Writing Faculty

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. Author of the novels The Dylanist, Starting Out in the Evening, A Window Across the River, and Breakable You. SLC, 1998–

BA, University of Saskatchewan; BAA, Ryerson University; MFA, Sarah Lawrence College.  Associate Director of the MFA writing program at Sarah Lawrence. She has taught writing to a variety of students including undergraduate and graduate students, as well as high school students, seniors, and men and women in prison. She has been the recipient of a Canada Arts Council grant, an Ontario Arts Council grant, and is the former managing editor of and communications director for Global City Review, a New York City based literary magazine. Her work has appeared on babycenter.com, literarymama.com, and in McGill Street Magazine, The Ryersonian, and on the radio program LifeRattle, among others. Her memoir, Choosing You, was published in 2008 by Seal Press. SLC, 2000-

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. MA, Brown University. Author of Teacha! Stories from a Yeshiva (Glad Day Books, 2001), chronicling his experience as a non-Jew teaching English as a second language to Yiddish-speaking Hasidic boys at a yeshiva in Brooklyn; has published stories in numerous anthologies and reviews, including The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories, Global City Review, The Breast, and Fairleigh Dickinson Review; on the faculty of Eugene Lang College; works for the Columbia University Oral History Research Office, where he has initiated numerous documentary projects; conducted hundreds of life history interviews with gay cops, retired vaudevillians and showgirls, ironworkers, immigrants, and, most recently, people affected by the events of September 11 and veterans recently returned from the war in Iraq. He worked as an educator and project designer on Columbia’s “Telling Lives Oral History Project.” This project, which was launched in eight classrooms in two middle schools in New York City’s Chinatown, culminated in seven books, two documentary films, and a multimedia exhibit. He served as editor of three of the books, producer of the documentaries, and curator of the exhibit. SLC, 2004–

BFA, MA, University of Iowa. Essayist and creative nonfiction writer; author of The Boys of My Youth, a collection of autobiographical essays, as well as essays/articles published in magazines, journals, and anthologies. Recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award. SLC, 2000–2005, 2007–

MFA, Columbia University. Poet, Brooklyn poet laureate, and author of Half-Lit Houses and Of Gods & Strangers; co-editor of the anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton, 2008). Poems have appeared in American Poet, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, Ploughshares, Quarterly West, and Sonora Review, among others. Recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts, Poets & Writers, and The Van Lier Foundation, among others. SLC, 2005–

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. MA, City College of New York. Author of the short-story collection Don’t Erase Me, awarded the Art Seidenbaum Award of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the John C. Zachiris Award given by Ploughshares, and the Quality Paperback Book Prize for First Fiction; stories anthologized in The Best American Short Stories of the Century; Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers; The Blue Light Corner: Black Women Writing on Passion, Sex, and Romantic Love; and Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present; recipient of grants from the Fulbright Association, the German Academic Exchange (D.A.A.D.), the City University of New York MAGNET Program, and the National Endowment for the Arts (Literature fellow for 2004). SLC, 1996–

BA, University of Massachusetts-Amherst. MFA, Columbia University. Author of the long poem, The New World, winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award Series in poetry; A World That Will Hold All the People, essays on poetry and politics; Today: 101 Ghazals (2008); the long poem, Dialogue with the Archipelago (2009); and fiction published in The Kenyon Review, The American Voice, and The Paris Review. Recipient of The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Excellence in the Essay and of grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation. SLC, 1994–

BA, Oberlin College. Author of Bee Season (New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Borders New Voices Prize, finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award), and Wickett’s Remedy. Teacher at Barnard, Brooklyn College, Columbia, NYU, as well as Sarah Lawrence. SLC, 2008-

BA, University of California-Berkeley. MA, City University of New York. Author of Whistling and Rosalind: A Family Romance; stories published in journals including The Transatlantic Review, Ploughshares, Feminist Studies, The Massachusetts Review, The New England Review, and in the book anthologies Women in Literature, Powers of Desire, The World’s Greatest Love Stories, and elsewhere in the United States and France; nonfiction published in the Village Voice and elsewhere; recipient of Lebensberger Foundation grant. SLC, 1985–

BA, Harvard College. MFA, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Poet; author of Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (Alice James Books, 2000); Sad Little Breathing Machine (Graywolf, 2004); Modern Life (Graywolf, 2007), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, a New York Times Notable Book of 2008, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and a children’s book, The Little General and the Giant Snowflake, illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel (Soft Skull Press, 2007). Contributing editor for jubilat and BOMB. Has taught at Warren Wilson, the Pratt Institute, and the University of Houston. SLC, 2004–

BA, Manhattanville College. MA, Columbia University. PhD, University of Wisconsin. Author, Still Waters in Niger, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune; the French translation, Eaux Tranquilles, was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Etranger. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Yale Review, among other publications, and have won a number of literary awards. The Anointed, published in DoubleTake, was included in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize XXV, and The Pushcart Book of Short Stories. An excerpt from her recently completed novel, Who Occupies this House, appeared in Ploughshares. SLC, 1991-1994, 1997–

