THE WRITERS STUDIO FACULTY AND STAFF

Philip Schultz, founder and director, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his most recent book of poems, Failure (Harcourt 2007). His other poetry books include Living in the Past (Harcourt 2004), The Holy Worm of Praise (Harcourt 2002), Deep Within The Ravine (Viking 1984) and Like Wings (Viking 1978). He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, an American Academy & Institute of Arts & Letters Award, a National Book Award nomination, a Lamont Prize and Poetry's Levinson Prize. His poetry and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, The Georgia Review, The Paris Review and The American Poetry Review among other magazines.

Cynthia Weiner is assistant director of The Writers Studio. She received her MFA from Brown University, and taught at Pace University in Manhattan for ten years. She won a 2005 Pushcart Prize and is working on a collection of short stories, some of which have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, 5 Trope, Ensign Literary Review, Open City, ep;phany and The Sonora Review. She also runs The Writers Studio reading series.

Lorraine L. Babb's fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Pebble Lake Review, Dos Passos Review, Kalliope and other literary magazines. She was an original co-founder and fiction editor of The Carquinez Review. She is currently working on a novel and a short story collection.

Odette Chatham Baker, a graduate of Tufts University and a longtime editor at Condé Nast, is currently working on a group of short stories about the expatriate's life. Her fiction appears in ep;phany. She has also published articles in The Washington Post and The World of Interiors, and is the author of a nonfiction book published by Macmillan.

Lisa Bellamy has published poetry in Tiferet, Harpur Palate, Poetry Midwest, Rainbow Curve, Skidrow Penthouse and other magazines. She won the 2008 Fugue Poetry Prize, judged by Mark Halliday; was a finalist for the 2008 Gerald Stern Poetry Prize; received an honorable mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2007; and is working on a poetry collection. She graduated from Princeton University and attended New York University's graduate program in Journalism.

Duncan Bock is the editor in chief of Melcher Media, an award-winning publisher and producer of illustrated books. He has written for Vanity Fair and Details and has edited several anthologies, including Spin Underground U.S.A. and The Little Book of Opera. He graduated from Brown University and is currently at work on a collection of short stories.

Isabelle Deconinck is our press and marketing contact. Her fiction appears in the on-line literary magazine KGBBarLit.

Lesley Dormen is Associate Director of The Writers Studio. Her book of linked stories, The Best Place To Be, was published by Simon & Schuster in spring of 2007. In June 2008, Lesley was awarded a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). This year’s 144 NYFA Fellows were chosen from among over 4,500 applicants. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Five Points, Open City, Glimmer Train and the anthology 20 Over 40, and have been nominated for Best American Short Stories. Her story, "The Secret of Drawing," which appears in the Spring 2007 on-line edition of ep;phany, was nominated for an award recognizing the best fiction on the web. Her articles and essays appear in Elle, O the Oprah Magazine, Glamour and other magazines. She is the recipient of fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo.

Therese Eiben's nonfiction and fiction have appeared in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Fortune and The Alaska Quarterly Review, among other magazines. She is the co-editor of The Practical Writer: From Inspiration to Publication (Penguin 2004) and was formerly the editor of Poets & Writers magazine.

Bill Eville graduated from Princeton University and holds a master's degree in creative writing from Florida State University. While at Florida State he won the Marion C. Bashinski award for teaching excellence. His fiction and creative nonfiction work has appeared on NPR's This American Life and in Parents Magazine, and has been optioned for film and presented at the AWP conference.

Rebecca Gee has seven years experience teaching creative and skills-building workshops for girls in detention in Chicago. She is a poet and fiction writer who has published in literary journals, and a visual artist who has received numerous awards, including an Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Artist Fellowship. Rebecca also has 18 years experience in nonprofit management. She teaches in The Writers Studio KW program, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Theresa Giordano has been using various narrative techniques writing documentary television programming since 1991. She has written for a wide variety of broadcasters including National Geographic, Discovery, MSNBC, CNN and The History Channel, on a diverse list of subjects. She is working on a collection of stories.

Araxe Hajian, a graduate of McGill University and New York University, has been a writer in The Writers Studio in Tucson since its inception. She has attended the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and has served on the Board of Governors for the New England Poetry Club. She has taught at private schools in Boston and Tucson and is currently working on a collection of stories.

