M.F.A. Faculty
Kaveh Akbar Poetry
Eloisa Amezcua Poetry
Clare Beams Fiction/Nonfiction
Andrés Cerpa Poetry
Jos Charles Poetry
Anthony Cody Poetry
Jaquira Díaz Nonfiction/Fiction
Rigoberto González Nonfiction/Poetry/Fiction
Mira Jacob Fiction/Nonfiction
Crystal Hana Kim Poetry/Nonfiction
Aviya Kushner Nonfiction/Fiction
Paige Lewis Poetry
Sabrina Orah Mark Fiction/Nonfiction/Poetry
Angel Nafis Poetry
Diana Khoi Nguyen Poetry
Julia Phillips Fiction/Nonfiction
Maurice Carlos Ruffin Fiction/Nonfiction
Anjali Sachdeva Fiction/Nonfiction
Erika L. Sánchez Fiction/Nonfiction/Poetry
Chet'la Sebree Poetry/Nonfiction
Danez Smith Poetry
John Vercher Fiction
R. A. Villanueva Poetry
Phillip B. Williams Poetry
Gary Dop M.F.A. Director
Select Recent/Upcoming Guest Artists
Crystal Hana Kim, Natalie Diaz, Gregory Pardlo, Alexander Chee, Hanif Abdurraqib, Marie-Helene Bertino, Tiana Clark, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Tyree Daye, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Eduardo C. Corral, Don Mee Choi, Danielle Evans, T Kira Madden, NourbeSe Philip, and more...
Kaveh Akbar
Poetry Faculty
Kaveh is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship, and the Poetry Society of America's Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Kaveh Akbar’s book of poems, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (2017), was published by Alice James Books and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His second book of poetry is Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press, 2021)
Concerning Pilgrim Bell:
“Working at and along the outer edges of language, Pilgrim Bell calls us to attention and to attend to that which poetry and prayer share, while simultaneously demanding that we tend to the political, the social, the erotic—all that is quotidian and human. . . . Kaveh Akbar, ‘God’s incarnate spit in the mud,’ takes us down to the ground, to the prosaic, the dismissed and overlooked, the better to talk to the great Silence, bearer of many names including that of God.” -- M. NourbeSe Philip
(Concerning Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Portrait of an Alcoholic (Sibli
“Truly brilliant.” -- John Green
“Akbar has what every poet needs: the power to make, from emotions others have felt, memorable language nobody has assembled before.” -- Stephanie Burt
"Kaveh Akbar has written one of the best books I've ever read." -- Patricia Smith
Kaveh Akbar's poems appear in The New Yorker, Poetry, Tin House, Ploughshares, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, American Poetry Review, PBS NewsHour, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.
Kaveh is the poetry editor for The Nation, and he founded Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in contemporary poetry.
Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran. In addition to the Randolph College M.F.A. program, he teaches in the M.F.A. programs at Warren Wilson and Purdue University.
Kaveh Akbar: www.kavehakbar.com
Eloisa Amezcua
POETRY FACULTY
Amezcua's debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, was selected by Ada Limón as the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize (Shelterbelt Press, 2018). Eloisa is the author of three chapbooks: On Not Screaming (Horse Less Press, 2016), Symptoms of Teething, winner of the 2016 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2017), & Mexicamericana (Porkbelly Press, 2017). Her second collection of poems, Fighting Is Like a Wife, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press.
Concerning From the Inside Quietly (Shelterbelt Press):
“With a voice that’s barbed at times but also full of empathy and grace, this is a powerful debut that will continue to rattle and quake in the mind.” -- Ada Limón
“Amezcua is a poet who means to see what can’t be said. This is a beautiful debut.” -- Jericho Brown
Eloisa is from Arizona. She earned a BA in English from the University of San Diego, where she was the recipient of the Lindsey J. Cropper Award for Creative Writing in Poetry selected by Ilya Kaminsky. She holds an MFA program from Emerson College in Boston, MA.
Eloisa has received fellowships & scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Bread Loaf Translators' Conference. She is the founder of Costura Creative, a Latinx owned & operated talent agency representing contemporary poets & writers.
