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Ọna Anosike
Brooklyn, NY & Cambridge, MA
Graduated January 2016
ỌNA ANOSIKE is a fiction writer based in Brooklyn, NY, and Cambridge, MA. She graduated from Lesley University’s low-residency MFA program in January 2016. Ọna is the founder and chief editor of The TONIC, a literary journal focused on diverse voices and perspectives. Her writing delves into post-colonial themes and family dynamics, aiming to inspire positive change through stories that provoke reflection and discomfort. Ọna is currently working on a collection of short stories and continues to develop her craft while balancing her editorial work. In the meantime, check out her short story “The Return.”
Jorge Armenteros
Nice, France
Graduated June 2012
JORGE ARMENTEROS was born in Cuba, his family leaving for Madrid, Spain, then Tampa, Florida, before finally settling in Puerto Rico. After graduating from Harvard University, he acquired an MD at the University of Puerto Rico and completed his residency in psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, later obtaining an MA in Spanish and Latin American Literature at New York University and an MFA in Creative Writing at Lesley University. Armenteros is the author of the 2015 International Latino Book Award winner The Book of I (Jaded Ibis Press), and the Striped Tunic Trilogy: AIR, The Roar of the River, and The Spiral of Words (Spuyten Duyvil Press). He has also published Touch That Which We Cannot Possess, We Are Not But We Are, and The Curvature of An Absence, all with Spuyten Duyvil Press. His author interviews and book reviews have appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, American Book Review, Rain Taxi, and Gargoyle. Armenteros resides in the South of France.
Rex Carey Arrasmith
Lāna’i City, HI (NOV-MAR) Sedona, AZ (APR-OCT)
Graduated January 2018
REX CAREY ARRASMITH was raised by wolves in San Diego, CA and after a thirty year career with United Airlines thought he would give writing a try. He has decades of life experiences and he feels the need to turn them into stories. A faulty and romanticized memory makes writing them as fiction the only way to get the truth out. He advises his readers to believe his fictions as facts. He is a co-founder of Cambridge Common Writers, a Lesley MFA alumni group. His work has been published on Spillwords Press, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and Postcard Shorts. He is always happy to talk to aspiring writers if you want to reach out: [email protected].
Rex can also be found in our Poetry section!
Paul Astorino
Cazenovia, NY
Graduated January 2019
PAUL ASTORINO is a holder of an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, and a business and product creation executive. From intimate one-on-one audiences, to the magnitude of all-company speeches where thousands of colleagues from around the world are waiting to be transformed, to unseen readers, his has been a career of storytelling. In the professional setting, he has written business plans, catalog copy, service manuals, creative briefs, consumer sketches, and speeches. His creative and academic writing follows a more cinematic process that includes much hand wringing, authorial self-flagellation, and traditional avoidance techniques that include but are not limited to cleaning, stretching, and organizing. His works include short stories, academic theses, op-eds, and non-fiction essays.
Mina Athanassious
Toronto, Ontario
Graduated January 2012
MINA ATHANASSIOUS is a Coptic Canadian writer born in al-Abbasiya, a Cairene neighbourhood in central Egypt. His family emigrated to Toronto, Canada when he was a small child. Mina received his MFA from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2012. He is the author of A Face Like the Moon, an anthology of short stories about the lives of Coptic children both in Egypt and in the Canadian diaspora, published by Mosaic Press in September of 2018. Currently, Mina is writing a novel about an artist who finds aesthetic value in the breath of fire, each of his works a vestige of his old life seeping through his unconscious. He has received grant money from the Ontario Arts Council to finish this project. Mina teaches various writing courses at Seneca College and the University of Toronto.
Christine Bagley
Andover, MA
Graduated January 2011
CHRISTINE BAGLEY has been teaching foreign national physicians and scientists how to improve their writing at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston since 2011. She was a 2016 fiction contributor to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and won Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Award for Crime Fiction, as well as a nomination for the Derringer Award. She uses a wide range of topics in her stories including domestic abuse, dementia, murder, and lunacy. In many cases, her stories include a humorous character to lighten up the darkness. Her work has been published in Bryant Literary Review, Best New England Crime Stories, Untoward Magazine, and Briar Cliff Review. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Grub Street, and Sisters-in Crime.
