Founder/Director
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JOY BAGLIO founded Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop in 2016, shortly after moving to Northampton MA from NYC. She holds an MFA from The New School and a BFA from Bard College. Her fiction has appeared recently in Tin House, The Iowa Review, TriQuarterly, New Ohio Review, PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. She's the recipient of grants and scholarships from Bread Loaf, The Elizabeth George Foundation, and the Speculative Literature Foundation, and has been recognized by the Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest (Honorable Mention), The American Short(er) Fiction Contest (finalist), the Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions of 2017, and numerous other contests. In addition to her role at PVWW, she teaches writing at Grub Street and serves as Associate Fiction Editor at West Branch. She's interested in voice-driven stories with ferocious, vivid language, and is especially interested in investigating the overlap between science and the speculative. She's currently at work on both a collection of short stories and her first novel. Follow her on twitter at @JoyBaglio or visit her online at www.joybaglio.com. Manuscript Consultant in: Short fiction, flash fiction, the novel, memoir, literary fiction, genre fiction, literary magazine publication & submissions process, concepting/outlining. Visit Consultant Page. |
Assistant Director
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KATE SENECAL received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2013. She is the Assistant Director of Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop, and a workshop facilitator for Writers for Recovery in Vermont. Her fiction has been published in The Laurel Review, The Foundling Review, and in Storychord.com, where she was the fiction editor for two years before it stopped publication. Manuscript Consultant in: The novel, short fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction/essays, literary fiction, genre fiction. Visit Consultant Page. |
Director of Advertising
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SARAH JANE CODY holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She was named a finalist for Pleiades’s 2018 G.B. Crump Prize in Experimental Fiction. Her fiction has appeared in Necessary Fiction and is forthcoming in Washington Square Review and Pembroke Magazine. She’s currently at work on a short story collection and a novel. Find her online at www.sarahjanecody.com Manuscript Consultant in: The novel, short fiction, flash fiction, novella. Visit Consultant Page. |
Instructors
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ADAM GRABOWSKI's poems have appeared in DMQ Review, The Rattling Wall, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and elsewhere. He has poems in the forthcoming anthologies What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Rage in the Age of Trump and The Girl Who Turned into a Moth: Contemporary Poets on Autism, edited by Martín Espada and Sean Dougherty, respectively. He is currently an MFA candidate at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He lives in Holyoke MA, with his wife and two children. Find him at www.adamgrabowskipoetry.wordpress.com. Manuscript Consultant in: Poetry, poetry manuscripts. Visit Consultant Page. |
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SETH HARWOOD earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and went on to publish five crime novels. His most recent novel, Everyone Pays, joins his Amazon bestsellers In Broad Daylight and Jack Wakes Up. His other work includes the novels Young Junius and This Is Life, numerous stories in literary journals, two collections of short stories, and a Kindle Worlds / Kurt-Vonnegut-style novella. He teaches creative writing at Stanford Continuing Studies and Harvard Extension School. Find him online at www.sethharwood.com. |
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CELIA JEFFRIES holds an MA from Brandeis and an MFA from Lesley University. Her work has appeared in numerous newspapers and literary magazines including Westview, Solsticelitmag, and Puerto del Sol, as well as the anthology Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper. She has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and was named a Massachusetts Humanity Scholar. She recently completed a novel and is currently at work on a memoir. Find her online at celiajeffries.com. Manuscript Consultant in: Fiction, nonfiction, memoir, personal essay. Visit Consultant Page. |
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ELEANOR LANE holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Smith College. She won Literary Death Match's 2018 Bookmark Contest, Redivider's 2017 Blurred Genre Prize, and the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize in 2011. She has poetry published in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review and flash fiction in Redivider. Find her online at www.eleanorlanewriter.com |
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CINDY LITTLEFIELD's fiction has appeared in Inside the Bell Jar, Litro, Dogzplot, and the Rose & Thorn Journal, and she was a former finalist in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University. She is a freelance writer, editor, and writing coach who has developed and edited online and print content for a variety of publishers, including Disney Interactive Media, EDDA, and Storey Publishing. Find out more at cindylittlefield.com. |
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KEN MONDSCHEIN is a scholar and author with expertise in subjects ranging from the Middle Ages to modern pop culture, as well as a jouster and fencing master. His work has appeared in the New York Press, various consumer magazines, as a columnist for Nerve.com and The Faster Times, and elsewhere. He received his PhD in history from Fordham University, was a Fulbright scholar to France, and is currently a Fellow at the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Renaissance Studies. Though Ken's scholarly concentration is premodern Europe, he has taught, lectured, spoken, consulted, and published on everything from medieval science to the political uses of the past, and worked with organizations ranging from the J. Paul Getty Museum to the History Channel to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Ken is the author of numerous academic books and articles, as well as his latest book, Game of Thrones and the Medieval Art of Warfare (McFarland).
