Conference Presenters
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Jill Christman’s memoir, Darkroom: A Family Exposure, won the AWP Award Series in Creative Nonfiction and was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2002. Recent essays appearing in River Teeth and Harpur Palate have been honored by Pushcart nominations and her writing has been published in Barrelhouse, Brevity, Descant, Literary Mama, Mississippi Review, Wondertime, and many other journals, magazines, and anthologies. Her work has appeared on Indiana Public Radio and in anthologies, including Writer’s Digest’s Rules of Thumb, Unbuttoned: Women tell the truth about the pains, pleasures and politics of breastfeeding, and Literature: the Human Experience. She is an Associate Professor of English at Ball State University where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in creative nonfiction writing in the Creative Writing program and serves as Assistant Chair of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs in the Department of English. |
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Bob Cowser, Jr.’s most recent book Green Fields: Crime, Punishment, and a Boyhood Between won "Best Memoir 2010" from the Adirondack Center for Writers, and an excerpt earned a "Notable Essays" citation in the 2012 Best American Essays anthology. His first book, Dream Season, was a New York Times Book Review "Editor's Choice" and "Paperback Row" selection and was listed among the Chronicle of Higher Education's best-ever college sports books. Cowser is also the author of Scorekeeping, a collection of coming-of-age essays, and editor of Why We're Here: New York Essayists on Living Upstate, and his work has appeared widely in American literary magazines. Recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Cowser is Professor of English at St. Lawrence University, where he teaches courses in nonfiction writing and American literature and was named the 2012 Owen D. Young Outstanding Faculty Member. He is also Honored Visiting Graduate Faculty Member with Ashland University's Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts program and serves as associate editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, published at Ashland. He is also currently New York State Coordinator for the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. |
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Valerie Due writes creative nonfiction: Essays, memoir, legacy, and literary journalism about topics ranging from farm economics to ocean lifeguarding. Her articles have appeared in publications as varied as Forbes, healthcare journals such as Vision magazine, and state department publications. She is co-owner of a company that helps people write, record, and share their personal legacies. Due writes articles on spec for technology companies and trade publications, and is at work on a memoir about loss, love, and legacy on a family farm. |
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Hope Edelman is the author of five nonfiction books, including the bestsellers Motherless Daughters and The Possibility of Everything, which was recently optioned for film. Her articles, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Glamour, Child, Real Simple, Writer’s Digest, The Crab Orchard Review, and The Iowa Review. Original work has appeared in several anthologies, including The Bitch in the House, Toddler, Blindsided by a Diaper, and Behind the Bedroom Door. Her work has received a New York Times notable book of the year designation and a Pushcart Prize for creative nonfiction. She teaches in the MFA program at Antioch University-LA, in the Iowa Summer Writing Festival every July, at writing festivals and workshops up and down the West Coast, and through her private writing workshop company, Words Etcetera. Her newest book, a collaboration with the actors Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, is titled Along the Way and is forthcoming in 2012 from Simon and Schuster/Free Press. She lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with her husband and two daughters. http://www.hopeedelman.com |
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Steven Harvey is the author of Bound for Shady Grove, A Geometry of Lilies, and Lost in Translation, and the editor of In a Dark Wood: Personal Essays by Men on Middle Age.
Harvey is Professor of English at Young Harris College. He received his Ph.D. in literature from the University of Virginia. He has published pieces in many magazines such as Harper's, DoubleTake, The Georgia Review, The Fourth Genre, River Teeth and Creative Nonfiction, and has been anthologized in In Short, Life Studies, The Fourth Genre, Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction and other collections. He is a former Governor's appointee to the board of the Georgia Humanities Council and a book reviewer for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution newspaper.