Anita Ballesteros
Somerville, MA
Graduated January 2020
ANITA BALLESTEROS’s MFA from Lesley in Creative Writing is her fourth degree, complementing a PhD and MS in Molecular Oncology from NYU and a BS in Chemistry from SUNY/Purchase College. She works in biotech in Cambridge MA, part of the engine looking to cure life-threatening diseases. She is second-gen Spanish-American on her dad’s side and Jewish-American on her mom’s side, and growing up in a house full of girls, including the pets, can tell you that the Spanish dad tropes are real. Anita grew up living a nomadic childhood throughout Europe and calls neither and both “home.” Her writing has focused on loss and transition, although she wishes often that more humor would fly off her fingertips and she’s working on that too.
Jacqueline Berkman
Los Angeles, CA
Graduated June 2023
JACQUELINE BERKMAN is a fiction writer and a screenwriter focused on telling darkly humorous stories about the wildly unfair world that we live in. Her short story “Picking Locks” was adapted into the short film “Panofsky’s Complaint,” which was screened at the 2016 Brooklyn Film Festival and LA Shorts Fest. In 2019, her 1-hour TV pilot script “Westside High” was a semifinalist in the WeScreenplay TV competition. Her short fiction has been published in The Write Launch, The Writing Disorder, and Waccamaw, among other publications. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband Jak and their dog, Jasper.
Tavi Taylor Black
Vashon, WA
Graduated June 2008
TAVI TAYLOR BLACK lives on an island near Seattle where she designs sets for the Vashon Dance Academy, works as the tour manager for Deva Premal & Miten with Manose (a musical mantra group), and was the founding director of the Dove Project, an anti-domestic violence non-profit organization. Before earning an MFA from Lesley University, Tavi spent 14 years touring with rock bands. Her work has been published in Literary Mama, The Zodiac Review, and is forthcoming in Levee Magazine.
Sarah Parisi Boçi
Boston, MA
Graduated June 2018
SARAH BOÇI is an eldritch horror who stalks undetected amongst the living. An avid horror fan, Sarah tries to write gothic horror fiction, although it usually evolves into madcap magical realism. She’s currently working on two novellas: one borrowing heavily from Greek mythology, and another inspired by the unhinged writing of Josh Malerman. Sarah loves proofreading and is available for editing.
Aqueela C. Britt
Holbrook, MA
Graduated June 2018
AQUEELA C. BRITT’s love for writing began in a townhouse in Roxbury in the early 80’s. What started as pencil scribed tales on steno notepads has since transformed into raw, matter-of-fact stories about LGBTQ identified black and brown kids trying to live their best lives. Aqueela’s dual passion is Social Work, where her career in child protection often served as a backdrop to her stories.
Aqueela published her first novel, London Reign under the pseudonym, A.C. Britt in 2007 through Ghettoheat Publishing. Since then, Aqueela has penned several works of short and long fiction, poetry and essays.
Aqueela holds a BA in Social Work, Master of Social Work and an MFA in Creative Writing with a focus in Fiction. Aqueela currently works as an Associate Professor of Practice & Director of BSW Field Education at Simmons University, of which she is an alum. Aqueela is the proud mom of a charmingly precocious son with a love for animals, gaming and all things fun.
Alissa Butterworth
Billerica, MA
Graduated June 2012
ALISSA BUTTERWORTH is an author, editor and educator based in northern Massachusetts. Her work, comprising short and long form fiction, nonfiction and poetry, has appeared in print and online, in such publications as the Reading Eagle and the Alumni Arts Review. She has appeared on television and on the radio. Alissa has finished her first novel and is currently working on or hatching several other book-length projects, as well as shorter pieces. She teaches a popular and long-standing Writer’s Workshop (among other courses) and enjoys working with creative writing students and clients. She lives with her family and her quirky rescue hound dog Scout, named after the protagonist of one of Alissa’s favorite novels, To Kill a Mockingbird. An avid history lover, Alissa also volunteers as a docent at a Revolutionary War-era house, and often includes historical settings and themes in her work.
Margaret F. Chen
Rockville, MD
Graduated June 2020
MARGARET F. CHEN is the author of two short story collections, Three Terrible Tales and Suburban Gothic, both independently published through Opus of Politics and Prose Bookstores. Suburban Gothic earned an Indie Kirkus Star and includes several previously published stories from a variety of literary journals. Margaret grew up in Iowa, where she sledded down hills during the winters, hung out at the pool during the summers, scribbled stories and read books in secret whenever she could, and hid under her bed at night with the crickets and mice in a creepy basement bedroom.
