Are you a member of the Lesley MFA community? If you would like to add your author bio to our website, promote an upcoming event, or have any questions about our resources, please don’t hesitate to email us at lesleycambridgecommon@gmail.com!
Our Staff
Executive Director & Website Coordinator: Julia Leef
I graduated from Lesley University in June 2018 with an MFA in Fiction and took advantage of my local status in Quincy to continue attending residencies twice a year. I am eternally grateful to the program for the friendships I have made over the years with other people who love the craft of writing as much as I do, and I always look forward to the next residency to see familiar faces and rejuvenate that writing mojo. I am proud to be a part of Cambridge Common Writers as a way to continue in the spirit of those residencies that foster connections between fellow writers and mentors.
I spend my non-CCW hours working for Macmillan Learning in Boston and daydreaming about one day owning my own personal library with a secret passageway behind a bookcase.
Co-Founder: Rex Carey Arrasmith
Hi all! I am an alumni in Fiction, class of 2018 and Poetry, class of 2020. Like you, I love our Lesley MFA program and hated the feeling of abandonment after it was over. I was surprised to find out that there was no active alumni engagement dedicated solely for our Lesley MFA alums and no way for us to contact each other beyond our immediate cohorts. We cooked up Cambridge Common Writers to fill that void. We are working towards having an available contact list connecting our world wide alumni together. I hope you will join us, we traveled this road together and it doesn’t have to end. Please fill free to contact me at, WrecksWrites@gmail.com or our groups email LesleyCambridgeCommon@gmail.com.
Co-Founder: Robbie Gamble
Greetings! When I graduated from Lesley with an MFA in poetry in 2017, I was astounded to realize that I had built such profound connections with my classmates over two-and-a-half years, and a scanty forty-odd days of actual residency time together. I had stumbled into an extraordinary community of talented and engaging writers, both students and faculty, and I didn’t want that experience of community to end. So I came back for another go-round with the curriculum, this time in nonfiction, and I started talking, first with Rex and then Michael, about ways we could build a dynamic and sustainable organization for Lesley MFA alumni. We came up with the idea of Cambridge Common Writers, to bring alumni together and to support the ongoing mission of the MFA program. Then Julia came on board, and brought this fabulous website into being.
I’m working on a memoir, and sending poems and essays out into the world, while serving as associate poetry editor for Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. When I’m not perspiring over the keyboard, I work as a nurse practitioner caring for homeless people in Boston.
Treasurer: Lee Okan
I graduated from Lesley University in January 2015 with an MFA in Fiction. Like so many of us, the program gave me a sense of belonging within a creative community. When I was establishing myself as a writer after graduation, the support of fellow alumni mattered deeply to me. Joining Cambridge Common Writers feels like a natural way to give back the kind of encouragement and connection that sustained me.
I am currently an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Bunker Hill Community College, where I teach writing and literature. My novella, The Lives of Atoms (Nixes Mate Books, 2018), explores intimacy and fragmentation, and my forthcoming monograph, Sexual Trauma in Comics: The Ethics of Visualizing Trauma (Bloomsbury Books, 2026), examines how visual narrative renders difficult histories visible.
Whether in the classroom, on the page, or within CCW, I am committed to fostering spaces where writers feel supported and connected.
Member at Large: Aqueela C. Britt
Hello fellow writers! Graduating from Lesley University in 2018 with my MFA in Fiction has been one of the most rewarding experiences. The bonds I formed during my time at Lesley with current and former students as well as the bonds formed with faculty and staff surpasses all I could have imagined through such an experience. I have the great fortune of living in the Metro Boston area which allows me to attend post-graduate residencies and social gatherings associated with the Lesley MFA program. I discovered that I was in constant need of the connections formed through this program. Needless to say, I was thrilled when Cambridge Commons Writers stepped onto the scene as a way to foster such relationships. The opportunity to join the CCW Board was kismet as it aligns with my work as an alumni ambassador and my passion toward this program. When I am not working on a variety of novel ideas, I am serving in my roll as Academic Advisor at Simmons University in the SW@Simmons Master of Social Work program. My clinical passion is to incorporate writing and storytelling as a framework for at risk youth, particularly those moving through the child protection system. In addition to my CCW Board role, I also sit on the Board of Trustees at the Charles River School in Dover, MA where I am a current parent. Charles River is a Prek-8 independent school where much of my board work centers on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Member-At-Large: Rees Collier
I graduated from Lesley University in 2025 with an MFA in Fiction. Because of the program, and because of the support Cambridge Common Writers provided both during my time at Lesley and since, I found an incredible writing group among my cohort, and they have pushed me to places in my writing I never could have gone on my own. I also published my first piece (“The Improbable Odds of Love”, the Boston Globe Magazine). And I learned how the world of writing extends far beyond our stories and into our communities — this community in particular. I am so excited to join CCW’s Board, and my hope is to help CCW find the best ways to serve our fellow writers and grow into the future.