Eloisa Amezcua: www.eloisaamezcua.com
Clare Beams
FICTION/NONFICTION FACULTY (2021-2022)
Clare Beams’s novel The Illness Lesson was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a best book of 2020 by Esquire and Bustle, and a best book of February by Time, O Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly; and to the longlist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her new novel, The Garden, will be published by Doubleday in 2023.
Clare's story collection, We Show What We Have Learned, was published by Lookout Books in 2016. It won the Bard Fiction Prize, was longlisted for the Story Prize, and was a Kirkus Best Debut of 2016, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award.
Concerning The Illness Lesson (Doubleday, 2020):
“Beams’s first novel is a meticulously crafted suspense tale seething with feminist fury." -- O, The Oprah Magazine
“Astoundingly original, this impressive debut belongs on the shelf with your Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler collections." -- The New York Times Book Review (Editors Choice)
“Unusual and transporting…This is Alcott meets Shirley Jackson, with a splash of Margaret Atwood." -- The Washington Post
Clare has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation. She has taught creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University and St. Vincent College.
Clare Beams: www.clarebeams.com
Andrés Cerpa
Poetry Faculty (Fall 2022)
Andrés Cerpa is the author of The Vault (2021), a longlist selection for the 2021 National Book Award, and a 2021 Rumpus Poetry Book Club Selection. The Vault and Cerpa’s 2019 debut collection, Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy, are from Alice James Books.
Concerning The Vault (Alice James Books, 2021):
“In The Vault, his striking sophomore poetry collection, Andrés Cerpa is our Virgil, offering us a path through the dark realm of loss with fragments of unsent letters, indelible imagery, and exquisite language. … Cerpa has traveled a long way to return with this collection, and through his skillful writing, his unanswered missives offer their own reply.” —Mandana Chaffa, Ploughshares
“A teacher once told me that a poem should be like a spider web — if you touch any part, the rest of it will tremble. This whole book feels like that” –Elisa Gabbert, The New York Times
Concerning Bicycle in a Ransacked City (Alice James Books, 2019):
“Cerpa’s is a magnificent talent―a yawp made for this very moment, and a voice for the ages.” ―Brenda Shaughnessy
“The poetry of Andrés Cerpa gives startling dimension to the most profound experiences of human sadness; his words come from the ache of longing for what has been taken away or denied by loss and love. A remarkable and poignant debut that illuminates the dark rooms we all inhabit in our search for solace, beauty, or saving grace.” ―Rigoberto González
Cerpa is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Canto Mundo. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poem-A-Day, The Kenyon Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, TriQuarterly, The Rumpus, Frontier Poetry, West Branch, Foundry Journal, Wildness, and elsewhere. He holds degrees from the University of Delaware and Rutgers University, Newark, and now teaches at CUNY College of Staten Island.
Andrés Cerpa: www.andrescerpa.com
Anthony Cody
POETRY FACULTY (2022-2023)
Anthony Cody is the author of Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, 2020), winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Contest, a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry, the PEN America / Jean Stein Book Award, the California Book Award, the LA Times Book Award in Poetry, as well as longlisted for The Believer Magazine 2020 Editor's Award in Poetry. Cody is a 2022 Whiting winner, 2021 American Book Award winner, a 2020 Poets & Writers debut poet and a 2020 Southwest Book Award winner.
Concerning Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, 2020)
“Cody makes his reader face what has been forgotten and swept under the rug, pushing our understanding of history—and also, importantly, our understanding of how books might evolve—to reflect our modern, multimodal forms of communication.” –Ruben Quesada, Harvard Review
“History’s true story is littered with collusions, silences, and with bodies: the dark ecology Anthony Cody brilliantly prosecutes in his debut collection, Borderland Apocrypha.” ― Carmen Giménez-Smith
“… Anthony Cody delivers poetry back to the general sense of ritual and charm, a gnosis that takes its shape at the double edge of the words and the transmitting body. And because everything must change, the transit leads from here to the dead and back.” ---Farid Matuk
A CantoMundo fellow from Fresno, California, Anthony has lineage in both the Bracero Program and the Dust Bowl. His poetry has appeared in The Academy of American Poets: Poem-A-Day, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, The Boiler, ctrl+v journal, among others. Anthony co-edited How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology. He has taught ecopoetry at Fresno State, and serves as an associate poetry editor for Noemi Press and a poetry editor for Omnidawn.
