Writing (MFA): Related Content
Bennington alumni make the lives they want and places for others.
By Ashley Brenon Jowett
Bennington College alumni and faculty members are publishing novels, memoirs, short story collections, non-fiction books, and poetry books. Check out the round up below to learn who was published this spring.
At age 92, Lucie McKee MFA '86 has released her poetry collection debut, Anything and Its Shadow, published through Vermont's Green Writers Press.
Writer and medical technology executive Ciaran Cooper ’87 MFA ’04 has been elected to join the Bennington College Board of Trustees.
Marian Bull, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the fourteenth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
By Louise Roug Bokkenheuser
Sunlight filters through the curtains onto the desk by the window. Books, papers, and pens suggest a creative mind at work. The writer has just stepped away, leaving their glasses on an open notebook. A gooseneck lamp conveys the long hours, the flowers in the vase a consideration for beauty.
Carly Willsie, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the thirteenth 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
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.
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.
The latest additions to Bennington’s rich literary history have hit bookstore shelves. Their authors join Bennington notables, including Donna Tartt '86, Kiran Desai '93, Michael Pollan '76, Ann Goldstein '71, Anaïs Duplan '14, Anne Waldman '66, Cynthia Sweeney MFA '13, Jamie Quatro MFA '09, Amy Gerstler '01, Morgan Jerkins MFA '16, and Charles Bock '97.
Jason Sebastian Russo, an MFA student in fiction and poetry, has been selected to be the twelfth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
By Craig Morgan Teicher
Hugh Ryan graduated from the Bennington Writing Seminars in 2009 and went on to publish two acclaimed books of nonfiction, When Brooklyn Was Queer (2019) and The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, which won the Stonewall Book Award/Israel Fishman Award for Nonfiction and the Warren Johansson Award. He has taught nonfiction at the Writing Seminars since 2022, and just sold his next book, Becoming History, a memoir in essays. He talked with me about turning research into writing and falling back in love with the essay.
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.
For Writer's Digest, Jen Hinst-White '02 MFA '12, who publishes under the pen name June Gervais, discusses the debut novel publishing process, what it's like growing up feeling like a misfit, and the joys of finding an artistic community.
Bennington Writing Seminars faculty member Monica Ferrell has published a poem, "Infancy," in the June 6, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.
Visiting faculty member Colin Brant, former Bennington Writing Seminars faculty member Melissa Febos, and Michael Pollan '76 are recipients of the prestigious 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Louise Bokkenheuser, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the eighth Residential Teaching Fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Poet Diane Seuss delivered the 53rd Bennington Writing Seminars Commencement address at the program's virtual winter residency.
Ariél M. Martinez, an MFA student in nonfiction, has been selected to be the seventh Residential Teaching Fellow at the 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.
The National Endowment for the Arts has announced that Bennington Writing Seminars alum Albert Abonado MFA '10 and faculty member Phillip B. Williams will receive Creative Writing Fellowships of $25,000.
Poet and author Paisley Rekdal delivered the 51st Bennington Writing Seminars Commencement address at the program's virtual winter residency.
Bennington College alum Asad J. Malik '19 and Bennington Writing Seminars alum Morgan Jerkins MFA '16 have been selected as 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees.