2002 Faculty

Ted Conover's Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing describes his rookie year as a corrections officer inside storied Sing Sing prison. Winner of the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Newjack was excerpted in the New Yorker and banned by the New York State Department of Correctional Services. Conover, whose writings are frequently based on first-hand participation, is also the author of the nonfiction narratives Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes, Coyotes, and Whiteout. He contributes to the New York Times Magazine and many other publications. He lives in Riverdale, New York.

Terry Tempest Williams's most recent book is Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Space is a classic of environmental literature. Her other books include Pieces of White Shell, Coyote's Canyon, An Unspoken Hunger, Desert Quartet, and Leap. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Nation, Outside, Audubon, Parabola, the Utne Reader, the Iowa Review, and Best American Essays. She has been a fellow of the Guggenheim and Lannan foundations and a recipient of the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award. She lives with her husband, Brooke Williams, in Grand Country, Utah.

Michael Collier, director of the Conference, is the author of four books of poems, The Clasp and Other Poems, The Folded Heart, The Neighbor, and, most recently, The Ledge. He has received Guggenheim and Thomas Watson fellowships, two NEA fellowships, a "Discovery"/The Nation Award, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, and a Pushcart Prize. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Antaeus, The Nation, The New Republic, and Poetry. Mr. Collier has taught at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University, and is currently the co-director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Maryland.

Toi Derricotte has published four collections of poetry: Natural Birth, The Empress of the Death House, Captivity, and, most recently, Tender, which received the Paterson Poetry Prize. A memoir, The Black Notebooks, received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for nonfiction. She has received two fellowships from the NEA, two Pushcart Prizes, and a United Black Artists, USA, Inc., Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award. She is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and co-founder of Cave Canem, a workshop retreat for African-American poets.

Carol Muske-Dukes has published six collections of poetry; the most recent, An Octave Above Thunder, was a nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a New York Times Notable Book. She has written three novels, Life After Death, Saving St. Germ, which was a New York Times Notable Book, and two books of essays, Women and Poetry and A Poet in Hollywood, due out in 2002. A recipient of Guggenheim, NEA, and Ingram-Merrill fellowships, she is a regular critic and columnist for both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times book reviews. She is a professor at the University of Southern California, where she directs the PhD Program in Creative Writing and Literature.

Steve Orlen has published five books of poetry, including Kisses and This Particular Eternity. Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, three National Endowment for the Arts grants, and the George Dillon Memorial Award from Poetry. He teaches at the University of Arizona in Tucson and in the low residency MFA Program at Warren Wilson College.

Carl Phillips is the author of five books of poetry including Pastoral and The Tether; a sixth collection, Rock Harbor, will be published in the winter of 2002. A finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Phillips's honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Library of Congress, the Morse Poetry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Phillips is Professor of English at Washington University, St. Louis.

Alan Shapiro has published seven books of poetry, including Happy Hour, winner of the 1987 William Carlos Williams Award, Mixed Company, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and The Dead Alive and Busy, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award. His new book of poems, Song and Dance, will be published in 2002. Shapiro has published two memoirs, The Last Happy Occasion, a 1996 finalist for the National Book Circle Critics Award, and Vigil. His translation of The Oresteia by Aeschylus will be published in 2002. He teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tom Sleigh is the author of After One; Waking, a New York Times Notable Book; The Chain, a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize; The Dreamhouse, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award; and a translation of Euripides's Heracles. He has won the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund Individual Writer's Award, Guggenheim and NEA fellowship, and the Shelley Award from the Poetry Society of America. He has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and New York University Graduate Writing Program. Presently, he teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

David Bradley is the author of two novels, South Street and The Chaneysville Incident, which was awarded the 1982 PEN/Faulkner Award and an Academy Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His nonfiction has appeared in Esquire, Redbook, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the New Yorker. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, Bradley has recently taught in the MFA Program at the University of Oregon and at the Michener Center For Writers at the University of Texas, Austin. He is currently completing a nonfiction book, The Bondage Hypothesis: Meditations on Race, History and America.

Vikram Chandra's novel Red Earth and Pouring Rain and his story collection Love and Longing in Bombay won Commonwealth Writers Prizes for Best First Book and Best Book (Eurasia region) respectively. Love and Longing in Bombay was short-listed for the Guardian Fiction Prize; it was included in "Notable Books of 1997" by the New York Times Book Review, "Best Books of the Year" by the Independent (London), and "Best Books of the Year" by the Guardian (London). His work has been published in the Paris Review and the New Yorker and has been translated into eleven languages. He currently divides his time between Bombay and Washington, DC, where he teaches creative writing at George Washington University.

Robert Cohen is the author of three novels: Inspired Sleep, The Here and Now, and The Organ Builder; and a collection of stories, The Varieties of Romantic Experience. His work has appeared in Harper's, the Paris Review, GQ, Antaeus, and other magazines. He has received a Whiting Writers' Award, a Lila Wallace Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Ribalow Prize. He teaches at Middlebury College.

Ursula Hegi is the author of five novels: The Vision of Emma Blau, Salt Dancers, Stones from the River, Floating in My Mother's Palm, and Intrusions. She has also written a book of non-fiction, Tearing the Silence: On Being German in America and two collections of stories, Hotel of the Saints and Unearned Pleasures. Her books have been translated into many languages. Awards include an NEA and an Artist Trust Fellowship. Stones from the River was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Ursula has served as a juror for the National Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle Awards.

Kevin McIlvoy is the author of four novels: A Waltz, The Fifth Station, Little Peg, and, most recently, Hyssop. His work has appeared in the Southern Review, TriQuarterly, and Ploughshares. He teaches in the MFA Program at New Mexico State University where he is Editor in Chief of Puerto Del Sol magazine. He is an adjunct faculty member of the Warren Wilson MFA Program.

Josip Novakovich has published two story collections, Yolk and Salvation and Other Disasters, and a collection of narrative essays, Apricots from Chernobyl. His textbook, Fiction Writer's Workshop, was a Book of the Month Club selection and is widely used in American writing programs. His work has been anthologized in O. Henry Awards (1998) and Best American Poetry (1997). He has received a Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three Pushcart prizes, the Ingram Merrill Award, an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, and a Cohen/Ploughshares Award. Mr. Novakovich teaches in the MFA Program at Penn State University, and is currently a writing fellow of the New York City Public Library.

Sigrid Nunez is the author of four novels: A Feather on the Breath of God, Naked Sleeper, Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury, and For Rouenna. She has been the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and of two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award and the 2000-2001 Rome Prize for Literature. She has taught at Hofstra University, Amherst College, and Columbia University and is currently Visiting Professor at Smith College.

Helen Schulman is the author of the novels P.S., The Revisionist, and Out of Time, and the short-story collection Not A Free Show. She is co-editor of the essay anthology Wanting A Child. Her short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in Vanity Fair, Time, GQ, Vogue, the New York Times Book Review, the Paris Review, Ploughshares, and BookForum. She is the author of several commissioned screenplays and has taught at Emory University, Bard College, Bennington College, NYU, and for the past ten years in the MFA Program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Jim Shepard is the author of five novels-Flights, Paper Doll, Lights Out in the Reptile House, Kiss of the Wolf, and Nosferatu-and two collections of short stories: Batting Against Castro and the forthcoming Love and Hydrogen. His short fiction has appeared, among other places, in the New Yorker, Harper's, the Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, the Paris Review, TriQuarterly, DoubleTake, and Tin House. He teaches at Williams College.

Susan Straight is the author of five novels, Aquaboogie, I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots, Blacker than a Thousand Midnights, The Gettin Place, and most recently Highwire Moon, which was nominated for the 2001 National Book Award. Her essays have been published in the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Harper's, Family Circle, Salon, and Readers Digest, and her short stories in TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, and the North American Review. She was born in Riverside, California, where she lives with her daughters.

Devon Jersild is administrative director of the Conference. She is the author of Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life. Her short fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards. She has reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times Book Review, and the Chicago Tribune.

Noreen Cargill is administrative coordinator of the Conference. She has worked with writers and readers in several venues, most recently at an independent bookstore, The Book Rack & Children's Pages, where she directed the store's writing and language school and managed its publishing house, Onion River Press.