Anthony Cody: anthonycody.com
Jos Charles
POETRY Faculty (2022)
Jos Charles is author of the forthcoming collection a Year & other poems (Milkweed Editions, March 15, 2022), feeld, a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series selected by Fady Joudah (Milkweed Editions), and Safe Space (Ahsahta Press, 2016).
Concerning a Year & other poems (Milkweed editions, 2022)
“Months / I move in you: so begins this brilliant lyric cycle, a daybook, a hymnbook, a book of whispers to the dead and the living, a book of lullabies, of songs, of spells. . . Here is a poet who is a cousin of Niedecker and Celan and Valentine, a maker of silences that speak, of grievances that lyric us..." -- Ilya Kaminsky
Concerning Feeld (Milkweed editions, 2018)
“Dazzling . . . In Charles' hands, the language itself transitions, defamiliarized, and in its new spellings it opens to a poly-vocality where words contain hidden meanings. – Paris Review
“Jos Charles bends language, via willful spelling, to a place where it must be parsed slowly, struggled through, read not so much with the brain as the mouth. Language becomes a felt thing, a terrain to be crossed.” — Tracy K. Smith, U.S. Poet Laureate
Charles has poetry published with Poetry Magazine, Poem-a-Day, PEN, Washington Square Review, Denver Quarterly, Action Yes, The Feminist Wire, and elsewhere. From 2013-2018 she served as the founding-editor for THEM lit, a trans literary journal. Jos Charles has an MFA from the University of Arizona.
Jos Charles: www.joscharles.com
Jaquira Díaz
Nonfiction/Fiction Faculty (2022)
Jaquira Díaz is the author of Ordinary Girls: A Memoir, a Summer/Fall 2019 Indies Introduce Selection, a Fall 2019 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, a November 2019 Indie Next Pick, and a Library Reads October pick. Her second book, I Am Deliberate: A Novel, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books.
Concerning Ordinary Girls: A Memoir (Algonquin Books, 2019):
“Jaquira Díaz writes about ordinary girls living extraordinary lives. And Díaz is no ordinary observer. She is a wondrous survivor, a woman who has claimed her own voice, a writer who writes for those who have no voice, for the black and brown girls 'who never saw themselves in books.' Jaquira Díaz writes about them with love. How extraordinary is that!” — Sandra Cisneros
“In her debut memoir, Jaquira Díaz mines her experiences growing up in Puerto Rico and Miami, grappling with traumas both personal and international, and over time converts them into something approaching hope and self-assurance. For years, Díaz has dazzled in shorter formats—stories, essays, etc.—and her entrée into longer lengths is very welcome.” — The Millions
“[A] compelling debut. A must-read memoir on vulnerability, courage, and everything in between from a standout writer.” — Library Journal, starred review
Jaquira Díaz’s work has been published in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Fader, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and The Best American Essays 2016, among other publications. She is the recipient of a Whiting Award, two Pushcart Prizes, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship to the Hambidge Center for the Arts, and more. A former Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s MFA Program in Creative Writing, and Consulting Editor at the Kenyon Review, she splits her time between Montréal and Miami Beach, with her partner, the writer Lars Horn.
Jaquira Díaz: www.jaquiradiaz.com
Rigoberto González
Nonfiction/POETRY/FICTION Faculty
Rigoberto has been awarded the PEN/Voelcker Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Lenore Marshall Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Shelley Memorial Award, the Poetry Center Book Award, and the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and United States Artists.
Concerning The Book of Ruin (Four Way Books):
“In a vital body of work that now encompasses multiple genres, Rigoberto González has been practicing the seer’s art of illuminating the social through the personal, the present and the future through the past, and the work of wonder through the work of grieving. The Book of Ruin is his darkest reckoning so far with the violent histories that embitter our current moment and whose damage is propelling us into a scorched hereafter . . .” --Rick Barot
Concerning Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (University of Wisconsin Press):
“This moving memoir of a young Chicano boy’s maturing into a self-accepting gay adult is a beautifully executed portrait of the experience of being gay, Chicano and poor in the United States. . . . González writes in a poetic yet straightforward style that heightens the power of his story.” -- Publishers Weekly
Rigoberto is a distinguished professor at Rutgers-Newark, and he serves as critic-at-large with the L.A. Times and as a contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine.
