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Instructors and administrators listed alphabetically, by last name.
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Founder/Director
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JOY BAGLIO is the founder/director of Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop (PVWW). Her short stories have appeared widely, in journals such as The Missouri Review, Tin House, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, TriQuarterly, Gulf Coast, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. Recent honors include fellowships, scholarships, and grants from Yaddo, Ragdale, The Elizabeth George Foundation, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, The Speculative Literature Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale, The Kerouac Project, and Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Joy holds an MFA from The New School and is currently at work on both a collection of short stories and two novels. She's represented by Peter Steinberg at Fletcher & Co. In her free time, she plays the bagpipes. Follow her on twitter at @JoyBaglio or visit her online at www.joybaglio.com. |
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LIZ BEDELL's recently completed novel, The Space Between, was shortlisted in the 2019 William Faulkner William Wisdom Competition, Novel-in-Progress category. She is a co-editor of Embody, a weekly feature column at The Maine Review. She holds an MFA Fiction and Translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and an MA in English from Middlebury College. She writes and teaches in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. |
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MARIA BLACK has written literary fiction for over twenty years and has seen her stories published in numerous literary journals. She was awarded a 2022 Pushcart Prize for “Mark on the Cross,” a story published by The Sun Magazine and a Bentley Prize by The Seattle Review. Her fiction has been included in several books on writing. Maria was born in Houston and graduated with an honors degree in English Literature from The University of Texas at Austin. She worked on Capitol Hill for six years, then earned her MBA at Yale University before moving first to Boston and later to the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Maria earned her MFA in fiction in 2015 from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst where she taught freshman writing and creative writing. She currently lives in Northampton, MA with her husband. |
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S.K. BROWNELL is writer, artist, and educator from the American Midwest. Their work has been shortlisted for the inaugural Samuel R Delany Fellowship in Speculative Fiction and has received the National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Excellence Award, Solstice Literary Prize in Fiction Editor's Choice, and other honors. They are a Tin House Workshop alumn and a Sewanee Conference Tennessee Williams Scholar. Their work has appeared in Speculative North, Decoded, Great Lakes Review, Newfound, and elsewhere. Stephanie holds an MFA from Boston University and teaches at Carroll University and GrubStreet. They live in Boston with a cat called Wander. Find them online at www.skbrownell.com / @skbrownell |
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JAMES CAMBIAS is a science fiction writer and game designer, with four novels and eight full-length game sourcebooks published, along with two dozen short stories, and scores of game articles and collaborations. Some of his game projects are particularly relevant: in GURPS Space Fourth Edition for Steve Jackson Games (2006), Star HERO for HERO Games (2002), and his contributions to the Star Trek Roleplaying Game for Last Unicorn Games (1998-1999). He wrote extensively on worldbuilding for science fiction. In short, he literally wrote the book on worldbuilding, three times. He also holds a degree in History of Science from the University of Chicago. |
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ANDERS CARLSON-WEE is the author of Disease of Kings (W.W. Norton, 2023), The Low Passions (W.W. Norton, 2019), a New York Public Library Book Group Selection, and Dynamite (Bull City Press, 2015), winner of the Frost Place Chapbook Prize. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, BuzzFeed, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other publications. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, he is the winner of the Poetry International Prize. His work has been translated into Chinese. Anders holds an MFA from Vanderbilt University and is represented by Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents. Find him at www.anderscarlsonwee.com |
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OLIVIA KATE CERRONE's writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, and New South, among other publications. Her novella The Hunger Saint won an American Fiction Award and was praised by Kirkus Review as “a well-crafted and affecting literary tale.” She won Crab Orchard Review's Jack Dyer Fiction Prize and various other honors, including fellowships from the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers (Scotland), the Ragdale Foundation, VCCA, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, where she received a "Distinguished Fellowship" from the National Endowment for the Arts. |
Marketing Director
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SARAH JANE CODY is the Director of Marketing at PVWW, in addition to her role as an instructor. Her stories and essays have appeared in journals such as in The Common, Gulf Coast, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She is a contributing prose editor at Pigeon Pages. She was a finalist for Pleiades’s 2018 G.B. Crump Prize in Experimental Fiction. She’s a graduate of the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College and an alumnus of Tin House’s Summer Workshop. Currently, she’s at work on a novel. Find her online at www.sarahjanecody.com |
