FACULTY

Mark Doty is the author of eight books of poems, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, School of the Arts, Source, and My Alexandria. He has also published three volumes of nonfiction prose and a memoir, Dog Years, which was a New York Times bestseller in 2007. Doty has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, two Lambda Literary Awards, and the PEN/Martha Albrand Award, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ingram Merrill, and Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Foundations and from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is John and Rebecca Moores Professor at the University of Houston. Read more about Mark Doty at his website or listen to an audio interview.

Dara Wier is the author of ten books of poetry, including Remnants of Hannah, Reverse Rapture, Hat on a Pond, and Voyages in English. A professor in the University of Massachusetts MFA Program, her awards include the Poetry Center and Archives Book of the Year Award, a Pushcart Prize, the American Poetry Review’s Jerome Shestack Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Check out her author page at Wave Books or read an interview.

Matthew Zapruder is the author of American Linden, winner of the 2002 Tupelo Press Editors Prize, and The Pajamaist, published by Copper Canyon Press.  He is the co-translator of Secret Weapon, the final collection by the late Romanian poet Eugen Jebeleanu. He was awarded a 2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship and was the 2003 Writer in Residence at the James Merrill house in Stonington, Connecticut. He is editor of Wave Books and currently teaches at the University of Houston. Read more about him here or watch a video.

Charles D'Ambrosio is the author of The Point and Other Stories; Orphans, a collection of essays; and The Dead Fish Museum, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Among other honors, he has received a Whiting Award and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a 2008-2009 visiting faculty member at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Read an interview with D’Ambrosio or a story that appeared in The New Yorker.

Noy Holland is the author of The Spectacle of the Body and What Begins with Bird. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, she is a professor in the University of Massachusetts MFA Program. In 2004, she collaborated with the University of Massachusetts Press in the founding of the Juniper Prize in Fiction. Visit Avatar Review for an interview with Holland or read an excerpt from her story “Someone Is Always Missing.”

Paul Lisicky is the author of a novel, Lawnboy, and a memoir, Famous Builder. He is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Henfield Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was twice a fellow. He has taught at Cornell University, NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, Antioch University—Los Angeles, the University of Houston, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. A new novel, Lumina Harbor, is forthcoming. Check out Paul Lisicky’s website or watch a video.

Chris Bachelder is the author of three novels: U.S.!, Bear v. Shark, and Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography (an e-book).  His short fiction and essays have appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Believer, McSweeney's, The Oxford American, The Cincinnati Review, New Stories from the South, and elsewhere. He is a professor in the University of Massachusetts MFA Program. McSweeney’s has Bachelder’s Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography online; you can also visit his website.

Holly Black is the best-selling author of fantasy novels for teens and children, including The Spiderwick Chronicles, on which she collaborated with Caldecott-winning illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi. Paramount Pictures released a film based on the series in February 2008. Her work has been widely anthologized. Check out her website or read an interview.

Lydia Davis is the author of six collections of short fiction, including Varieties of Disturbance, Break It Down, and Samuel Johnson Is Indignant; and a novel, The End of the Story. She is also the translator of numerous French novels, memoirs, and volumes of criticism. Among other honors, she was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and in 2003 received a MacArthur Award. She is on the faculty of SUNY Albany and a Fellow of the New York State Writers Institute. Read an extended bio of Lydia Davis or an interview with her.

Thomas Sayers Ellis is the author of the poetry collections and chapbooks The Good Junk, The Genuine Negro Hero, The Maverick Room, and Song On. He has received fellowships from the Whiting Writers Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Yaddo. He co-founded The Dark Room Collective and is a contributing editor of Callaloo. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Lesley University low-residency MFA program. Visit his website or listen to an audio interview.

Kelly Link is the author of Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and most recently Pretty Monsters, a story collection for young adults. She is the recipient of a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award. Link has taught at numerous universities and workshops, including Stonecoast, Washington University, Yale, and Bard College. She and her husband live in Massachusetts, where they publish the magazine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and run Small Beer Press. Read more on her website or check out a story that ran in A Public Space.

Lisa Olstein is the author of Radio Crackling, Radio Gone, winner of the 2005 Hayden Carruth Award, and Lost Alphabet, forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Centrum Foundation. She is Associate Director of the University of Massachusetts MFA Program and Director of the Juniper Summer Writing Institute. Read more about Olstein at the Poetry Foundation.

Alex Phillips is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Dean's Book Course at Commonwealth College, the honors college at the University of Massachusetts.  His poetry and translations have appeared in journals such as Poetry, Open City, jubilat, and in Ted Kooser's newspaper column American Life in Poetry.  His chapbook Under a Paper Trellis is published by Factory Hollow Press.

Shauna Seliy is the author of When We Get There (Bloomsbury). Her work has appeared in Other Voices, New Orleans Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review, and she has received fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Formerly the writer in residence at St. Albans School in Washington, DC, she now teaches creative writing at Northwestern University. Check out her website or listen to an interview.

James Tate is the author of sixteen books of poetry and several collections of prose, including The Ghost Soldiers, Return to the City of White Donkeys, and The Route as Briefed. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the William Carlos Williams Award, he is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a professor in the University of Massachusetts MFA Program. View his page at the Academy of American Poets, or sample from the audio available online.

Arisa White's poems have appeared in Gathering Ground: Cave Canem 10th Anniversary Reader, Meridians, Softblow, Snowvigate.com, Failbetter.com, A Gathering of Tribes, and African Voices. She is a recipient of the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Scholarship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and was recently awarded a writing residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. A Cave Canem fellow, she is currently at work on a second manuscript inspired by Nina Simone's “Four Women.” Read a sample of her work.