Rigoberto González: www.rigobertogonzález.com
Mira Jacob
Fiction/Nonfiction Faculty
Mira is the author of the graphic memoir Good Talk: a Memoir in Conversations (One World/Random House), which was named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Public Library, Chicago Tribune, and Publisher's Weekly, and one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review, Time, and Esquire. Mira's novel The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing (Random House), also widely recognized as a best book of the year, was a Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers pick, shortlisted for India's Tata First Literature Award, longlisted for the Brooklyn Eagles Prize, and honored by the Asian Pacific American Library Association.
Concerning Good Talk:
“Mira Jacob just made me toss everything I thought was possible in a book-as-art-object into the garbage. Her new book changes everything.” --Kiese Laymon
“A beautiful and eye-opening account of what it means to mother a brown boy and what it means to live in this country post–9/11, as a person of color, as a woman, as an artist . . . In Jacob’s brilliant hands, we are gifted with a narrative that is sometimes hysterical, always honest, and ultimately healing.” --Jacqueline Woodson
Concerning The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing:
“Beautifully wrought, frequently funny, gently heartbreaking...Moving forward and back in time, Jacob balances comedy and romance with indelible sorrow, and she is remarkably adept at tonal shifts. When her plot springs surprises, she lets them happen just as they do in life: blindsidingly right in the middle of things” -- The Boston Globe
Mira received her M.F.A. from the New School and has written for television and publications such as The New York Times, Vogue, Virginia Quarterly Review, Guernica, Telegraph, Buzzfeed, and Bookanista. Mira is the founder of Pete’s Reading Series in New York City. In addition to Randolph College, Mira teaches at the New School.
Mira Jacob: www.mirajacob.com
instagram.com/goodtalkthanks
instagram.com/goodtalkthanks
Aviya Kushner
Nonfiction/Fiction Faculty
Aviya is the recipient of Brown University’s Howard Foundation Fellowship, and she was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award and a Sami Rohr Prize. Publisher’s Weekly named her nonfiction book The Grammar of God one of the top ten Religion Stories of 2015. Her first full length collection of poems Wolf Lamb Bomb was published in 2021 by Orison Books.
Concerning The Grammar of God (Spiegel & Grau/Random House):
“A remarkable and passionately original book of meditation, exegesis, and memoir. In Kushner’s redemptive vision, the Bible in its many translations is a Noah’s ark, and her book, too, does a work of saving. When I put it down, I wept.” -- Rosanna Warren
“Aviya Kushner has written a passionate, illuminating essay about meaning itself. The Grammar of God is also a unique personal narrative, a family story with the Bible and its languages as central characters.” -- Robert Pinsky
Aviya’s essays and stories appear in Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, Partisan Review, Poets & Writers, A Public Space, TriQuarterly, The Wall Street Journal, The Wilson Quarterly, Zoetrope: All-Story, and elsewhere.
Aviya was the travel columnist for the International Jerusalem Post. She is the language columnist for The Forward and a member of The Third Coast Translators Collective.
Aviya grew up in a Hebrew-speaking home in New York, and she has a longstanding fascination with language, culture, and belief. In addition to teaching in the Randolph College M.F.A. program, Kushner teaches in the M.F.A. program at Columbia College, Chicago.
Aviya Kushner: www.aviyakushner.com
Paige Lewis
Poetry Faculty
Paige Lewis is the recipient of the Editor’s Award in Poetry from The Florida Review as well as a Gregory Djanikian Scholarship from The Adroit Journal. Paige’s debut book of poems, Space Struck, is new from Sarabande Books in 2019.
Their poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Georgia Review, Best New Poets 2017, and elsewhere.