Leland Cheuk
Brooklyn, NY
Graduated June 2008
A MacDowell and Hawthornden Castle Fellow, LELAND CHEUK is an award-winning author of three books of fiction, most recently NO GOOD VERY BAD ASIAN (2019). Cheuk’s work has been covered in Buzzfeed, The Paris Review, VICE, San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere, and has appeared in publications such as NPR, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, among other outlets. He is the founder of the indie press 7.13 Books. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute. You can follow him on Twitter @lcheuk.
E. Christopher Clark
Chelmsford, MA
Graduated June 2005
E. CHRISTOPHER CLARK is the author of the Stains of Time series, a suburban fantasy. His other books include the short story collections Out of the Woods and Under the World, the novella The Seven Wives of Silver, and a collection of poems cheekily titled Bad Poetry Night. His short stories have been published in Live Free or Ride: Tales of the Concord Coach, River Muse: Tales of Lowell & the Merrimack Valley, and the University of Hawaii’s Vice-Versa. A graduate of Lesley University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, he has been teaching developing writers since 2010.
S.E. Clark
Boston, MA
Graduated January 2015
S.E. CLARK is a 2015 graduate of Lesley University’s Creative Writing MFA program. When not scavenging through graveyards for histories and names, she writes genre fiction stories about witches, astronauts, and eldritch creatures who are misunderstood. She also dabbles in poetry, creative non-fiction, and mixed media art. Her work has appeared in publications such as Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, The Drum Literary Magazine, Nixes Mate Review (x , x), Panoply, South Shore Review, and WhimsicalPoet Magazine.
Katie Cotugno
Boston, MA
Graduated June 2015
KATIE COTUGNO is the New York Times bestselling author of seven messy, complicated feminist YA love stories including 99 Days, How to Love, Fireworks, Top Ten, 9 Days & 9 Nights, You Say It First, and Liar’s Beach (Delacorte, 2022), as well a forthcoming adult novel, Birds of California (Harper Perennial, 2022). She is also the co-author, with Candace Bushnell, of Rules for Being a Girl. Her books have been honored by the Junior Library Guild, the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee, and the Kentucky Association of School Librarians, among others, and translated into more than fifteen languages. Katie is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in The Iowa Review, The Mississippi Review, and Argestes, as well as many other literary magazines. Katie studied Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College and received her MFA in Fiction at Lesley University. She lives in Boston with her family.
Angelo A. D’Amato, Jr.
Medford, MA
Graduated June 2020
ANGELO A. D’AMATO, JR. is a first-grade associate teacher in Boston, MA. He is pursuing another MFA, this one in poetry, at Albertus Magnus College. His literary interests include anything that has innovative prose, and science-fiction. His work has been published in Passengers Journal and Oslo Writers League. When he’s not writing, he’s hanging out with his cat, Bello, and/or watching sketch comedy on YouTube.
Karin Cecile Davidson
Columbus, OH
Graduated June 2009
Originally from the Gulf Coast, KARIN CECILE DAVIDSON is the author of the novel Sybelia Drive (Braddock Avenue Books, October 2020). Her stories have appeared in Story Magazine, Five Points, The Massachusetts Review, Colorado Review, The Rappahannock Review, Passages North, and AROHO, among others. Her awards include a Fine Arts Work Center Summer Residency, an Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, a Studios of Key West Artist Residency, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Orlando Prize for Short Fiction, and the Waasmode Short Fiction Prize. She is an Interviews Editor for Newfound Journal. Follow her on Instagram @karinceciledavidson.
LaWanda Dixon
Mansfield, MA
Graduated June 2018
LAWANDA DIXON is an African American Writer, Poet, Mother, and all around Hard Worker from Boston, MA. A True Boston native and proud of where she derives from. LaWanda’s mother from Tampa, Florida, and father from Kingston, Jamaica give her all of her sweet and spice. LaWanda was born out of love. LaWanda is the single parent to a 10-year-old boy. She works full time as a Manufacturing Administrator ( AKA Document Lady), for a laboratory Diagnostics Company, Siemens-Healthineers. LaWanda is very well-rounded and educated. She holds one B.A. in visual arts, and two Masters Degrees in Management (MSM) and Creative Writing (MFA). LaWanda has a love for all things African and African American culture. She writes for her culture and is unapologetic about doing so. Her writing style is filled with AAVE, black anecdotes and culture. LaWanda has been writing since she could read, she always wanted to be an author. LaWanda is an inspiring novelist although she has not yet published any of her work. She plans to do so by the end of 2021.
