Category: MFA in Creative Writing

Jean Valentine is the author of eight books of poetry, most recentlyThe Cradle of the Real Life (Wesleyan, 2000). She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, The Graduate Writing Program at NYU, and The 92nd St. Y, and lives in New York City. A list of recent books:Home.Deep.Blue, alicejamesbooks; The River at Wolf, alicejamesbooks; and Growing Darkness, Growing Light,… Continue reading Jean Valentine

PJ Mark is an agent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates.  He has worked in the publishing industry for sixteen years, as an international book scout, a journalist covering the book publishing industry, and as a literary agent since 2002.  He is most interested in literary fiction and narrative non-fiction. Representative clients include Dinaw Mengestu, Samantha… Continue reading PJ Mark

In 2009, Todd became the first recipient of Theatre Communications Group’s (TCG) Visionary Leadership Award, for “an individual who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to advance the theatre field as a whole, nationally and/or internationally.” Todd is beginning his fifteenth season as artistic director of New Dramatists, the nation’s leading center… Continue reading Todd London

Appearing at the Spring 2012 Port Townsend, Washington Residency – 2/22/12 (with Todd Haynes) Christine Vachon is an American movie producer who, along with partner Pamela Koffler, founded indie powerhouse Killer Films in 1995. The company has produced a number of the most acclaimed American independent films over the past two decades including Far from Heaven (nominated for… Continue reading Christine Vachon

Native New Yorker Marie Ponsot was born in 1921. She has published numerous works, including Springing (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002); The Bird Catcher (1998), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; The GreenDark (1988); Admit Impediment (1981); and True Minds(1957). When asked why poetry matters, Ponsot replied: “There’s a primitive need for… Continue reading Marie Ponsot

Walter Mosley is the critically acclaimed author of twenty-three books. His work has been translated into twenty-one languages. Many readers first discovered Walter’s writing in the Easy Rawlins Mystery Series. The first book in the series, Devil in a Blue Dress, was made into a feature film starring Denzel Washington and Jennifer Beals. In addition to his… Continue reading Walter Mosley

Nilo Cruz, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer prize for Drama, is a young Cuban-American playwright whose work has been produced widely around the United States. His plays are many and include Anna in the Tropics,The Beauty of the Father, Night Train to Bolina, Dancing on her Knees, A Park in Our House, Two Sisters and a… Continue reading Nilo Cruz

Appearing at the Fall 2011 Plainfield, Vermont Residency Richard Nash is an independent publishing entrepreneur, presently launching Cursor, a platform that will power the world’s next 50,000 independent publishers, the first of which, Red Lemonade, launched in May 2011. For most of the past decade, he ran the iconic indie Soft Skull Press for which… Continue reading Richard Nash

Since 1997, Philip Himberg has been the Producing Artistic Director of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program which provides year-round support for playwrights and theatres artists on two continents. He expanded the program to include two new laboratories: The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at White Oak and Playwrights Retreat at Ucross. In addition, he has created… Continue reading Philip Himberg

Jane Sprague is the author of the books The Port of Los Angeles (Chax Press, 2009) and, with Tina Darragh and Diane Ward, The *Belladonna Elders Series 8 (*Belladonna, 2009). She is also author of the chapbooks Apache Roadkill (Dusie / Weekend Press, 2009),Sacking the Henwife (Dusie, 2007), Entropic Liberties (with Jonathan Skinner; Dusie, 2006), fuck your pastoral (Subpoetics, 2005) and The Port of Los Angeles (Subpoetics, 2004)… Continue reading Jane Sprague

Thomas Glave was born in the Bronx and grew up there and in Kingston, Jamaica. A graduate of Bowdoin College and Brown University, Glave traveled as a Fulbright Scholar to Jamaica, where he studied Jamaican historiography and Caribbean intellectual and literary traditions. While in Jamaica, Glave worked on issues of social justice, and helped found… Continue reading Thomas Glave

Erik Davis is a San Francisco-based writer, performer, and teacher. He is the author of The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape, and TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, which has become a cult classic of visionary media studies. He also wrote a short book of “occulture criticism” on Led Zeppelin’s… Continue reading Erik Davis

Martha Southgate received her MFA in fiction from Goddard College. In 1996, her Goddard thesis was published as Another Way to Dance, a young-adult novel which won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award for Best First Novel. She went on to publish two adult novels: The Fall of Rome (2003), and Third Girl From The Left(2005). She received a… Continue reading Martha Southgate

Meg Wolitzer’s novels include The Uncoupling; The Ten-Year-Nap; The Position; and The Wife, among others.  Her first novel, Sleepwalking, was published the year after she graduated from Brown University, and she has been living and working as a fiction writer ever since then.  Wolitzer’s short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. … Continue reading Meg Wolitzer

Christian Peet is the author of the forthcoming true-crime novel, Angela’s Story (GenPop Books); a collection of “postcards,” called Big American Trip (Shearsman Books, 2009); and two chapbook-installments of his ongoing project The Nines, “Pluto: Never Forget,” (Interbirth Books), and “The Nines (Book 1),” from Palm Press. His work is included in the anthology, A Best Of Fence: The First… Continue reading Christian Peet

Selah Saterstrom is the author of The Meat & Spirit Plan [Coffee House Press, Fall 2007], and The Pink Institution [Coffee House Press, 2004]. Her work has recently appeared in Cranbrook Magazine, 14 Hills, Tarpaulin Sky, The American Book Review, and other places. She has been the Case Writer-In-Residence for Western Illinois University and Artist-In-Residence at Warren Wilson College in… Continue reading Selah Saterstrom

Michael Wiegers is the Executive Editor of Copper Canyon Press and has worked in Literary publishing for nearly two decades. He has edited books by Ted Kooser, W.S. Merwin, Ruth Stone, C.D. Wright, Alberto Ríos, Karen Tei Yamashita and many others. His own books include, Reversible Monuments and This Art.

Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the first child of a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who worked as a waitress. Now living in Northern California with her partner Alix and her teenage son, Wolf Michael, she describes herself as a feminist, a working class storyteller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily… Continue reading Dorothy Allison

Cara Hoffman is the author of the critically acclaimed novel So Much Pretty, which was chosen for the New Yorker’s “Books Pick,” and Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List,” and was submitted for a National Book Award. Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times calledSo Much Pretty “a fearless first novel” describing Hoffman’s writing as having “a restraint that… Continue reading Cara Hoffman

Gary Copeland Lilley is a North Carolina native and earned his MFA from the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers.  His publications include four books of poetry of which the most recent is Alpha Zulu from Ausable Press/Copper Canyon Press.  He currently lives and teaches in Port Townsend, WA.