Concerning Space Struck (Sarabande Books):
"I think a lot of people have been awaiting Paige Lewis’s full-length debut, Space Struck, and we are getting very close to a countdown at Mission Control. I love their imagination so much, the way they gather bits of this planet and its occurrences and make from it something utterly particular to their own enchanting perception. This book made me laugh the kind of laugh that means something new has tickled my thoughts." --Heather Christle
"The brilliant, glow-in-the-dark poems are bursting with magic, risk, and oodles of wonder." --Tiana Clark
Paige received their MFA and PhD from Florida State University. In addition to teaching for the Randolph College MFA, they currently teach creative writing at Purdue University.
Paige curates the video series Ours Poetica, which "captures the intimate experience of holding a poem in your hand" as it's read to you. The Ours Poetic YouTube channel distributes poetry to tens of thousands of readers and listeners each week.
Paige Lewis: paigelewispoetry.com
Sabrina Orah Mark
FICTION/NONFICTION/POETRY FACULTY
Sabrina Orah Mark was named the Georgia Author of the Year for her short story collection Wild Milk (Dorthy, 2018). Her forthcoming book of essays Happily: Essays on Motherhood & Fairy Tales (Random House) is based on her acclaimed column in the Paris Review.
Her debut collection of poetry, The Babies won the Saturnalia Book Prize and was followed up with the collection Tsim Tsim.
Concerning Wild Milk (Dorothy):
“Totally spellbinding and mesmerizing.” --Boston Globe
Mark’s collection is perplexingly captivating; she applies a poet’s playful sensibilities to the fiction form and creates something astonishing and new..” --Publisher's Weekly
Concerning The Babies (Saturnalia, 2004):
"Rarely do we encounter poems that are so precisely framed, though on their surface seemingly whimsical and erratic. These poems are gorgeous, intelligent, and disturbing.” --Claudia Rankine
Sabrina earned an MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from the University of Georgia. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center.
Sabrina Orah Mark: www.sabrinaorahmark.com
Angel Nafis
POETRY FACULTY
Angel, an NEA fellow, a Cave Canem fellow, and a Ruth Lilly fellow is the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/ New School Poetics), which Elle named one of the 9 books to add to the Modern Brown Girl Literary Canon. An internationally touring performer, Angel represented New York City at the Women of the World Poetry Slam and the National Poetry Slam.
Concerning BlackGirl Mansion:
"Angel Nafis’ poems swallow blood and witness truth at its deepest roots... you do not doubt the wisdom of her spirit and her craft in BlackGirl Mansion. The poems you will find here climb mountains! They share the glory and pains of survival against and within the narrative of family and womanhood. They fight for the love they are and know...hers is an original and astonishing voice." -- Rachel Eliza Griffiths
"There is nothing here to skip, forget, or misremember." -- Ashley C. Ford
Angel's poems can be found in Poetry, Muzzle, Buzzfeed Reader, and The Rumpus. She is half of the Odes For You Tour and The Other Black Girl Collective, an internationally touring Black Feminist poetry duo. Angel is the founder and curator of the Greenlight Bookstore Poetry Salon.
Angel Nafis: www.angelnafis.com
Diana Khoi Nguyen
Poetry Faculty
Diana Khoi Nguyen’s book of poems Ghost Of (Omnidawn) won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the L.A. Times Book Prize. Diana also won the 92Y's Discovery/Boston Review 2017 Poetry Contest and the Omnidawn Open Book Contest.
Concerning her collection Ghost Of:
"Lyric fills in the holes in the stories. These poems sing to and for the ghosts of identity, history and culture; they sing like a ghost who looks from the window or waits by the door. Ghost Of is unforgettable." --Terrance Hayes
“Exceptionally spare . . . A soaring tribute, a mesmerizing visual feat, and an all-around astonishing debut.” -- Booklist
"Nguyen’s voice is both wraithlike and astonishingly frontal; this is one of the most gifted first books I’ve read." -- Lucie Brock-Broido
Diana is a multimedia artist. Her work appears in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, PEN America, and The Iowa Review, among others. She has received awards, scholarships, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Key West Literary Seminars, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and Bucknell University.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Diana received her MFA from Columba University and her PhD from the University of Denver. She now lives in Pittsburgh and teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.
Diana Khoi Nguyen: www.dianakhoinguyen.com
Julia Phillips
FICTION/NONFICTION FACULTY
A finalist for the National Book Award, Julia Phillips is the author of the bestselling novel Disappearing Earth, which is being published in fifteen countries and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and one of the The New York Times Ten Best Books of the 2019.