Michele Herman has published short stories in a variety of journals including ACM, Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art and The Sun. Her creative nonfiction has appeared recently in Lilith and the Sunday New York Times. She also writes essays for The Villager and Downtown Express, as well as feature articles for magazines including Photo District News. Her nonfiction has received awards from the American Business Press and the New York City Municipal Art Society.

Joel Hinman has been a film producer for 15 years and was a semifinalist in the Nicoll Foundation screenwriting contest. His fiction appears in ep;phany. He is working on a collection of short fiction.

Lucinda Holt, a graduate of Amherst College, is currently working on a collection of short stories. Her one-act play "SanctOvum: My One Good Ovary" was recently produced at The Producers Club. She is director of the Online Program.

Eleanor Kedney is director of studio branches for The Writers Studio. A graduate of SUNY at Stony Brook, she has been a long-time member of The Writers Studio in NYC. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poets & Poetry, NY Quarterly, Return of Puppy Poetry (sponsored by Borders Books) and Many Mountains Moving. She is working on a collection of poems.

Lizabeth Kingsley is administrative director of The Writers Studio. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and New York University. Her fiction has appeared in The William and Mary Review, and a personal essay will be published in a forthcoming issue of New Jersey Family Magazine.

Peter Krass has published his poetry in several literary magazines, and is currently the poetry editor of West View. Over the past 20 years he has written for and edited magazines and newspapers, and was most recently a senior editor at Inc. He holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from NYU, where he studied with Elizabeth Bishop, and is working on a collection of poetry.

Andree Lockwood has been an editor for Cambridge University Press, Simon and Schuster, and Harry N. Abrams. She is the author of several nonfiction books published by Ariel Books and is working on a collection of short stories. She is a graduate of the University of London.

Nancy Matsunaga is a graduate of Oberlin College and holds a master's degree in education. She is an editor with Pearson Education and a freelance non-fiction writer. She is currently working on fiction and creative non-fiction projects.

Sarah McElwain is the editor of SAYING GRACE (Chronicle Books 2003) and the author of TO THE HAPPY COUPLE! (Chronicle Books 2006). She is also the second-prize winner in American Fiction, Volume 10. She works as a graphic designer in New York City.

Abby Minot, a member of the on-line Master Class, is a University of California at Berkeley alumni. She has owned and operated several businesses and founded a non-profit corporation. She is working on a collection of short stories.

Joanne Naiman has edited books for Penguin and the University of Mississippi Press. Recipient of a Clarion Award, she is working on a collection of short fiction.

Juliet Niehaus has over 25 years of experience teaching in academic and community settings. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the New School for Social Research and an m.s.w. from New York University, and has published in various journals. She trained in The Writers Studio method in Tucson and is working on a collection of short fiction.

Molly Patterson is a graduate of Carleton College. Her short story "The Mechanics of Motion" appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Zone 3, and her work received Honorable Mention in both the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Contest and the River Styx Micro-fiction Contest.

Mark Peterson founded the San Francisco Writers Studio program after studying and training at The Writers Studio in NYC. A graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz, he has been editing the fiction, nonfiction and poetry of numerous Bay Area writers since relocating to the West Coast. His poetry has been published in the Santa Barbara Review, and he is working on a collection of stories.

Kirby Pulver writes feature articles for leading entertainment websites such as Aint It Cool News, Comingsoon.net and Chud.com. He is working on short stories and a novella.

Steve Radwell's fiction has appeared in Caprice and his nonfiction in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and other publications. He produces news for CNNMoney.com and is working on a collection of short stories.

Frazier Russell published his book of poems, Lush, with Four Way Books in 2001. His poetry has also appeared in Ploughshares, The American Voice, Global City Review and American Letters & Commentary. His poems were recently selected by Garrison Keillor to be read on National Public Radio.

Lynn Schmeidler's story, "Sweet Hairy," was selected as a finalist in The Southeast Review's Short Short Story Contest, and the story will be published there in 2009. Lynn has published fiction in Chelsea, Mid-American Review, River City and other literary magazines. She is a graduate of Yale College, has a Master's degree in education and is working on a collection of stories.

Abigail Wender has published poems in Fish Stories: Collective II, The Massachusetts Review, Fine Madness and Faultline and is working on a collection of poetry. She is a trustee of The Kenyon Review.