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KIM COLEMAN FOOTE is the author of the novel, Coleman Hill (SJP Lit/Zando, September 2023). She has received writing fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Phillips Exeter Academy, Center for Fiction, Yaddo, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, and elsewhere. She also received a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research for a novel in Ghana. Her fiction appears most recently in The Best American Short Stories 2022. |
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TOMMY DEAN is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks, 2014) and Covenants (ELJ Editions, 2021). He lives in Indiana where he currently is the Editor at Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. A graduate of the Queens University of Charlotte MFA program, he is currently working on a novel. A recipient of the 2019 Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, his writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019 and 2020, Best Small Fiction 2019, Monkeybicycle, and the Atticus Review. He has taught writing workshops for the Gotham Writers Workshop, the Barrelhouse Conversations and Connections conference, and The Lafayette Writer’s Workshop. Find him at tommydeanwriter.com and on Twitter @TommyDeanWriter. |
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LEONORA DESAR's fiction has appeared in places such as River Styx, Passages North, The Cincinnati Review, Black Warrior Review, and Columbia Journal, where she was chosen as a finalist by Ottessa Moshfegh. She has been selected for The Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2021, Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2021, and the Wigleaf Top 50 (2019, 2020, 2021). She was a runner-up/finalist in Quarter After Eight’s Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest, judged by Stuart Dybek, and Crazyhorse’s Crazyshorts! contest. Her journalism has appeared in Psychology Today, WomansDay.com, Parenting magazine, WomansDay.com, Business Insider, and others. She holds an MFA in fiction from NYU, where she taught creative writing, and an MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. |
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LARA EHRLICH is the author of Animal Wife, which won Red Hen Press’s Fiction Award, judged by Ann Hood, and was published by the press in Sept 2020. She is also the host of Writer Mother Monster, a conversation series devoted to dismantling the myth of “having it all” and offering writer-moms solidarity, support, and advice. Lara is the director of marketing for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas based in Connecticut, where she lives with her husband and 6-year-old daughter. |
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MELENIE FREEDOM FLYNN’s memoir-in-progress is currently being supported by grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, Djerassi Artist-in-Residence Fellowship, Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, and scholarships to the Community of Writers Workshop. Her essay “Message from Your Inmate” won the annual nonfiction contest at Vela Magazine and her recent work can be seen in Provincetown Arts Magazine and the Straw Dog Pandemic Poetry and Prose Journal. A graduate of the MFA Acting Program at California Institute of the Arts, Melenie has performed in theatres across the country including the New York Theatre Workshop, the Kitchen (NY), Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre (MA), and Majestic Theatre (MA). Visit her online at meleniefreedomflynn.com. |
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DORIAN FOX's essays, articles and stories have appeared in a wide range of literary publications, including Brevity, The Rumpus, Gay Magazine, Atticus Review, Under the Gum Tree, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, december, Creative Nonfiction’s Sunday Short Reads and others. His work has also been honored in various competitions and received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. A longtime Massachusetts resident, he now lives in Brighton, MA. Find him online at dorianfox.com |
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ANITA GILL is a Fulbright Scholar whose work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Kweli, Prairie Schooner, The Offing, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her writing has been listed as Notable in Best American Essays and has won The Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction. She holds an MA in Literature from American University, and an MFA in Writing from Pacific University. She currently serves as Nonfiction Editor for Hypertext Review while working on a novel. Find her online at www.anitagill.ink. |
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JOAN KWON GLASS is the author of NIGHT SWIM (Diode Editions, 2022) & three chapbooks including IF RUST CAN GROW ON THE MOON (Milk & Cake Press, 2022). She serves as poet laureate for Milford, CT, as Editor in Chief for Harbor Review & as a Brooklyn Poets mentor. Joan teaches on the faculty of Hudson Valley Writers Center, Brooklyn Poets, Maine Writers Alliance & the International Women’s Writing Guild. Joan’s poems have been published in or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Asian American Writer’s Workshop (The Margins), Rattle, RHINO, Dialogist & elsewhere. |
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NEIL RICHARD GRAYSON was raised in the woods of upstate New York. Since then, he’s been a schoolteacher, video game designer, rock climbing instructor, bartender, and cross-country hitchhiker. He holds degrees in English & Education from SUNY Potsdam, and an MFA from Ohio State University. His fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in CutBank, HOBART, StoryScape Journal, Fiction Southeast, among others. He’s been awarded fellowships from The Kenyon Review, Community of Writers, and Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart. |