Concerning her collection Disappearing Earth:
"A couple of days ago, I felt like I needed to read a book that would submerge me somewhere beautiful, severe, isolated, unknown to me. Then this novel, Disappearing Earth, set in far eastern Russia, in the world’s second largest city that’s inaccessible by land, came like magic." --Jia Tolentino
“A superb debut...A nearly flawless novel.” -- The New York Times
"Mesmerizing….The story reads as a page-turner without relying on any cheap narrative tricks to propel it forward, and the strength of Phillips’s writing—her careful attention to character and tone—will grip you right up until the final heart-stopping pages." -- Vanity Fair
Julia studied at Barnard College and Columbia University. She was a Fulbright Fellow and, Julia has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review. She lives in Brooklyn.
Julia Phillips: www.juliaphillipswrites.com/
twittercom/jkbphillips
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Fiction/Nonfiction Faculty
Maurice's novel We Cast a Shadow was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Open Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Maurice is also the winner of the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition and the Iowa Review Fiction Award. A New York Times Editor's Pick, We Cast a Shadow and named one of the best books of the year by NPR, Publisher's Weekly, and The Washington Post. In 2021, Penguin/Random House published his collection of stories The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You.
Concerning his collection We Cast a Shadow:
"An incisive and necessary work of brilliant satire." --Roxane Gay
“Stunning and audacious . . . at once a pitch-black comedy, a chilling horror story and an endlessly perceptive novel about the possible future of race in America. . . . Ruffin proves to be a master . . . a fast-paced and intricately plotted book . . . The real draw of the novel is Ruffin’s gift at creating unforgettable characters. . . . He writes with a straight face, never in love with his own cleverness—there are echoes of Ralph Ellison’s intelligent, unshowy prose. . . . There’s no doubt that We Cast a Shadow, with its sobering look at race in America, can be difficult to read, but it’s more than worth it. . . . It’s a razor-sharp debut from an urgent new voice of fiction..” -- NPR
Maurice Carlos Ruffin's work appears in The New York Times, VQR, AGNI, Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.
A native New Orleanian, Maurice regularly publishes short stories and essays and is a founding member of the Peauxdunque Writers' Alliance. Maurice received his MFA from the University of New Orleans, and he teaches at LSU.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin:loweramericanson.com
twitter.com/mauriceruffin
Anjali Sachdeva
Fiction/Nonfiction Faculty
Anjali received the Chautaqua Prize for her collection of stories, All the Names They Used for God (Spiegel & Grau). It also won Book of the Year from the Writing Women's podcast and was selected as one of the best books of the year by NPR, Book Riot, and Refindery 29.
Concerning her collection All the Names They Used for God:
All the Names They Used for God fuses science, myth, and imagination into a dark and gorgeous series of questions about our current predicaments. Sachdeva is a fascinating storyteller, willing to push her inventiveness as far as it will go, and I cannot wait to see what she writes next.” -- Anthony Doerr
"...One page into it [Sachdeva’s story "Pleiades"] I thought, Man, this is a great writer. This is something different. This shows great command, wonderful pacing. The story -- about septuplet sisters conceived via genetic manipulation -- could have been told in a thousand terrible ways, but she's managing to make it sing...I went home feeling electric about the possibility of the written word." -- Dave Eggers
"What an outstanding short story collection. I knew nothing about this book going in and was thrilled by each story. There is so much range here, and there is a nice fabulist edge to nearly all the stories. The writer wields so much confidence and control in her prose and my goodness, what imagination, what passion there is in this work. From one story to the next I felt like the writer knows everything about everything. One of the best collections I’ve ever read. Every single story is a stand out." -- Roxane Gay
Anjali's writing, which has been awarded an NEA fellowship, has appeared in The American Scholar, Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, Yale Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, and Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Anjali worked for six years at the Creative Nonfiction Foundation, where she was Director of Educational Programs. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh.