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Michelle Herman is the author of the novels Missing and Dog, the collection of novellas A New and Glorious Life, the nonfiction book The Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood, and the Kindle Single Dream Life, a novella-length personal essay. She has just finished a collection of essays (Dream Life and Other Essays) and is at work now on a new novel, Delirious. Other essays and short fiction have appeared in such journals as American Scholar, O, the Oprah Magazine, The Southern Review, StoryQuarterly, Redbook, and–of course–River Teeth, the journal that published the first piece of nonfiction she wrote (and the essay that eventually became her first nonfiction book). Her awards and honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction, a James Michener Fellowship, numerous individual artist’s fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and the Greater Columbus Arts Council in both fiction and nonfiction, and two major teaching awards—the University Distinguished Teaching Award and the Rodica Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring—from Ohio State, where she has taught creative writing since 1988, and where she directs the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Fine Arts. |
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Kate Hopper is the author of Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers (2012) and Ready for Air: A Journey Through Premature Motherhood (October 2013). She teaches writing online and at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. Kate holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and has been the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, and a Sustainable Arts Grant. Her writing has appeared in a number of journals, including Brevity, Literary Mama, and The New York Times online. She is an editor at Literary Mama. For more information about Kate’s writing and classes, visit www.katehopper.com. |
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Sonya Huber is the author of two books of creative nonfiction, Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2010), finalist for the 2010 Grub Street National Book Prize in Nonfiction, and Opa Nobody (University of Nebraska Press, 2008), shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. She has also written a textbook, The Backwards Research Guide for Writers: Using Your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration (Equinox Publishing, forthcoming). Her work has been published in literary journals and magazines including Fourth Genre, Passages North, Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Washington Post Magazine, in other journals and in many anthologies. She teaches at Fairfield University and in the Fairfield Low-Residency MFA program. |
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Joe Mackall is the author of Plain Secrets: An Outsider among the Amish (Beacon Press, 2007) and The Last Street Before Cleveland: An Accidental Pilgrimage (University of Nebraska Press, 2006). He is the co-founder and co-editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative and co-editor of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize Series (in partnership with the University of Nebraska Press). His articles have been published in a number of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He wrote for The Washington Post for two years. He also served as editor of Cleveland Magazine. His essays have appeared in several anthologies, literary journals, and recently on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and Professor of English at Ashland University. |
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Rebecca McClanahan’s tenth book, The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press in 2013. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, River Teeth, and numerous anthologies. The recipient of the Wood Prize from Poetry, a Pushcart Prize in fiction, the Glasgow Award for nonfiction, and literary fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council, McClanahan teaches in the MFA programs of Queens University (Charlotte) and Rainier Writing Workshop. http://www.mcclanmuse.co/ |
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Brian Mockenhaupt is the author of The Living and the Dead: War, Friendship and the Battles that Never End. He is a contributing editor at Reader’s Digest and Esquire and is the nonfiction editor at the Journal of Military Experience. He writes regularly for The Atlantic and Outside. His work has also appeared in Pacific Standard, Backpacker, The New York Times Magazine, and Chicago. He served two tours in Iraq as an infantryman with the 10th Mountain Division. Since leaving the U.S. Army in 2005, he has written extensively on military and veteran affairs, reporting from Afghanistan and Iraq, hometowns, and hospitals. http://brianmockenhaupt.com/ |
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Tom Montgomery Fate is the author of five books of nonfiction, including Beyond the White Noise, a collection of essays, Steady and Trembling, a spiritual memoir, and Cabin Fever, a nature memoir. His essays have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Orion, Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, Christian Century, and many other journals and anthologies; and they often air on National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio. He is currently a professor of English at the College of DuPage in suburban Chicago. http://tommontgomeryfate.com/ |