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ÁINE GREANEY is an Irish born author now living in eastern Massachusetts. In addition to her five published books, she has published personal and opinion essays in publications such as Creative Nonfiction, The Boston Globe Magazine, New York Times Tiny Love Story, Another Chicago Magazine, WBUR/Cognoscenti and an essay collection, Green Card & Other Essays. She has also been a featured storyteller in "Stories from the Stage" at PBS The World Channel. Her work has been cited in Best American Essays, and she has led writing workshops in New England, New York and Ireland and has presented on writing at two national conferences. She holds an MA in English. Find her online at ainegreaney.com |
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SIMON HAN is the author of Nights When Nothing Happened (Riverhead Books). His stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Texas Observer, Guernica, The Iowa Review, Electric Literature, and LitHub. He has received scholarships and fellowships from MacDowell, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Bread Loaf, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and Vanderbilt University, where he received his MFA. Born in Tianjin, China, he lives in Carrollton, TX. |
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LIZ HARMER is the author of the novels The Amateurs (2018) and Strange Loops (2023). Her stories, essays, and poems have been published at the Globe & Mail, The Walrus, Best Canadian Stories, The New Quarterly, Hazlitt, Image Journal, and elsewhere. A recent fellow at the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, she was also the runner-up for the Mitchell Prize in poetry. She’s the winner of a National Magazine Award for Personal Journalism, a CRAFT Literary Creative Nonfiction Award, and the WAGs-ProQuest Award Distinguished Masters Thesis, among other prizes. She teaches in the MFA program at Chapman University. |
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BLAIR HURLEY is the author of THE DEVOTED, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her second novel, MINOR PROPHETS will be published in 2023. Her work is published in New England Review, Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Guernica, Paris Review Daily, West Branch, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize winner and an ASME Fiction award finalist. |
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BEN JACKSON holds an MFA in fiction from Boston University and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. His nonfiction writing has appeared in The London Review of Books, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Awl, and The Guardian, among others, and his short fiction has appeared in West Branch and is forthcoming in American Short Fiction. He's received grants from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Banff Center, and is working on his first novel. Find him online at www.bhjackson.com. |
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CELIA JEFFRIES is the author of the award-winning novel Blue Desert. Her work has appeared in numerous newspapers and literary magazines including Westview, Solstice, and Puerto del Sol, as well as the anthology Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper. She holds an MA from Brandeis and an MFA from Lesley University. Find her online at www.celiajeffries.com. |
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DREW JOHNSON's stories have appeared in Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, The Cupboard, Gulf Coast, New England Review, and elsewhere. Reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming at Literary Hub, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the University of Virginia. |
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MICHELLE LEVY has an MA in Writing and a Certificate in Manuscript Editing. She's been teaching creative writing in New York and online for more than a decade. Her essays have appeared in Hippocampus Magazine, Humans and Nature, GoNOMAD, Saltfront, and more. She is also a certified nature educator. Learn more about her at www.michellesydneylevy.com. |
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ASHLEY LOPEZ is a literary agent and rights manager at Waxman Literary Agency, in NYC. She received her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and is a founder and the managing editor of Pigeon Pages Literary Journal. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Cosmonauts Avenue, Columbia Literary Journal, and elsewhere, and her work has been nominated for Best American Short Stories. Ashley represents literary and young adult fiction, narrative nonfiction, and memoir. She seeks authors with a strong point of view, a unique story, and an eye for language. |
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KEN MONDSCHEIN is a writer, scholar, and college professor, as well as a professional fencing coach. He received his PhD in history from Fordham University, was a Fulbright scholar to France and has taught, inter alia, at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His work has appeared in print publications such as Renaissance Magazine and the late, lamented New York Press; online outlets such as McSweeney's and Medievalists.net; and in Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland's DODO files. He's written around a dozen academic and non-academic books, including On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping (Johns Hopkins), Game of Thrones and the Medieval Art of War (McFarland), several translations of medieval and early modern fencing treatises, and also introductions to Canterbury Classics literature.