BA, State University of New York-Purchase. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. David Hollander is the author of the novel L.I.E., a finalist for the NYPL Young Lions Award. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous print and online forums, including McSweeney’s, Post Road, The New York Times Magazine, Poets & Writers, The Collagist, Unsaid, The Black Warrior Review, The Brooklyn Rail, and Swink. His work has been adapted for film and frequently anthologized, most notably in Best American Fantasy 2 and 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11th. He received his MFA from Sarah Lawrence in 1997, and currently lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife, the writer Margaret Hundley Parker, and their two children. SLC, 2002–

BA, Oberlin College. MFA, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Poet; author of Translating Mo’um (Hanging Loose Press, 2002) and Dance Dance Revolution (W. W. Norton, 2007), which was chosen for the Barnard New Women’s Poets Series; recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a Fulbright grant for South Korea; work has been published in Pushcart Prize anthology and New Asian American Anthology, The Next Generation, among others; essays and articles published in the Village Voice, Guardian, Salon, and Christian Science Monitor. SLC, 2006–

BA, Sarah Lawrence College, MA and PhD, Columbia University. National Endowment for the Humanities Younger Humanist grant, 1972-73. Author of numerous scholarly articles, reviews and essays. Member of the Sarah Lawrence literature faculty from 1977-2000, taught courses in literary craft for many years, for both poets and fiction writers. Since 2005 has taught advanced fiction writing workshops at the Westport Writers Workshop in CT. SLC, 2008-

BS, University of Windsor. MFA, Columbia University. Poet; author of The Good Thief, selected by Margaret Atwood for the National Poetry Series; editor, with Michael Klein, of In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic; author of What the Living Do; recipient of the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poet Prize from the Academy of American Poets, the Mary Ingram Bunting fellowship from Radcliffe College, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Artist Foundation, and the Guggenheim. SLC, 1993–

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. Columbia School of the Arts. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. NCPsyA, Westchester Institute. Special interests include Jungian studies and religion; author of When Orchids Were Flowers, This Perfect Life, and Wind Somewhere, and Shade, which received the Gradiva Award; most recently published in Ploughshares, The Salt Journal, Luna, and The Sun; recipient of New York Foundation for the Arts Award. SLC, 1987–

Mary LaChapelle – BA, University of Minnesota. MFA, Vermont College. Author of House of Heroes and Other Stories; stories, essays and anthologies published by New River’s Press, Atlantic Monthly Press, Columbia Journal, Global City Review, Hungry Mind Review, North American Review, News Day, The New York Times; recipient of the PEN/Nelson Algren, National Library Association, Loft Mcknight and The Whiting Foundation Award, and fellowships from the Hedgebrook, Katherine Anne Porter, Edward Albee and Bush Foundations    

BA, Emerson College. University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Author of The Glassblower’s Breath, Sunday, Half Promised Land, Like a Wide Anvil from the Moon the Light, Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy, The Drowned River and Split Horizon; recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award and the Kingsly Tufts Poetry Award. SLC, 1975-

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. MFA, George Mason University. Author of four books of poetry, most recently The Endarkenment (University of Pittsburgh Press). A fifth book, Chapel of Inadvertent Joy, will be published in 2013, also by University of Pittsburgh Press. Poems have been published in many anthologies and magazines, including Best American Poetry 1994 and Best American Poetry 2010, New (American) Poets, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review; recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Washington, D.C., Commission for the Arts. SLC, 2001–

B.A., Tufts College. M.Phil., Columbia University. Novelist, short-story writer, and writer of travel literature. Author of the novels Crossroads, The Waiting Room, The Night Sky, House Arrest, Acts of God, and Revenge; the short story collections Vanishing Animals and Other Stories, The Bus of Dreams, and The Lifeguard Stories; the travel memoirs Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone, Wall to Wall: From Beijing to Berlin by Rail; an anthology of the travel literature of women, Maiden Voyages and Angels and Aliens: A Journey West. A book about the Mississippi River is due out in 2006 (Henry Holt and Company). Recent work in Atlantic Monthly, Narrative, and Ploughshares; recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Creative Artists Public Service Awards. SLC, 1994-

BA, Harvard. Author of nine books of poetry (under “D. Nurkse”), including The Border Kingdom, Burnt Island, The Fall, The Rules of Paradise, Leaving Xaia, and Voices over Water; poems have appeared in The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly; recipient of a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, and two awards from The Poetry Foundation. SLC, 2004-