When I’m not working with CCW, I am the program coordinator for Harvard University’s Minor in Education, and I volunteer with Operation Literacy. I also find time to write, somehow.
Member-At-Large: Kate Fussner
My time in Lesley’s MFA program meant the world to me, and I am so grateful to be a board member for CCW. I’m a graduate of the WFYP track (June 2022) and I had a particularly strange experience in the program, because I had two wonderful on-campus semesters before the pandemic moved the rest of my time in the program to Zoom. Thankfully, I live locally so it is easy for me to visit every residency (as I fully intend to do…forever).
After over a decade of teaching in Boston Public Schools, I recently became a full-time writer. My thesis for my MFA earned me representation from my agent, Eric Smith at P.S. Literary, and my first two-book deal with HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books. My queer middle grade novel-in-verse, The Song of Us, will be out on May 30, 2023. I’m currently hard at work on my second middle grade novel, as well as a YA project. When I’m not writing, you can find me baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie, walking my overly dramatic dog Weasley, or spending time with my wife.
Member-at-Large: Jo-Anne Hart
I surprised myself by returning to grad school and then graduating with a Lesley MFA, in 2019. What I’ve learned about myself in this process is mind-boggling. Now I want everyone to study storytelling. And recently I’ve even gone a step further by trying to perform my work. By far the highlight of my new foray into performing is winning the Grand Slam Prize at the 2022 KO Radical Festival of Performance Story Slam, Amherst, MA.
In Lesley’s Graduate School of Education, I teach in the MA program for integrating arts – including a course on storytelling and another one on art, culture, and community. In Lesley’s undergraduate college I teach International Relations, Social Policy, Global Family Policy, Contemporary Middle East Studies, and postwar American History.
I also work as a practitioner in international conflict resolution and am active with the international peacemaking NGO Search for Common Ground, where I also serve as Chair of the Emeritus Board of Directors. That last bit should help me with CCW: Alums of the World Unite!
Member-at-Large: Caitlin T.D. Robinson
My MFA at Lesley (WFYP, 2018) coincided with a series of turning points in my life, including my career, a cross-country move and marriage. I found myself most rooted in the liminal spaces of the MFA residencies, with my fellow MFA colleagues. The studies, and the powerful community, propelled me forward to consistently carve space for my writing, even (or maybe especially) amidst a pandemic, new marriage, childrearing and launching an enrichment program. It is thanks to the CCW community that I’ve been able to stay connected with the spirit and rigor of the Lesley MFA program. I’ve been fortunate to visit residencies as a local alumna and am always reinvigorated by the palpable creativity and vibrancy at every event. In addition to writing for young people (picture books, middle grade, young adult), I write poetry, nonfiction and fiction and often find myself jotting notes while strolling or babywearing one or both of my children to sleep. My published works and accolades can be found on my website. I cherish quieter moments with our 17-year-old cat who often hides from the noisemakers. When I’m not writing or with my family, I am the founding director of an elementary school enrichment program in Brookline. I dream of picking up my guitar again one day soon and tackling gnarly climbs on the rock wall.
Faculty Representative, ex officio: Tony Eprile
I am one of the old-timers as faculty go at Lesley’s MFA, having been there since the second semester of its inception. (Shhh…no other reason!) My longevity at Lesley is not inertia but the result of having found a vibrant and joyous community of fellow writers, faculty and alums alike, many of whom have become my good friends. I’m delighted to be faculty liaison to CCW, an organization devoted to maintaining those strong bonds between Lesley writers. I’m looking forward to seeing—and helping—this connection continue to expand with new programs, get-togethers, and ideas.
When not at Lesley, I live on the side of a mountain in Vermont. I’m working on too many writing projects—a memoir, two novels, various essays—and have recently published about teaching writing in a maximum security prison in The American Scholar. I’m an environmentalist, fungus forager, food aficionado and cook, as well as a photographer, and my teaching frequently focuses on the intersection between observation and creativity. I lack the genetic marker that inhibits puns. I’m on the literature panels of several artists retreats and have had grants from the National Endowment, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Ingram Merrill Foundation and elsewhere.
Thank You to the Former Members of our Board!
Your contributions to Cambridge Common Writers have shaped us into the organization we are today.
The Board of Cambridge Common Writers reserves the right to determine the contents of our website, including the selection of community members featured in our programs, promotions, and other events or materials.