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NAILA MOREIRA's middle-grade novel THE MONARCHS OF WINGHAVEN, about two children who bond over their love of nature-watching as they try to save a plot of land in their town, while recording their observations in illustrated journal pages throughout, is forthcoming from Walker Books US in spring 2022. Moreira teaches at Smith College and has been writer-in-residence at the Shoals Marine Laboratory and Forbes Library in Northampton MA. Her second chapbook, Water Street, won the New England Poetry Club Jean Pedrick Prize. She’s also worked as a journalist, environmental consultant, and Seattle Aquarium docent, and holds a doctorate in geology. |
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GIULIETTA NARDONE has been leading writing programs on-line and in person since 2008. Her personal essays and short memoirs have been featured in publications such as Psychology Today, Spirituality & Health Magazine, Boston Globe Magazine, Purple Shamrock, Christian Science Monitor, Chicken Soup For the Soul and broadcast on public radio. Her non-fiction book, Feel More Alive! 30 Brilliant Ways To Reignite Your Inner Spark was released by Citrine Publishing in October 2020. |
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REBECCA OLANDER is the editor/director of Perugia Press, a nonprofit feminist poetry press. She has taught poetry writing at Amherst College, Westfield State University, and Mass Poetry, and she works with poets in the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University. Her poetry and collaborative visual and written work has been published widely, and her books include Dressing the Wounds (dancing girl press, 2019) and Uncertain Acrobats (CavanKerry Press, 2021). She holds a BA from Hampshire College, an MAT in English from Smith College, and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. |
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FRANCINE PUCKLY holds a BS in Communication and Master of Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. She writes young adult contemporary and historical fiction and is co-founder of 24CarrotWriting.com. She is the lead writer and editor for a Department of Defense contractor, creating and editing vital content for service members and their families. Her publishing credits include The Word-A-Day Vocabulary Workbook (Adams Media/Simon and Schuster) and more than 50 humor essays which have appeared in a number of regional magazines, newspapers, and college publications. She has completed a collection of personal essays and two young adult contemporary fiction novels. She is currently at work on a young adult historical fiction novel set in the 1920s. |
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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. |
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CANDICE REFFE's book of poems Live from the Mood Board won Elixir Press’s Antivenom Poetry Award and was published in 2019. She was twice a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a Mass Cultural Council Artist fellow. Her poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, Hotel Amerika, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Witness and elsewhere. She received an M.F.A. from Columbia University and is a certified professional coach. |
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KIRA ROCKWELL is a neurodiverse playwright and educator. She is an Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing with the Mass Cultural Council, a Recipient of Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award, an Elliot Norton Nominee, and more. Selected plays include OH TO BE PURE AGAIN (Actor's Express); THE TRAGIC ECSTASY OF GIRLHOOD (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); and WITH MY EYES SHUT (Original Works Publishing). Her work has been developed with The Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, Great Plains Theatre Commons, among others. Commissions with Ensemble Studio Theatre and Moonbox Productions. BFA in Theatre Performance from Baylor University. MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. As an educator, Rockwell has taught at Brandeis University, Wheaton College, and centers across New England. Before graduate school, Rockwell worked at the intersection of mental health and arts education. Through a trauma-informed, healing-centered lens, she aims to nurture communal spaces that disrupt passivity and empower agency. www.kirarockwell.com
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JENNIFER ROSNER is the author of the novel, The Yellow Bird Sings (Macmillan/Flatiron Books, forthcoming March 2020) and the memoir, If A Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be Heard (Feminist Press). Her children's book, The Mitten String (Random House), is a Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable. Jennifer's writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Massachusetts Review, The Forward, Good Housekeeping, and elsewhere. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stanford University. She currently teaches at The Care Center in Holyoke, MA. |
