Ana Cristina Alvarez

fiction

hometown: Miami, FL; St. Louis, MO; and most recently Durham, NC.
BA: English, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Ana has worked in book publishing, bookstores (both big chains and indies), and is completing the trifecta with a MFA. She is a teaching assistant in The Publishing Laboratory. She is often seen with a cup of coffee or some sort of espresso-based beverage. This is the first time she has written of herself in the third person.

Sarah Andrew
fiction

hometown: Greensboro, NC
BFA: creative writing, UNC Wilmington

Sarah is a teaching assistant in The Publishing Laboratory. She has interned with Chautauqua and contributed to The Beat Magazine (now defunct, probably not her fault), and as an undergrad received the BFA thesis award in fiction.

Jade Benoit
poetry

hometown: Arnaudville, LA
BA: English and creative writing, Louisiana State University

Jade is an intern for Lookout Books, coordinator for Writers in Action, and a retail shipping extraordinaire for online shoppers via a local boutique. Her work is forthcoming in the Apalachee Review, Espresso Ink, and the first issue of Smoking Glue Gun Magazine.

Garrard Conley
fiction

hometown: Mountain Home, AR
BA: English, Lyon College
MA: creative writing/English, Auburn University

Garrard spends most of his days in The Publishing Laboratory. A Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, he served as an English teacher in Ukraine for three years. Last year, he was invited to Bulgaria as a Sozopol Fiction Seminar Fellow, where his love for Eastern Europe grew. He currently serves as fiction editor of Absinthe: New European Writing. His stories can be found in Spork and Vagabond.

Michelle E. Crouch
fiction

hometown: Raleigh, NC
BA: art history, Swarthmore College

Michelle is one of the co-founders of APIARY Magazine. She holds a master's degree in library science and has worked in a bookstore, an art library, and a museum dedicated to The Three Stooges. Her fiction has appeared in the Indiana Review.

Sam Deal
poetry

hometown: Boone, NC
BA: comparative literature and creative writing, UNC Chapel Hill

Sam Deal is originally from Boone, NC. Sam was published in the fall 2007 issue of UNC Chapel Hill's undergraduate lit magazine the Cellar Door. She was also a member of the 2007 women's ACC championship swimming and diving team at UNC Chapel Hill.

Nicola DeRobertis-Theye
creative nonfiction

hometown: Oakland, CA
BA: English and anthropology, UC Berkeley

Nicola has written for Bay Nature magazine. She is currently a coordinator for the Young Writers Workshop.

Regina DiPerna
poetry

hometown: Medina, OH
BA: English, The Ohio State University

Regina is a third-year poet and teaching assistant. She also serves as poetry editor of the award-winning literary journal Ecotone. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the Cincinnati Review, Boston Review, This Land Press, the Tulane Review, and Poets & Artists. She can be found on Twitter @diperniac.

Jen Dotsey
fiction

hometown: Clearfield, PA
BA: English and religion, Dartmouth College
MTS: theological studies, Harvard Divinity School

Jen is a teaching assistant in the creative writing department. Previously, she taught high school literature and social justice in Seattle, where she actually really liked the rain. She is at work on a novel.

Meredith Fraser
fiction

hometown: Tampa and Tallahassee, FL
BA: English, Dartmouth College

Before her time at UNCW, Meredith was a writer and/or editor for several newspapers, a medical magazine (she has zero medical training, but if you had to have a non-doctor operate on you, she might be your best option), and Shmoop.com, a study guide website. She quit when they made her write the study guide for Twilight. (Seriously.) She has worked for Academic Affairs at UNCW, with the hella-awesome Dr. Kimberly Cook, and has been the managing editor of both Ecotone and Chautauqua. She's also a contributing editor for Blunderbuss Magazine (launching March 2013!), and her fiction has appeared in the Owen Wister Review. She owns more school supplies than any human being could ever use in one lifetime.

