René Steinke

René Steinke is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her most recent novel is Friendswood, which was shortlisted for the St. Francis Literary Prize, and was named one of National Public Radio’s “Great Reads.” She is also the author of The Fires and Holy Skirts, which was a 2005 finalist for the National Book Award. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, Salon, Redbook, TriQuarterly, Bookforum, and in various anthologies. She is the Director of the MFA program.

Gracelyn Weaver

MFA in Creative Writing Coordinator

Keeping the house in order since 2011.

Coe Booth

Coe Booth was born and raised in the Bronx, New York.  She received an MFA in creative writing from The New School.  Her first novel Tyrell won the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction.  Her novels Kendra and Bronxwood were both selected by the American Library Association as Best Books for Young Adults.  She is also the author of the novel for middle-school readers, Kinda Like Brothers.

Rebecca Chace

Rebecca Chace is the award-winning author of two novels, Leaving Rock Harbor and Capture the Flag; a memoir, Chautauqua Summer; and a children’s book, June Sparrow and The Million Dollar Penny. She has had stage plays produced in New York and regionally, Colette and The Awakening (an adaptation of the novel by Kate Chopin). She has also adapted her novel, Capture the Flag, for the screen and television with director Lisanne Skyler. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, New York Times Sunday Book Review, the Huffington Post, LA Review of Books, Guernica, Lit Hub, NPR’s All Things Considered and other publications. She has been awarded numerous artist residencies and fellowships including the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo; Dora Maar House and others. She an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MA Program in Creative Writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. www.rebeccachace.com

David Daniel

David Daniel’s collections of poems include Seven Star Bird, for which he won the Levis Reading Prize; and his chapbook, The Quick and the Dead. Daniel’s latest collection, Ornaments and Other Assorted Love Songs was published as part of the Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Press. He is a regular contributor to The American Poetry Review, and poems, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous other journals, including the Harvard Review, AGNI, Post Road, Witness, Boston Review, and Ploughshares, where he served as the Poetry editor from 1992 to 2007.

Donna Freitas

Donna Freitas is a long time professor, researcher, and writer of more than twenty books, both fiction and nonfiction, for adults, children, and young adults. Her publications span many genres: Memoir, Fiction, Nonfiction, YA and Middle Grad novels, as well as Middle Grade nonfiction. Among her books are, most recently, Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention (Little, Brown, September 2019), as well as her Middle Grade nonfiction, The Big Questions Book of Sex & Consent (forthcoming in September 2020 from Levine Querido). Her debut novel for adults, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano (forthcoming from Pamela Dorman Books/Viking in February, 2021), will be published simultaneously next spring in nearly 20 countries and languages. Donna lives in Brooklyn.

David Grand

David Grand’s most recent novel is Mount Terminus. He is the author of Louse, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year, and The Disappearing Body, which Bookforum described as “satirical noir at its mesmerizing best.” Jonathan Lethem has described Grand as “a stealth operator, a magician-architect in prose, building elegant mysterious structures.” He received his MFA from New York University, where he held the Fellowship in Fiction and studied with E.L. Doctorow. His writing has appeared in anthologies as well as The New York Times Magazine, Travel and Leisure, BlackBook, and elsewhere.

H. L. Hix

H.L. Hix’s recent books include a poetry collection, Rain Inscription; an anthology of “poets talking back,”Counterclaims; an edition, with Julie Kane, of selected poems of contemporary poet Tautvyda Marcinkevičiūtė, called Terribly In Love, translated from the Lithuanian; an essay collection, Demonstrategy; and an art/poetry anthology, Ley Lines. Other recent poetry collections include American Anger; First Fire, Then Birds; Incident Light; and Chromatic(a finalist for the National Book Award). His books of criticism and theory include Spirits Hovering Over the Ashes: Legacies of Postmodern Theory, and Morte d’Author: An Autopsy. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas, and taught for fifteen years at the Kansas City Art Institute. More information is available at his website: www.hlhix.com