Curt Eriksen
Brookline, MA
Graduated June 2014
CURT ERIKSEN is the author of A Place of Timeless Harmony, a Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Debut Novel of 2018. Curt’s short fiction, novel extracts, poetry and political and literary commentary have appeared in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, India and Spain, in numerous print and online journals, including Blackbird, Rosebud and Writer’s Digest. An excerpt from his novel-in-progress was recently published at failbetter.com.
Check Curt out at our Bookstore!
Photo Credit: Natalia Granada Carrillo
Kate Estrop
Somerville, MA
Graduated June 2010
KATE ESTROP is a graphic designer and illustrator who started their creative career writing depressing short fiction. After realizing how incongruous this was with their personality and life outlook, they swapped their keyboard for a stylus and started drawing cute animals and designing resources to help people. Now, they use their writing and design skills in marketing, customer success, and outreach, and can also be found walking around Somerville, MA with their macro lens looking for bugs.
David Farrow
Brighton, MA
Graduated June 2022
DAVID FARROW is the author of the bestselling Neverglades books, a series of paranormal mystery stories which are currently being adapted as a video game. His work has appeared in Mythaxis Magazine and the LGBT+ horror anthology Black Rainbow. A new instructor with Boston’s creative writing nonprofit GrubStreet, David has years of experience working with aspiring writers as a consultant and teacher, with an emphasis on storytelling craft across genres. He is particularly interested in speculative fiction and works that explore narratives of queerness and identity.
D. Dina Friedman
Hadley, MA
Graduated January 2016
D. DINA FRIEDMAN has published both fiction and poetry in many literary journals (including The Sun, Aji, Cider Press Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Lilith, Negative Capability, Rhino, Common Ground Review, Crab Orchard Review, Steam Ticket, New Plains Review, Blue Stem, and Anderbo) and received two Pushcart Prize nominations for poetry and fiction. She is the author of two YA novels, Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux) and one chapbook of poetry, Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press). Dina is also a political activist focusing on immigration and racial justice issues, which often find their way into her writing. Originally from New York City, she has lived for nearly 40 years in western Massachusetts, the last 20+ next door to a farm with 500 cows, and she teaches writing to business students at UMass/Amherst.
Daniel Giovinazzo
Waterford, CT
Graduated January 2011
DANIEL GIOVINAZZO works as a public educator and house-painter. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, poet Nikoletta Nousiopoulos, and their three children Rocco, Althea, and Dahlia. His work has been published in Bartleby Snopes, Burningword Literary Journal, The Caribbean Writer, Ethelzine, Indiana Voice Journal, and Pioneertown.
Leah Glennon
Hudson Valley, NY
Graduated June 2019
LEAH GLENNON is a writer of both fiction and memoir, with an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University. She has worked as a freelance journalist for the Associated Press in Mexico City, as a production researcher for PBS/WNET-Channel 13, and as a collaborator and interviewer on the documentary film “Paradise is There,” with singer songwriter Natalie Merchant. Leah is currently working with private clients, both as a writer and editor, and on a collection of essays based on her life growing up in Manhattan, during the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Leah has two, grown children and now lives with her husband in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Cynthia Sally Haggard
Washington, DC
Graduated June 2015
CYNTHIA SALLY HAGGARD was born and reared in Surrey, England; about 30 years ago she surfaced in the United States, inhabiting the Mid-Atlantic region as she wound her way through four careers: violinist, cognitive scientist, medical writer, and novelist.
Her first novel, Thwarted Queen, a frustrating tale (hence the title) of Lady Cecylee (Cecily) Neville (1415-1495) who was nearly crowned Queen of England, was shortlisted for many awards, including the 2012 Eric Hoffer New Horizon Award for debut authors. To date, sales have surpassed 38,000 copies.
Her second novel, Farewell My Life, a Cinderella-ish tale with not-so-charming princes who inhabit the edgy setting of 1920s Berlin, won a Pinnacle Award (2019) and a Distinguished Favorite (New York City Big Book Awards, 2019).
Livia Hermiz
San Diego, CA
Graduated January 2019
LIVIA HERMIZ was born and raised in San Diego, California, where she eventually attended the University of California, San Diego and received a Bachelor of Arts in literature and creative writing. She attended Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in January of 2019 received her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, with a focus in fiction. She has been published in both the Dreamers Creative Writing Magazine website, and 2020 anthology.