Anjali Sachdeva: www.anjalisachdeva.com
Erika L. Sánchez
Fiction/Poetry Faculty (not teaching 2022)
Erika’s debut young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, was a National Book Award finalist and is a multi-year New York Times Bestseller. Her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion, was published by Graywolf Press (2017). Her next book is the collection of essays Crying in the Bathroom (Viking, 2022)
Erika has received a Princeton Arts fellowship, an NEA fellowship, and a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. Erika has been profiled by NBC News and has appeared on National Public Radio on many occasions.
Concerning I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (Knopf Books):
"A timely and must-have account of survival in a culturally contentious world."—School Library Journal, starred review
"Ultimately, it’s Julia herself who’s the key to the novel...She’ll resonate with many readers, and they’ll be glad to see her make it through a tough time."—The Bulletin, starred review
Concerning Lessons on Expulsion:
“Lush and formidable.” -- The New York Times Book Review
“[A] fierce, assertive debut.” -- The Washington Post
"In lusty verse that startles and caresses, the author―whose parents traveled from Mexico to raise her in Illinois―vivifies the complexities of the immigrant experience.”―O, the Oprah Magazine
Erika’s writing appears in The New Yorker, Copper Nickel, Guernica, Paris Review, ESPN, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Jezebel, and elsewhere.
Erika graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a fulbright fellow in Madrid . Erika received her MFA from the University of New Mexico. She most recently taught at Princeton University and is now the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Chair at Depaul University.
Erika L. Sánchez: https://erikalsanchez.com/
Chet'la Sebree
POETRY/NONFICTION Faculty (2022)
Chet'la Sebree is the author of Field Study (FSG Originals, June 2021), winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. She is also the author of Mistress, selected by Cathy Park Hong as the winner of the 2018 New Issues Poetry Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry (2020).
Most recently, her poem “And the Record Repeats” appeared in Dr. Ibram X. Kendi & Dr. Keisha N. Blain’s Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019.
Concerning Field Study:
"Layered, complex, and infinitely compelling, Chet’la Sebree’s Field Study is a daring exploration of the self and our interactions with others—a meditation on desire, race, loss and survival."—Natasha Trethewey
"Woven from the rough threads of race, legacy, and love, Field Study is a groundbreaking book that vibrates with truth and lyrical beauty. A profound poetic talent, Chet'la Sebree has created a brilliant book that both haunts and heals." -- Ada Limón
For her work, Chet’la has received fellowships from the Delaware Division of the Arts, Hedgebrook, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, MacDowell, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Stadler Center for Poetry, the Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. In 2018, she was named the co-recipient of Yaddo’s National Endowment for the Arts Residency for Collaborative Teams for her collaboration with poet and essayist Shayla Lawson. Chet’la’s poetry and prose have appeared in publications including Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Guernica, and Poetry International. She is an assistant professor of English and the Director for the Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts at Bucknell University.
Chet'la Sebree: www.chetlasebree.com
Danez Smith
POETRY FACULTY (2022-2023)
Danez Smith is a Black, Queer, Poz writer & performer. Danez is the author of Homie (Graywolf Press, 2020), Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.
Concerning Homie (Greywolf Press, 2020)
“The radiance of Homie arrives like a shock, like found money, like a flower fighting through concrete. . . . This is a book full of the turbulence of thought and desire, piloted by a writer who never loses their way.” – The New York Times
“[Homie] offers the opportunity to witness ‘the miracle of other people’s lives’ and will challenge you to consider how and why that miracle is dismissed in countless daily acts of racial aggression.” ― Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“[Homie] is a collection that confirms Smith’s great talent.” ― BuzzFeed
Concerning Don’t Call us Dead (Greywolf Press, 2017)
“Exceptional. . . . There is pain here but there is so much joy, so much fierce resistance to anything that dares to temper the stories being told here.”―Roxane Gay, Vulture
They are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Montalvo Arts Center, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Danez's work has been featured widely including on Buzzfeed, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, and on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Danez has been featured as part of Forbes’ annual 30 Under 30 list and is the winner of a Pushcart Prize.
Danez Smith: www.danezsmithpoet.com
John Vercher
FICTION FACULTY (Fall 2022)
John Vercher is the author of Three-Fifths, named one of the best books of 2019 by the Chicago Tribune. Three-Fifths was named a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, and earned an Edgar Award nomination for best first novel. His second novel, After the Lights Go Out, releases in June 2022 from Soho Press.