BA, Columbia University. MA, University of California-Berkeley. Author of Rescue, short fiction and poetry; Will My Name Be Shouted Out?, memoir and social analysis; Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed, history. Fiction and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, Conjunctions, TriQuarterly, The Missouri Review, The Quarterly, Partisan Review, The Massachusetts Review, Fiction International, and elsewhere. Essays and journalism have been published in The New York Times, DoubleTake, The Nation, AGNI, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and New Labor Forum, among others. Recipient of the Cornell Woolrich Fellowship in Creative Writing from Columbia University, the Visiting Fellowship for Historical Research by Artists and Writers from the American Antiquarian Society, and the DeWitt Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony. SLC, 1997, 2002–

BA, Dartmouth College. MFA, Columbia University. Author of two books of poetry and three books of fiction. Latest novel, The Border of Truth (Counterpoint, 2007), weaves the situation of refugees and a daughter’s awakening to the history and secrets of her father’s survival and loss. Loverboy (Graywolf, 2001/Harcourt, 2002) was awarded the 2001 S. Mariella Gable Novel Award and the 2002 Forward Silver Literary Fiction Prize and was chosen in 2001 as a Los Angeles Times Best Book. Lover-boy was adapted for a feature film directed by Kevin Bacon. Most recent collection of poems, Swoon (University of Chicago Press, 2003), was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award. SLC, 1996–

BA, Hampshire College. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. Author of short-story collection, See Through; fiction in magazines and journals, including Bomb, Post Road, McSweeney’s, Nerve, and Black Book, as well as in the anthologies 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 (forthcoming). Recipient of a Henfield Prize in 1995, a UAS Explorations Prize in 1997, and a Rotunda Gallery Emerging Curator grant for work with fiction and art in 2001. Codirector of Pratt Institute’s Writers’ Forum, 2005-present; curator of Barbes reading series, Brooklyn; founder and president, Dainty Rubbish record company. SLC, 2002–

Author of four poetry collections: The Beds, Mother Quiet, Perfect Disappearance (winner of the 2000 Green Rose Prize, New Issues Press), and At the Gate. Poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, AGNI, Fence, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, and other journals. Anthologized in The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women (Columbia University Press) and The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology (University Press of New England), among others. Directs the Frost Place Festival and Conference on Poetry each summer.  Teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and at the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Founding editor and director of Four Way Books. SLC, 2005-

BA, University of Michigan. MS, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. MFA, Yale School of Drama. Fiction writer, critic, editor, playwright; author of the novel The Ticket Out and editor of anthologies Great American Love Stories, World Treasury of Love Stories, and The Eloquent Short Story: Varieties of Narration; reviews and articles published in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune Book World, Ms., Saturday Review, The New York Times Book Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review; plays produced at Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre Center, Waterford, Connecticut; recipient, Pulitzer Fellowship in Critical Writing; served on Book-of-the-Month Club’s Editorial Board of judges and as the Club’s senior editorial adviser. SLC, 1988–

David Ryan earned his BA from University of Massachusetts and his MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. His fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Fence, Unsaid, BOMB, Tin House, several Mississippi Review Prize Issues, Denver Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, New Orleans Review, Nerve, Salt Hill, Cimarron Review, and Hobart, among others. His fiction has been anthologized in Flash Fiction Forward (W.W. Norton); Boston Noir 2: the Classics (Akashic Books); and The Mississippi Review: 30 Years, and elsewhere. His essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Paris Review, Tin House, BOMB, BookForum, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Fiction (Oxford University Press), and others. He's the recipient of a MacDowell fellowship and a Connecticut state arts grant, and is a founding editor of the literary magazine, Post Road, where he currently edits the Fiction and Theatre sections.

BA, Oberlin College. MFA, Columbia University. Author of Wild Kingdom and The Long Meadow (poetry collections); former editor at The New Yorker; essayist and book reviewer for The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Threepenny Review, The American Scholar, and various literary quarterlies; recipient of the James Laughlin Prize of the Academy of American Poets, MacDowell Colony’s Fellowship for Distinguished Poetic Achievement, The Paris Review’s Bernard F. Conners Long Poem Prize, New York Foundation for the Arts grant, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship, and area studies fellowships from Columbia University. SLC, 1998–

BA, Sarah Lawrence College. MA, New York University. Author of two story collections, Ideas of Heaven (finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize) and In My Other Life, and four novels, The Size of the World, Lucky Us, In the City, and Household Words; winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award; short stories anthologized in The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, The Story Behind the Story, The O. Henry Prize Stories (2007 and 2003), and two Pushcart Prize collections. 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. SLC, 1985–

BA, Vassar College. MA, Middlebury College. Editor at The New Yorker, 1992-2002. Book editor, 2001-present. Book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Vogue, The New York Review of Books. Edited books include Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Mostly True by Molly O’Neill, Aftermath by Joel Meyerowitz, The Surrender by Toni Bentley, Send by William Schwalbe and David Shipley, King’s Gambit by Paul Hoffman, and Violent Partners by Linda Mills. SLC, 2004–