Catey Gonzalez
fiction

hometown: Boone, NC
BFA: creative writing, UNC Wilmington

Catey enjoys being a writing tutor, graduate assistant, full-time student, and very-part-time teacher, but hopes to be able to enjoy fewer things in the future. She loves and writes contemporary young adult novels. Her work has appeared in various small publications at Appalachian State University and UNCW.

Christine Hennessey
fiction

hometown: Long Island, NY
BA: creative writing, SUNY Purchase

Before coming to Wilmington, Chrissy spent seven years in rural East Texas, where she became an academic librarian, played roller derby, adopted two 100-pound dogs, and hosted a Literary Reading Series at her best friend's yoga studio. She is a teaching assistant at UNCW and her fiction has appeared in LIT, Forge, and The Molotov Cocktail.

Ben Hoffman
fiction

hometown: Harrisburg, PA
BA: English, Tufts University
MAT: secondary education, American University

Ben is a teaching assistant in the creative writing department. At Tufts, Ben was awarded the Mary Grant Charles Prize Scholarship for his senior thesis in fiction. He taught middle school English in Washington, D.C. and worked for several think tanks, doing various amounts of thinking about education policy.

Kate Johnsen
poetry

hometown: West Newton, MA
BA: playwriting and French studies, Emory University

Kate received honorable mention for Emory's 2009 Screenwriting Award and her plays have been performed in both of Emory's new play festivals. Her poetry is currently in the slush pile at literary magazines she greatly respects.

Sally J. Johnson
poetry

hometown: Grand Rapids, MI
BA: creative writing, Lee Honors College, Western Michigan University

Sally is the managing editor of Ecotone. She is also the poetry editor for Atlantis, UNCW's creative magazine, and instructs first graders as a Writers in Action teacher. Her poetry and nonfiction have been featured in The Pinch, Sundog Lit, The Boiler Journal, Fogged Clarity, and Treehouse Magazine.

Kathleen (Katie) Jones
poetry

hometown: West Lafayette, IN
BA: English, Earlham College

Katie is a teaching assistant in The Publishing Laboratory. Her poems have appeared in nibble, Stickman Review, Jones Av., and morpheme.

Brent Livingood
creative nonfiction

hometown: Chattanooga, TN
BA: history and religion, Emory & Henry College
M.Div and Th.M: Duke University

Brent's cats, GoodKnight and HouseCat, read and write for Brent in exchange for a clean litter box, the right to stay up all night, an open window, and a continuous supply of cat food. GoodKnight and HouseCat are having a difficult time finding an agent to take them seriously.

Paul Maisano
fiction

hometown: San Francisco, CA
BA: Japanese sociocultural studies, Columbia University

Before Wilmington, and after a stint in the fashion industry, Paul was traipsing around five continents on a four-year joyride, during which he realized he should probably rejoin a writing community. He is at work on his second novel. Oh yeah, publishing—he’s going to try that, too.

Mitchell McInnis
poetry

hometown: Portland, OR
BA: philosophy, Concordia College

Mitch McInnis was born and raised in Montana. More recently, he's lived in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York, and Portland, Oregon. In these locales, he's worked as a journalist, copywriter, private investigator, and coffee importer. Mitch is the co-founder and literary editor of the arts journal HoboEye.

His poems have appeared in Cold-Drill, So to Speak, and other publications. While promoting his first poetry collection, The Missing Shade of Blue, he was a featured author at the Montana Festival of the Book, High Plains Bookfest, and the Univeristy of Montana-Western's "Dances with Words" series.

Kathryn Miller
creative nonfiction

hometown: Chicago, IL
BA: political science, University of Colorado, Boulder
JD: Loyola University Chicago

Kathryn teaches with Writers in Action. Before moving to Wilmington, she was an attorney working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Kathryn is hopeful that from now on the only contracts she'll be reviewing are her own.

