MFA in Writing: Related Content
We talked to five Writing Seminars alums who plunged into the literary world after their MFAs: one started a publishing company, another founded a writers retreat, while others created a newsletter and two reading series. They all spoke about the power of making new connections and the ongoing relationships that began at Bennington.
Hawkins’ first book, Saxophone, about the secret history of the iconic instrument, was just released. We talked to her about her relationship to the horn and got some research pro tips.
Lucy Murrell, an MFA student in poetry, has been selected to be the fifteenth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
Marian Bull, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the fourteenth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Anna Gazmarian (MFA, ’20, Nonfiction) began work on what would become her debut, Devout: A Memoir of Doubt (Simone & Schuster, 2024), while she was a nonfiction student in the Bennington Writing Seminars. The book chronicles her struggles with bipolar disorder as a member of the Evangelical community, where prayer was posited as the only solution to mental health distress. I talked to Anna on the heels of her book tour. Among other things, we discuss writing, publishing, and going to church at the gym.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Ten amazing writers have recently joined the Writing Seminars faculty, and we’re thrilled to introduce them. We asked them to tell us about the last thing they wrote, among other things. Read their answers, as well as some brilliant first sentences from their books and essays.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Jason Sebastian Russo is currently studying fiction and poetry in the Writing Seminars as a dual-genre MFA candidate. He’s also the residential teaching fellow for the Spring term. But before he came to Bennington, he had a long and flourishing career in indie rock—he was a member of the legendary Mercury Rev as well as a number of other bands, including Hopewell, Guiding Light, and Pete International Airport. As he begins his semester on campus, he and I talked about how he found his way from the stage to the page, the differences between songs and poems, and the power and importance of teaching.
Etan Kerr-Finell, a fourth term MFA student in poetry, has been selected to be the eleventh Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
Sarah Zoric, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the tenth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
In 2022, undergraduate and Bennington Writing Seminars alumni and faculty published over 50 books. Their writing spanned a wide range of genres from nonfiction essays, memoirs, and biographies, to novels, poetry, young adult literature, and short stories.
Whether you’re looking for the perfect gift for a loved one or for yourself this holiday season (you deserve a ‘lil treat), we’ve rounded up a handy list of new and classic books written by the Bennington community to delight even the pickiest of readers.
Bennington Writing Seminars faculty member Eula Biss has been selected as a 2023 New America National Fellow.
Bennington College is pleased to announce the following promotions and staffing at the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Kim Cooper, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the ninth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
Mark Wunderlich, Director of Bennington Writing Seminars, faculty member Craig Morgan Teicher, and past faculty Paul Yoon, Ephraim Asili, Kaitlyn Greenidge, and Alexander Chee are recipients of the prestigious 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships.
Lance Richardson is the author of two internationally acclaimed books, True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen (2025), and House of Nutter: The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row (2018). He is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including a year-long residency at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
Rachel Cohen is the author of three books of nonfiction, most recently Austen Years: A Memoir in Five Novels, which was published by FSG in 2020 to critical acclaim. She most recently taught in the MFA in the Summer 2025 term.
Jai Chakrabarti is the author of the novel A Play for the End of the World, and the story collection A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness. He most recently taught in the MFA in the Summer 2025 term.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Carole Maso is revered by readers and fellow writers for her boundary-breaking novels, including The Art Lover, AVA, and most recently, Mother & Child. She joined the faculty of the Writing Seminars this past June and, on the first day of residency, gave a remarkable lecture that set the mood for the whole ten days. We talked about that lecture and the relationship between a writer’s life and her work.
Thomas Grattan is the author of the novels The Recent East and In Tongues, both published by MCD Books/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Saeed Jones is the author of the memoir How We Fight for Our Lives, and the poetry collections Prelude to Bruise and Alive at the End of the World. He is the 2024-2025 artist-in-residence in the Media, Health and Medicine program at Harvard Medical School. His next book, Home Out There, a memoir, is forthcoming from Washington Square Press.
Samantha Hunt is the author of The Unwritten Book, essays about death and literature; The Seas about a girl who might be a mermaid; The Dark Dark, short fictions; Mr. Splitfoot, a ghost story; and The Invention of Everything Else about Nikola Tesla.
Moriel Rothman-Zecher is the author of the novels Before All the World (FSG), which was named an NPR Best Book of 2022, and Sadness Is a White Bird (Atria Books), for which Rothman-Zecher received the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” Honor, and the poetry collection I Still Won't Have Known, which is forthcoming from BOA Editions. Photo by Laurence Kesterson.
Dawn Lundy Martin, an American poet, essayist, and memoirist, is the author of five books of poems including Good Stock Strange Blood, winner of the 2019 Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry. Martin most recently taught in the MFA in the Summer 2025 term.
Dana Levin is the author of five books of poetry, including Now Do You Know Where You Are. She co-edited Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master. She has received honors from the NEA, PEN, the Library of Congress, as well as from the Whiting and Guggenheim Foundations.
Bruna Dantas Lobato is a writer and translator. She was awarded the 2023 National Book Award in Translated Literature for The Words that Remain by Stênio Gardel. Originally from Natal, Brazil, she lives in Iowa and teaches at Grinnell College. Her debut novel, Blue Light Hours, is out now from Grove Atlantic.
Rebecca Makkai is the author of the New York Times bestselling I Have Some Questions for You, as well as the novels The Great Believers (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal), The Borrower, and The Hundred-Year House, and the story collection Music for Wartime.
Craig Morgan Teicher is the Director of Special Projects for the Writing Seminars and the author of four books of poetry, most recently Welcome to Sonnetville, New Jersey. He was a 2021 Guggenheim fellow, and his next book of poems will be published in 2026.
Bianca Stone is a Vermont-based poet and scholar currently serving as Vermont’s poet laureate. Stone is the author of many books, including the poetry collections What is Otherwise Infinite, which received the 2022 Vermont Book Award; and The Near and Distant World, out from Tin House in January, 2026. She most recently taught in the MFA in the Summer 2025 term.
Sabrina Orah Mark is the author of the poetry collections Tsim Tsum and The Babies, the story collection Wild Milk, and the essay collection Happily: A Personal History—with Fairy Tales.