Summer Writers Seminar Faculty

Joan Silber is the author of the forthcoming Fools (2013) and other works of fiction, including The Size of the World (finalist for Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize), Ideas of Heaven (finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize) and Household Words (winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award). Her short stories have appeared in The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, The O. Henry Prize Stories and Pushcart Prize collections. She is a recipient of a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and grants from National Endowment for the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts. She teaches in the writing program at Sarah Lawrence College.

Nelly Reifler is the author of the short story collection See Through; fiction in magazines and journals including Bomb, Post Road, McSweeney’s, Nerve, and Black Book as well as in anthologies including 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11; Lost Tribe: New Jewish Fiction from the Edge; Found Magazine’s Requiem for a Paper Bag; and Tell: An Anthology of Expository Narrative. Recipient of a Henfield Prize, a UAS Explorations Prize and a Rotunda Gallery Emerging Curator grant for work with fiction and art, she is the co-director of Pratt Institute’s Writers’ Forum; editor at Post Road magazine; curator of Barbes reading series, Brooklyn; founder and president of Dainty Rubbish record company.

Scott Snyder is the author of the story collection Voodoo Heart. He writes an original comic series for Vertigo called American Vampire that won both the Eisner and Harvey awards for 2010. He is the current writer on Batman and Swamp Thing for DC Comics.

Olivia Birdsall's first novel, Notes on a Near-Life Experience, was the winner of the Delacorte Prize, a New York Public Library Best Book for Young Adults, and a finalist in the 2007 SYBIL awards. Her second novel for young adults, Lies You Never Told Me, will be published next year. Olivia has been teaching at New York University since 2002, and has also taught creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College, NYU's London Summer Program, and as a teaching artist in New York City public schools through Teachers and Writers Collaborative. In addition to her writing for young adults, Olivia has written picture books for Pearson Education, and her short fiction has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly.

John D'Agata is the author of About a Mountain and Halls of Fame and editor of The Next American Essay and The Lost Origins of the Essay. His new book, The Lifespan of a Fact, is a collaboration with a fact-checker about veracity in nonfiction. He teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he lives.

Michael Greenberg, a native New Yorker, wrote the Freelance column for the Times Literary Supplement from 2003-2010. His feuilleton-style essays currently appear in his column, "The Accidentalist", in Bookforum. Greenberg is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. His memoir Hurry Down Sunshine has been translated into eighteen languages and was a 2008 Time magazine best book of the year. Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer's Life appeared in 2009.

Thomas Lux is the author of 10 books, including New and Selected Poems (1975-1995), The Street of Clocks, The Cradle Place and most recently God Particles. The recipient of numerous awards, he is Poet-in-Residence at Sarah Lawrence College and Bourne Professor of Poetry at Georgia Tech. Thomas has two books forthcoming in 2012: From the Southland (nonfiction) and Child Made of Sand (poems).

Stephen Dobyns is the author of more than 35 books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, including a recent book of poems, Winter's Journey, and a book of essays on poetry, Next Word, Better Word. His novel, The Burn Palace, will be published this year. His book Cemetery Nights won the Poetry Society of America’s 1987 Melville Cane Award. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and Three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships.

Dorianne Laux, co-teaching with Joseph Millar, published her fifth collection, The Book of Men. Her book of poems, Facts about the Moon, received the Oregon Book Award (short-listed, Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize). Laux authored several titles including What We Carry (finalist, National Book Critic’s Circle Award). Co-author of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, she received two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has appeared in the Best of APR, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and The Best of the Net.

Joseph Millar, co-teaching with Dorianne Laux, had his first collection, Overtime become a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. He won a fellowship for the National Endowment for the Arts and a Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in magazines including DoubleTake, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, APR, and Ploughshares. In 1997, he gave up his job as telephone installation foreman to try his hand at teaching. His new chapbook Bestiary is available, and his third collection, Blue Rust, will be in 2012. Millar is core faculty at Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program.