Jeremy Francis Morris
poetry

hometown: Lake Gaston, Virginia
BFA: creative writing, UNC Wilmington

John Mortara
poetry

hometown: River Vale, NJ
BA: English and creative writing, Penn State

John's poetry has appeared in PANK Magazine and RHINO Poetry.

Alessandra (Ali) Nolan
creative nonfiction

hometown: Middletown, NJ
BA: English with a creative writing concentration, Wells College

Katie Prince
poetry

hometown: Southlake, TX
BA: English/creative writing, University of Missouri

Katie is a teaching assistant in The Publishing Laboratory. She has interned at Persea Books and The Missouri Review, and came to UNCW after some brief and unremarkable forays into journalism, news design, retail, and waitressing. Her poems have appeared in Epic.

Myra Tejada Rasmussen
poetry

hometown: Chicago, IL
BA: English, University of Notre Dame

Prior to coming to Wilmington, Myra worked in pharmaceutical advertising for over 10 years in Chicago and NYC. She's an avid marathon and ultra marathon runner and when she's not writing poetry or running, she's working with her husband's adventure travel company as a co-race director for international marathons. They will not miss the Chicago winters but will miss deep-dish pizza, the Lakefront, and Greek Islands food!

Erica Sklar
creative nonfiction

hometown: New York City, most recently
BA: creative writing, Columbia University

Erica Sklar is a teaching assistant in the creative writing department, and is also an associate editor of Chautauqua. Her work has been published in The Master's Review and is forthcoming in Barely South.

Anna Sutton
poetry

hometown: Nashville, TN
BFA: art education and painting, Appalachian Center for Craft

Anna is the Creative Writing GSA co-president and works with Lookout Books, Young Writers Workshop, and One Pause Poetry, in addition to being one of Wilmington's part-timiest baristas. Anna's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, DIAGRAM, and Yemassee. Her website is annabsutton.com.

Gabriella Rosette Tallmadge
poetry

hometown: San Diego, CA
BA: English, San Diego State University

Gaby is in her third year as a teaching assistant in the creative writing department. She also manages social media and web content on www.onepausepoetry.org. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in War, Literature & the Arts, Ramblings On, and UNDERCURRENTS Magazine.

Sadye Teiser
fiction

hometown: New York, NY
BA: comparative literature with a creative writing certificate, Princeton University

Eric Tran
creative nonfiction

hometown: Santa Clara, CA
BA: English literature, Stanford University

Eric Tran has been published in The Claw and was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts and a Levinthal Tutorial at Stanford University in 2010.

Sophia Ulmer
creative nonfiction

hometown: Indiana
BA: creative nonfiction, Columbia College Chicago

Before moving to Wilmington, Sophia was both a reading tutor for dyslexic students and waitress extraordinaire. She hopes an MFA will ensure her future evasion of the latter occupation. Her work has appeared in the South Loop Review, on www.crabbygolightly.com, and is forthcoming in several unsuspecting journals.

Carson Vaughan
creative nonfiction

hometown: Broken Bow, NE
BA: English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
BJ: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Carson is the founding editor of The DailyER Nebraskan, UNL's first and only satirical news source. He has interned for The Onion and Variety Magazine, and regularly contributed freelance work to the Lincoln Journal Star and other regional publications until moving to North Carolina.

Ethan Warren
fiction

hometown: Boston, MA
BA: English and psychology, Bates College

Ethan has written for newspapers, magazines, and just for the hell of it.

Laura Williams
nonfiction

hometown: Wilmington, NC
BA: English/BFA: creative writing, UNC Wilmington

By day Laura is the business manager of Friends School of Wilmington. She says she has to keep working to support her school habit. She is very excited to be in such esteemed company here at UNCW.

Joe Worthen
fiction

hometown: Greenville, SC
BA: media arts, University of South Carolina

Joe's fiction has appeared in Wag's Revue, 971 Menu, Straight Teeth Zine, and The Lettered Olive. His website is www.mezacht.com.