Idra Novey

Idra Novey is the author of the novel Those Who Knew, a finalist for the 2019 Clark Fiction Prize and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her first novel Ways to Disappear, received the 2017 Sami Rohr Prize, the 2016 Brooklyn Eagles Prize, and was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Her poetry collections include Exit, Civilian, selected for the 2011 National Poetry Series, The Next Coun­try, a final­ist for the 2008 Fore­word Book of the Year Award, and Clarice: The Visitor, a collaboration with the artist Erica Baum. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into ten languages and she’s written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, NPR’s All Things Con­sid­ered, New York Magazine, and The Paris Review. She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Poets & Writ­ers Mag­a­zine, the PEN Trans­la­tion Fund, and the Poetry Foundation. She has also translated the work of several prominent Brazilian writers, most recently Clarice Lispector’s novel The Pas­sion Accord­ing to G.H. A collection of her co-translations with Ahmad Nadalizadeh of Iranian poet Garous Abdolmalekian was published with Penguin Press in 2020. She currently teaches fiction at Princeton University.

Nicole Melleby

Nicole Melleby, a born-and-bread Jersey native, is an award-winning children’s author. Her works have been Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections, listed as best books of the year by Bank Street Books, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly, and have been ALA Rainbow Book selections, a Lambda Literary Finalist, and listed on the CCBC Choices and ALA Notable Books lists. She lives with her wife and their cat, whose need for attention oddly aligns with Nicole’s writing schedule. www.nicolemelleby.com

Minna Proctor

Minna Zallman Proctor is the author of Landslide: True Stories (2017) and Do You Hear What I Hear? (2004). She has been working in publishing since 1995 and was editor of Colors and managing editor of Bomb. Her essays and reviews have appeared in such publications as Aperture, Bookforum, The LA Times Book Review, Guilt & Pleasure, The Nation, American Scholar, and The New York Times Book Review. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and Bogliasco in Italy. Proctor’s translation of Love in Vain, Selected Stories of Federigo Tozzi won the PEN Poggioli Prize in 1998. Her other translations include Fleur Jaeggy’s These Possible Lives, Bruno Arpaia’s novel, The Angel of History, work by Dino Campana, fiction by Simona Vinci, essays by Umberto Eco, Pierpaolo Pasolini, and a biography

Eliot Schrefer

Eliot Schrefer is a New York Times-bestselling author, and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award. In naming him an Editor’s Choice, the New York Times has called his work “dazzling… big-hearted.” He is also the author of two novels for adults and four other novels for children and young adults. His book have been named to the NPR “best of the year” list, the ALA best fiction list for young adults, and the Chicago Public Library’s “Best of the Best.” His work has also been selected to the Amelia Bloomer List, recognizing best feminist books for young readers, and he has been a finalist for the Walden Award and won the Green Earth Book Award and Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. www.eliotschrefer.com

Rosie Schaap

Rosie Schaap is the author of the memoir Drinking With Men, named one of the best books of 2013 by Library Journal and National Public Radio. She was a columnist for The New York Times Magazine from 2011 to 2017, and has also written for the Times’ book review, dining, sports, and travel sections, Food & Wine, Lucky Peach, Saveur, and Travel + Leisure. A contributor to This American Life, her essays have appeared in anthologies including Here She Comes Now: Women in Music Who Have Changed Our Lives and Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times in Today’s New York. Her most recent book book is Becoming a Sommelier. See her author page at Penguin Random House.

Padma VIswanathan

Padma Viswanathan is a Canadian-American novelist, published in eight countries and shortlisted for the PEN USA Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her short fiction, essays and short translations have been published in Granta, The Boston Review, BRICK, and elsewhere. Her translation of the novel São Bernardo, by the Brazilian novelist Graciliano Ramos, was published in 2020 by the New York Review Books on their classics series. It was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize and runner-up for the Society of Authors TA First Translation Award. Her nonfiction book, Like Every Form of Love, is forthcoming from Random House Canada in 2023.