Writing (MFA): Related Content

Robert Wood Lynn is a poet from Virginia. His debut collection Mothman Apologia (2022 Yale University Press) was the winner of the 2021 Yale Younger Poets prize and the 2023 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His work has been featured in American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, The Nation, Poetry Magazine, The Yale Review, and other publications. He teaches poetry at Juilliard and cohosts the DGN Reading Series in Brooklyn, New York.

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.

’Pemi Aguda is from Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut collection of stories, Ghostroots, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her debut novel, One Leg on Earth, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton in May 2026.

Joshua Wheeler is the author of the essay collection Acid West, which was named a best book of 2018 by Newsweek, The Paris Review, and O, The Oprah Magazine. He’s written for The New York Times, Alta, and Harper’s Magazine. His novel, The High Heaven, was published in 2025 by Graywolf Press. Originally from Alamogordo, New Mexico, Wheeler now lives in New Orleans and teaches at Louisiana State University.

Emily Nemens is the author of the novels The Cactus League (2020) and the forthcoming Clutch. She spent a dozen years editing literary quarterlies, including leading The Paris Review, and serving as co-editor and prose editor of The Southern Review. 

Photo by James Emmerman.

Thomas Grattan is the author of the novels The Recent East and In Tongues, both published by MCD Books/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

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.

Derek Palacio is the author of the novella How to Shake the Other Man and the novel The Mortifications. 

De’Shawn Charles Winslow is the author of Decent People, and In West Mills, which was a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize winner. His third novel will be published in 2026.

Stuart Nadler is the author of three novels and a short story collection. His new novel, Rooms for Vanishing, will be published early next year. 

Monica Ferrell is the author of three books of fiction and poetry, most recently the collection You Darling Thing (Four Way, 2018), a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and Believer Book Award in Poetry.

Shawna Kay Rodenberg is the author of the memoir Kin. She has been the recipient of a Jean Ritchie Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, and her essays have appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, and Elle. 

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.

Carter Sickels is the author of the novels The Prettiest Star (2020) and The Evening Hour (2012). His writing has appeared in publications including The Kenyon Review, The Atlantic, Oxford American, Poets & Writers, and Guernica. He is the 2024 recipient of Lambda Literary’s Duggins Prize for Outstanding Mid-Career LGBTQ Novelists.

Edward Carey is a writer and illustrator whose books include The Iremonger Trilogy; Observatory Mansions; Little; The Swallowed Man; and Edith Holler. His artwork has been exhibited in Britain, Ireland, Italy, and America; his essays and reviews have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Observer, Corriere della Serra, and La Repubblica. Named a Guggenheim fellow in 2019, his writing has been translated in over twenty-five languages.