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ARYA SAMUELSON is the winner of the CutBank’s 2019 Montana Prize in Non-Fiction, awarded by Cheryl Strayed. Her work has also been published in Columbia Journal, New Delta Review, Entropy, and The Millions. She is a proud graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing Program from Mills College and has been studying at Lidia Yuknavitch’s school of Corporeal Writing since 2017. She teaches with LitReactor, Sundress Academy for the Arts, and through her own teaching series, Writing as Ritual. Arya writes across all genres and is currently working on a novel. |
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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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JYOTSNA “JO” SREENIVASAN is the author of the short story collection These Americans and the novel And Laughter Fell From the Sky. Both are about Indian Americans in the Midwest. Her short stories have been published in literary magazines, including Copper Nickel, Tampa Review, and Tiferet. Some of her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She was selected as a Fiction Fellow at the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and was a finalist for the 2014 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. For more information about Jyotsna as well as other writers who are children of immigrants, please see www.SecondGenStories.com. |
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CAROLINE BELLE STEWART's stories can be found in Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook "Husbandly Things" (Factory Hollow) and co-creator of “Mast Year: A Mystical Field Guide" (Mount Analogue). A recipient of fellowships from Monson Arts and MacDowell, she lives in Western Massachusetts. |
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DENNIS JAMES SWEENEY is the author of In the Antarctic Circle, winner of the Autumn House Press Rising Writer Prize (forthcoming in 2021), as well as four chapbooks of poetry and prose. His nonfiction has appeared in The Southern Review and Witness; his poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review and The New York Times; and his fiction has appeared in Crazyhorse and Indiana Review, among others. A Small Press Editor for Entropy and former Fulbright grantee, he holds an MFA from Oregon State University and a PhD from the University of Denver. Find him online at www.dennisjamessweeney.com |
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FUNGAI TICHIWANGANA is a writer, journalist, and web developer who has lived in Western MA since 2018. In June 2020 he launched Valley of Writers, a project aimed at sharing tools, ideas and success stories with writers in the Pioneer Valley and beyond. He has managed numerous online projects to support art & culture initiatives and in 2015 was awarded a Nieman Journalism Fellowship at Harvard. He is passionate about teaching artists and creatives how to use online tools to expose their work to new audiences. |
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GAIL THOMAS' books are Trail of Roots, Leaving Paradise, Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, Cumberland River Review, and Mom Egg Review. Among her awards are the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back, the Quartet Journal’s Editor’s Choice Prize, and Seven Kitchen Press’s A.V. Christie Chapbook Series award for Trail of Roots. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches poetry with Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop, visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog, and works with immigrant and refugee communities in Western Massachusetts. You may read more about her work at www.gailthomaspoet.com.
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ERIC MAX WILLIAMS is a fiction and software writer who teaches workshops in Scrivener, for writers. He aims to distill his years using and beta testing Scrivener to demonstrate workflows for both short-form and longer writing. His goal is to help you finish your story before he finishes his own (but only by a day or two). He promises it’s not that scary. |
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CAROLYN ZAIKOWSKI is is the author of the hybrid novels In 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 in The Washington Post, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, PANK, West Branch, DIAGRAM, Everyday Feminism, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and is currently an English professor and volunteer death doula. Find her online at www.carolynzaikowski.com. |
Community Partners
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