Concerning After the Lights Go Out (Soho Press, 2022)
“Vercher strides back in the ring with the explosive story of a troubled Philadelphia MMA fighter whose career has stalled . . . expertly captures the brashness and discipline of combat sports as well as the harsh realities of the fighting life, delivering all of it in a swiftly paced triumph complete with a surprising one-two punch of a conclusion. This is simply brilliant.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Written in deft and visceral prose—Vercher’s trademark—After the Lights Go Out is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I loved every moment of it, even the ones that broke my heart.”—Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy
Concerning Three-Fifths (Polis/Agora Books, 2019)
“… Vercher builds strong, multifaceted characters with bold strokes and using the tools of noir to present what is finally a full-blown tragedy. This powerful exploration of race and identity pairs well with Steph Cha's superb Your House Will Pay (2019).” —Bill Ott, Booklist (STARRED Review)
“Vercher’s debut novel is a blunt-edged thriller… A sad, swift tale bearing rueful observations about color and class as urgent now as 24 years ago.”—Kirkus
John’s writing appears on NPR, Cognoscenti, and WBUR Boston. His non-fiction work appears in Entropy Magazine, CrimeReads, and Booklist. He holds a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program.
John Vercher: www.johnvercherauthor.com
R. A. Villanueva
Poetry Faculty (Fall 2022)
R. A. Villanueva's poetry collection Reliquaria (University of Nebraska Press, 2014) won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize.
His honors include commendations from Forward Prizes, a Ninth Letter Literary Award, and fellowships from Kundiman, Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and The Asian American Literary Review.
Concerning Reliquaria:
"The texture of R. A. Villanueva’s words stay in the mouth, shards of what is sacred, still is sacred: linguistic memento mori, if you will, that preserve and keep alive. Take your time with this glorious collection. Breathe in: ‘black eggs,’ ‘pomade,’ ‘concertina wire,’ ‘wreathed in gauze,’ and ‘Nakalimutan mo na ako. You have already forgotten me.’ I dare say you will not forget these remains that Villanueva has saved for us." -- Kimiko Hahn
"In precise yet lush language, these poems move so easily between the sacred and the quotidian, between past and present, and from lyric longing to physical satisfaction that it is startling to realize how much ground each poem covers, and how natural these transitions, at heart, truly are. . . . Reading his poems, I am delighted by the clarity and sinuousness of [Villanueva's] writing, by the force of his belief that the materiality of the world shares something with the beauty of words" -- Paisley Rekdal
Villanueva's writing appears in Poetry, the American Poetry Review, Guernica, Prac Crit, AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He is a founding editor of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art.
R. A. Villanueva: @caesura
Phillip B. Williams
Poetry Faculty
Phillip is the recipient of the Whiting Award, a Lambda Literary Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship. Phillip has also been a finalist for an NAACP Image Award, INDIES Book of the Year, Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award, and the Eric Hoffer Book Award. His first book of poems, Thief in the Interior (2016) was published by Alice James Books, and his newest collection is Mutiny (Penguin, 2021).
Concerning Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books):
“To experience [Phillip B. Williams’] poetry is to encounter a lucid, unmitigated humanity, a voice for whom language is inadequate, yet necessarily grasped, shaped, and consumed. His devout and excruciating attention to the line and its indispensable music fuses his implacable understanding of words with their own shadows.” --Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Boston Review
“Not just more of the artfully skill-less, conceptual talk of a poem, this is what you’ve been waiting for: some poetry. Not just skill as possession, as a commodity, but skill to accomplish the expressive event, a deeply felt poetic argument. For example, Williams’ line is no arbitrary unit of type, but an effective musically syntactic accomplishment of line. Poetry!” --Ed Roberson
Phillip B. Williams’ poems appear in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Boston Review, The Southern Review, The Paris-American, Blackbird, Missouri Review, and elsewhere.
Phillip is also the author of the chapbooks Bruised Gospels (Arts in Bloom Inc.) and Burn (YesYes Books), and he served as a creative writing fellow in Poetry at Emory University. Phillip is a Cave Canem graduate and the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry.
Williams was born in Chicago and earned his M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis.
Phillip B. Williams: www.phillipbwilliams.com
