life, a memoir.

Julia Glass, author of Three Junes (winner of the 2002 National Book Award), The Whole World Over, and I See You Everywhere. She has also won the Nelson Algren Fiction Award, the Tobias Wolff Award, and the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Medal for Best Novella.

Louise Glück, former Poet Laureate of the United States, winner of the Bollingen Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and author of eleven collections—including Averno (forthcoming in 2006), The Seven Ages, Vita Nova, Meadowlands, The Wild Iris, Ararat, The Triumph of Achilles, Descending Figure, and The House on Marshland—as well as Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry.

Vivian Gornick is the author of eight books, including Fierce Attachments: A Memoir, The End of the Novel of Love, The Situation and The Story: The Art of Personal Narrative, Approaching Eye Level, and The Solitude of Self: Thinking about Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her work has been nominated for a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the recipient of a Ford Foundation grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Gornick’s essays and articles have appeared in Bookforum, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, Threepenny Review, and The Women’s Review of Books.

Robie H. Harris, author of numerous books for young people, including It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families; Happy Birth Day!; Don't Forget to Come Back; Goodbye, Mousie; and It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health.

Emily Hiestand, author of Angela the Upside-Down Girl: and Other Domestic Travels and The Very Rich Hours: Travels in Orkney, Belize, the Everglades, and Greece; also a highly regarded poet and photographer. Web site: www.elementsboston.net/about/emily.htm

Richard Hoffman, author of Half the House: A Memoir, and Without Paradise (poems).

Marie Howe, author of The Good Thief (National Poetry Series winner, 1988) and What the Living Do.

Major Jackson, author of Hoops and Leaving Saturn.

Lois Lowry, award-winning author of numerous books for young readers, including Messenger; The Silent Boy; Gathering Blue; The Giver; Looking Back: A Book of Memories; and the Anastasia Krupkik series.

Fred Marchant, author of Tipping Point, which won the Washington Prize in poetry. He is a professor of English and the director of creative writing at Suffolk University in Boston, and he is a teaching affiliate of the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. 

Gail Mazur, author of five poetry collections: Nightfire, The Pose of Happiness, The Common, They Can't Take that Away from Me (National Book Award Nominee), and Zeppo's First Wife: New and Selected Poems.

Elizabeth McCracken is the author of An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, The Giant's House (a finalist for the National Book Award), Niagara Falls All Over Again (winner of the L.L. Winship/PEN New England award), and Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry. She has been a faculty member at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and has received grants and awards from numerous organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Roland Merullo, author of the novels Leaving Losapas, A Russian Requiem, Revere Beach Boulevard, and Revere, in Those Days; as well as Revere Beach Elegy: A Memoir of Home and Beyond and A Passion for Golf: In Pursuit of the Innermost Game.

Sue Miller, author of six novels— The Good Mother, Family Pictures, For Love, The Distinguished Guest, While I Was Gone, and The World Below— and the story collection, Inventing the Abbotts.

Lesléa Newman, author of numerous works for children and adults, including Hachiko Waits, Jailbait, Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy's Song, Cats Cats Cats!, A Letter to Harvey Milk, and Write from the Heart. Hachiko Waits was the third place winner in the 2007 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award, and is a finalist for both the  2007-2008 Young Hoosier Book Award and the 2007-2008 Iowa Children's Choice Award.

Ronan Noone has written the plays The Lepers of Baile Baiste (IRNE Best Play Award Winner, LA Times Critic's Pick), The Blowin' of Baile Gall (Eliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script), Brendan (IRNE Best Play Award Winner), The Atheist, and numerous one-act plays.  

Deborah Noyes, author of When the Wolf Girls Came, Prudence and Moxie, and Red Butterfly; and editor of and contributor to the young adult fiction anthology, Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales.

Tom Perrotta, author of the novels Little Children, Joe College, and Election.

Joyce Peseroff, author of four poetry collections—The Hardness Scale, The Dog in the Lifeboat, Mortal Education, and Eastern Mountain Time— and editor of Simply Lasting: Writers on Jane Kenyon.

Robert Pinsky, former Poet Laureate of the United States, author of twelve books of poetry, translation, and criticism, most recently The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996 and Jersey Rain.

Theresa Rebeck's produced plays include Mauritius, The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann, Spike Heels, Bad Dates,The Butterfly Collection, View of the Dome, Understudy, Our House, and Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003). She has written and/or been a producer for television shows such as Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, Third Watch, Canterbury’s Law, Smith, Law and Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue. Produced feature films include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent feature Sunday on the Rocks. Other works include Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business, and the novel Three Girls and Their Brother.

David Rivard, author of the poetry collections Torque, Wise Poison, Bewitched Playground, and Sugar Town.

Lloyd Schwartz, Pulitzer Prize-winner for music criticism, author of three books of poetry, These People; Goodnight, Gracie; and Cairo Traffic; and editor of Elizabeth Bishop and Her Art.

Maurice Sendak, renowned author and illustrator, winner of countless honors for his achievements, including the Hans Christian Andersen International Medal in for his body of illustration work, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his "substantial and lasting contribution to children's literature," and the National Medal of Arts, awarded by President Clinton.

Tom Sleigh, author of five books of poetry— After One, Waking, The Chain, The Dreamhouse, and Far Side of the Earth; a translation of Euripides' Herakles, and a play, Rubber.

Afaa Michael Weaver is the author of ten books of poetry, including Water Song, Stations in a Dream, Multitudes, and The Plum Flower Dance, as well as a book of essays, These Hands I Know, which was a finalist for the Multicultural Book Award.