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. |
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. |
Instructors
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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 recently in Necessary Fiction and is forthcoming in Pembroke Magazine. She’s currently at work on a short story collection. On the side, she sings and produces dark synthpop. |
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ADAM GRABOWSKI is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poetry has appeared in Off the Coast, Beech St. Review, DMQ Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, The Naugatuck River Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Black Napkin, Voicemail Poems, and elsewhere. His poem “Aphorism,” has been included in anthologies by jubilat and The Rattling Wall. Adam received his MSW from Westfield State University and was an organizer and poet with the mighty Northampton Poetry, where he ran a bi-monthly workshop. A Hampden County Rep. for masspoetry.org, he currently lives and works in Holyoke, Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters. www.adamgrabowskipoetry.wordpress.com. |
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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 recently finished a novel and is currently working on a memoir. Find her online at celiajeffries.com. |
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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. |
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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).
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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. For more goal-setting and writing strategies, visit Francine and her writing colleagues at www.francinepuckly.com and www.24CarrotWriting.com. |
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SARA RAUCH's prose has appeared in Hobart, Gravel, Split Lip, So to Speak, Luna Luna, and more. Her debut story collection, What Shines From It, is forthcoming in 2018 from Alternating Current Press. She lives with her family in Easthampton MA. Find her online at www.sararauch.com. |
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NIKKI A. SAMBITSKY earned her MFA in creative writing, specifically focusing on lyric/fragment essay (creative nonfiction) from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA creative writing program. Mrs. Sambitsky holds a BA in journalism from Central Connecticut State University. She is currently working on her collection of lyric/fragment essays, which center on mental illness, her family, and two autistic children. Mrs. Sambitsky enjoys writing essays that explore family, family issues, and autism. Her journalism work and creative nonfiction has appeared in many publications including The Helix, Gravel Magazine, and West Hartford Magazine. She lives with her husband, two children, and way too many animals in a peaceful, rural, area of Connecticut. |
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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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KELLY VOGEL has an MA in Literature from Mills College in Oakland, California, and has been teaching composition and literature for over 15 years. Originally from San Francisco, Kelly is also a singer and pianist who polished her music skills in San Francisco rock bands, finding her niche in the Bay Area singer-songwriter scene. A longtime songwriting student of Grammy-nominated songwriter Bonnie Hayes and songwriting professors from the Berklee College of Music, she has three independently-released CDs and is working on a fourth. Kelly's love of music and writing come together in her lyrics, which blend poetry and rhythm, melody and wordplay, and, when possible, a few killer slant rhymes. Find her online at http://kellystewartvogel.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. |
Administrative Assistant /
Social Media Manager
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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 recently in Necessary Fiction and is forthcoming in Pembroke Magazine. She’s currently at work on a short story collection. On the side, she sings and produces dark synthpop. |