Manuscript Consultant in: Scholarly articles, research papers, history writing, essays, nonfiction. Visit Consultant Page. |
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FRANCINE PUCKLY is a contemporary YA writer, management consultant, trainer, blogger and co-founder of 24CarrotWriting.com. She is life-long avid user of planning and goal-setting strategies and has faithfully kept a writer’s notebook for nearly two decades. Francine is a long-time member of SCBWI. She co-directed the 2007 and 2008 SCBWI New England conferences and served as an Assistant Regional Advisor for SCBWI New England. Her publishing credits include more than 50 humor essays which have appeared in numerous regional magazines and newspapers. |
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SARA RAUCH's prose has appeared in Hobart, Gravel, Split Lip, So to Speak, Luna Luna, and more. She holds an MFA from Pacific University, and her debut story collection, What Shines From It, is forthcoming in early 2019 from Alternating Current Press. She lives with her family in Holyoke MA. Find her online at www.sararauch.com. Manuscript Consultant: Short stories, novels, essays, memoir, nonfiction. Visit Consultant Page. |
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RUTH SANDERSON is an author and illustrator with over 85 published children’s books. She is a graduate of the Paier College of Art. Among her many picture books for children are A Castle Full of Cats, The Enchanted Wood (winner of the Bank Street College Award and the Young Hoosiers Award), The Snow Princess, and The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring (winner of the Texas Bluebonnet Award). She is currently working on writing and illustrating a picture book biography of nineteenth century artist Rosa Bonheur, and a retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for young adults. Ruth teaches in the summer MFA program in Writing and Illustrating for Children at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. She lives with her husband in Easthampton, MA. Her website is www.ruthsanderson.com |
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GAIL THOMAS has published four books of poetry: Odd Mercy (2016), Waving Back (2015), No Simple Wilderness: An Elegy for Swift River Valley (2001) and Finding the Bear (1997). Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Calyx, The North American Review, Hanging Loose, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. She was awarded residencies at The McDowell Colony in New Hampshire and Ucross in Wyoming. As one of the original teaching artists for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Elder Arts Initiative, Thomas led workshops and collaborated with dancers, musicians and storytellers in schools, nursing homes, hospitals and libraries across the state. You may read more about her work at www.gailthomaspoet.com. |
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CAROLYN ZAIKOWSKI is the author of the novels In a Dream, I Dance by Myself, and I Collapse (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016) and A Child Is Being Killed (Aqueous Books, 2013.) Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared widely, in such publications as The Washington Post, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, PANK, Dusie, Huffington Post, and Everyday Feminism. She holds an MFA from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and is currently an English professor. Find her online at www.carolynzaikowski.com. Manuscript Consultant: The novel, short fiction, poetry manuscripts, hybrid and experimental texts, short and book-length nonfiction, project planning. Visit Consultant Page. |
Spring 2019 Intern
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CRESSIDA RICHARDS holds a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was awarded the Class of 1940 Award for Poetry and has represented her University at the annual Five College Poetry Festival. She has been accepted to the University of Massachusetts Boston's MFA program and plans to attend in the Fall of 2019. |