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Robert Root is the author of the memoir Happenstance (University of Iowa Press, 2013); two essay collections, Limited Sight Distance: Essays for Airwaves (Glimmerglass, 2013) and Postscripts: Retrospections on Time and Place (University of Nebraska Press, 2012); and two narratives of history and place, Recovering Ruth: A Biographer’s Tale (University of Nebraska Press, 2002) and Following Isabella: Travels in Colorado Then and Now (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), as well as the nonfiction studies The Nonfictionist’s Guide: On Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) and E. B. White: The Emergence of an Essayist (University of Iowa Press, 1998). He is the editor of Landscapes With Figures: The Nonfiction of Place (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), a book of essays of place with commentaries by the authors, and the co-editor of the anthology The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (Pearson, 2012), now in its sixth edition. He is also the author or editor of nine other books and served as the Interview/Roundtable editor for the journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. Root has taught at Central Michigan University, the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, and the Loft Writers Workshop in Minneapolis. His article “Collage, Montage, Mosaic, Vignette, Episode, Segment,” from The Fourth Genre, is often assigned in creative nonfiction courses across the country. An essay on writing and teaching, “A Double Life,” published in Writing on the Edge, won the 2007 Donald Murray Award for Best Essay on Writing and/or Teaching. His essays have been published in many literary journals: “Knowing Where You’ve Been” and “Time and Tide, both published in Ascent, were named Notable Essays in The Best American Essays 2004 and 2011; “The Pattern of Life Indelible,” in Ecotone, was listed in 2007; “Postscript to a Postscript to ‘The Ring of Time’,” in The Pinch was listed in 2010, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and given the Council of Wisconsin Writers Short Nonfiction Award. He has been an Artist-in-Residence at Acadia National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Isle Royale National Park. He lives in Waukesha, Wisconsin. |
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Scott Russell Sanders is the author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including A Private History of Awe and A Conservationist Manifesto. The best of his essays from the past thirty years, plus nine new essays, are collected in Earth Works, published in 2012 by Indiana University Press. Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University, where he taught from 1971 to 2009. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children in their hometown of Bloomington, in the hardwood hill country of Indiana’s White River Valley. |
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Michael Steinberg has written and edited five books. In addition, his essays and memoirs have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. In 2004, ForeWord Magazine chose Still Pitching as the Independent Press Memoir of the Year Other titles include, Peninsula: Essays and Memoirs From Michigan—a finalist for the 2000 ForeWord Magazine Independent Press Anthology of the Year and the 2000 Great Lakes Book Sellers Award; and The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (sixth edition), co-edited with Robert Root. He’s also founding editor of the journal, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. Steinberg has been a guest writer at many colleges and universities, as well as at several national and international writers’ conferences, including the Prague Summer Writing Program, the Paris Writers’ Conference, The Kachemak Bay/Alaska Writers’ Conference, the Geneva Writers’ Conference, and the Chautauqua Writers’ Center, among others. Currently, he's writer-in-residence at the Solstice/Pine Manor low-residency MFA program. http://www.mjsteinberg.net |
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Earl Swift has written for a living since his teens. Now 54, the Virginia-based journalist has been a Fulbright fellow, PEN finalist and five-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, and has earned a reputation for powerful narrative and scrupulous reporting. Swift wrote for newspapers in St. Louis, Anchorage and, for twenty-two years, in Norfolk, where his long-form features won numerous state and national awards. His stories have also appeared in PARADE, Popular Mechanics,Best Newspaper Writing and River Teeth. He's currently a residential fellow of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at the University of Virginia, where he is writing his fifth book. He is the author of Journey on the James: Three Weeks Through the Heart of Virginia (University of Virginia Press, 2001), the story of a great American river and the largely untold history that has unfolded in and around it; Where They Lay: Searching for America’s Lost Soldiers (Houghton Mifflin, 2003), for which he accompanied an Army archaeological team into the jungles of Laos in search of a helicopter crew shot down thirty years before; and a 2007 collection of his stories, The Tangierman’s Lament. His newest book, 2011's The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways, was released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to widespread critical acclaim, and was reissued in paperback in September 2012. |
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Sarah M. Wells is the author of the poetry collection Pruning Burning Bushes from Wipf and Stock Publishers (2012), and a chapbook of poems, Acquiesce, winner of the 2008 Starting Gate Award through Finishing Line Press (2009). Poems by Wells have appeared or are forthcoming in Alimentum, Ascent, Christianity & Literature, JAMA, Literary Mama, Measure, New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Poetry East, Puerto del Sol, Rock & Sling, and elsewhere. Her essays have been published by Ascent and River Teeth.
Sarah serves as the Administrative Director for the low-residency MFA program at Ashland University and Managing Editor for the Ashland Poetry Press and River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. www.sarahmwells.com |
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