MFA in Writing Faculty

A standout among his many books and essays, Benjamin Anastas’ novel An Underachiever’s Diary has been called “the funniest, most underappreciated novel of the ’90s.”

Doug Bauer’s novels, essays, journalism, and anthologies have won wide praise for their stylistic precision, clarity, and ability to capture the texture and grit of American life.

April Bernard is a poet, novelist, and essayist. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship in poetry and the Stover Memorial Prize.

Sven Birkerts is author of The Gutenberg Elegies. His many books and essays examine the fraught interrelationship between reading culture and electronic culture.

Blanchfield is the author of three books of poetry and prose, most recently Proxies. A collection of essays—part cultural close reading, part dicey autobiography—Proxies was awarded a 2016 Whiting Award in Nonfiction, and was named a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Memoir and the PEN USA Literary Award in Nonfiction.

Among Susan Cheever’s many works are Drinking in America and American Bloomsbury, biographies of E.E. Cummings and Louisa May Alcott, a biographical memoir of her father, John Cheever, five novels, and essays in The New York Times and The New Yorker, and a weekly column in Newsday.

Febos is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart and the essay collection, Abandon Me, which The New Yorker called “mesmerizing,” and was an Indie Next Pick and named a Best Book of 2017 by Esquire, Book Riot, The Cut, Electric Literature, The Brooklyn Rail, Bustle, Refinery29, Salon, and The Rumpus. Her second essay collection is forthcoming from Bloomsbury in 2019.

David Gates was for many years a staff writer for Newsweek. He has won the Guggenheim fellowship, and his books have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

Manuel Gonzales is the author of The Miniature Wife and Other Stories, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the John Gardner Prize for Fiction, and the novel, The Regional Office is Under Attack!

Amy Hempel is the award-winning author of Reasons to Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, Tumble Home, and The Dog of the Marriage.

Major Jackson is the author of four collections of poetry: Holding Company and Hoops, both finalists for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Poetry, Leaving Saturn, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle, and Roll Deep.

Dinah Lenney is author of the memoir Bigger Than Life and The Object Parade. In that most recent book, says one critic, “Lenney draws upon her experiences as a working actor and mother, offering a reflective and candid look at the connection between sentiment and necessity.”

Alice Mattison is the author of many critically acclaimed works of fiction. The New York Times describes her prose as “so crisp that along with all the pleasures of fiction she manages to deliver the particular intellectual satisfactions of an essay or a documentary.”

Jill McCorkle is the author of 10 books—four story collections and six novels—five of which have been selected as New York Times Notable Books. She is the winner of the New England Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, and the North Carolina Award for Literature.

Deirdre McNamer is the author of four novels: Rima in the Weeds, One Sweet Quarrel, My Russian, and Red Rover (Viking, 2007). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications.

Stuart Nadler is the author of two novels and a short story collection, including Wise Men, The Book of Life, and, most recently, The Inseparables.

Lynne Schwartz is the author of 25 books, including novels, short-story collections, nonfiction, poetry, and translations, which have garnered her National Book Award and PEN Award nominations and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA.

Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir and six poetry collections, including Milk and Filth, a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle award in poetry. She was awarded an American Book Award for her memoir Bring Down the Little Birds and the Juniper Prize for Poetry for her collection Goodbye, Flicker.

Clifford Thompson received a Whiting Writers' Award for nonfiction for his 2013 Love for Sale and Other Essays. His writings have appeared in The Village Voice, The Threepenny Review, The Iowa Review, and a host of other noted publications.

Torres’ first novel We the Animals, a national best seller, has been translated into fifteen languages and is currently being adapted into a feature film. The National Book Foundation named him one of its 5 Under 35.  

Peter Trachtenberg is the author of 7 Tattoos, The Book of Calamities, and Another Insane Devotion. His essays, journalism, and short fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, A Public Space, Bidoun, and The New York Times’ travel magazine.

Mark Wunderlich is author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry, and his poems, interviews, reviews, and translations have appeared in journals such as Slate, The Paris Review, and Poetry, and in more than 30 anthologies.