Jody Hobbs Hesler
Charlottesville, VA
Graduated June 2017
JODY HOBBS HESLER is the author of the novel, Without You Here (Flexible Press, September 2024), and the story collection What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better (Cornerstone Press, October 2023). Her words also appear in Necessary Fiction, Gargoyle, Valparaiso Fiction Review (x, x), Atticus Review, Writer’s Digest, Electric Literature, CRAFT, Arts & Letters, and many other journals. She teaches at WriterHouse in Charlottesville and for Story Jam Studio’s The Writing Room, and serves as assistant fiction editor for the Los Angeles Review.
Virginia Ryan Hoeck
Cotuit, MA
Graduated January 2018
GIN RYAN is a former journalist and marketing writer, housing advocate, yoga instructor and caterer. She loved serving with the Peace Corps in Thailand. Her recent stories have appeared in Anak Sastra, Adelaide and Sky Magazine. Before COVID, she traveled whenever she could. Now, she digs clams, raises chickens, bakes cakes, and attempts to make cheese. She lives on Cape Cod.
Cindy House
New Haven, CT
Graduated June 2017
CINDY HOUSE has a debut book coming out in early 2022 with Simon & Schuster, a memoir in essays entitled Mother Noise. She opens regularly for David Sedaris across the US and looks forward to joining him on tour post-pandemic.
Mike Jeffrey
Los Angeles, CA
Graduated January 2016
MIKE JEFFREY is a bookseller from Rhode Island. His work has been published in The Boston Review, Idaho Review, and New Limestone Review.
Celia Jeffries
Northampton, MA
Graduated in 2008
CELIA JEFFRIES’ work has appeared in numerous newspapers and literary magazines including Westview, Solstice Literary Magazine, and Puerto del Sol, as well as the anthology Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper. She has received grants from Turkey Land Cove Foundation, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, and La Muse. Jeffries holds an MA from Brandeis and worked in news and educational publishing before earning an MFA from Lesley University in fiction and creative nonfiction. She has worked with writers at all levels, from elementary school to university both here and abroad, and in many different communities, including incarcerated, literacy, and ESL programs. Her own writing has been nurtured in the community of writers in Western Massachusetts, where she is on the steering committee of Straw Dog Writers Guild, and where she offers workshops at Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop.
Her debut novel Blue Desert will launch April 20, 2021.
Check Celia out at our Bookstore!
Celia can also be found in our Nonfiction section!
Rebecca Joy
Cambridge, MA
Graduated January 2017
REBECCA JOY is a Boston-based writer and editor, as well as former bartender and current Lesley staff. She’s written for local publications – like Scout Cambridge and BostonChefs.com – covering cocktails and fine dining, subjects further explored in her short fiction. Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecjoy for updates on her reading list and an ongoing list of celebrities who share her Zodiac sign.
Christine Junge
San Jose, CA
Graduated June 2008
CHRISTINE JUNGE graduated from Lesley’s MFA program in 2008. She also has a masters in literature from Harvard University. She has published stories and essays in The Boston Globe, Harvard Review, and New Plains Review. She is at work on her first novel and lives in San Jose, CA, with her husband and newborn son.
Sarah Kilgallon
Boston, MA & Lisbon, Portugal
Graduated June 2016
SARAH KILGALLON has a BA in English and MFA in Creative Writing. Her work has been published by Bark Magazine (x , x), The Ekphrastik Review, Wild Roof Journal, and Harvard Book Store. She’s inspired to create stories that have emotional teeth but always maintaining a sense of humor and irreverence.
Hayley Krischer
Glen Ridge, NJ
Graduated June 2009
HAYLEY KRISCHER is the author of The Falling Girls and Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf, a 2021 RISE Feminist Book Project List Selection. She is also an award-winning journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Elle and more. Her adult debut, Where Are You, Echo Blue? will be released from Dutton in 2024.
Chaney Kwak
San Francisco, CA
June 2009
CHANEY KWAK was living in Berlin, Germany, and freelancing for publications such as The New York Times when he began his MFA studies in fiction. He has contributed to Condé Nast Traveler, Afar, Travel & Leisure, and a number of National Geographic anthologies. His fiction has appeared in Zyzzyva, Catamaran Literary Review, Gertrude, and other literary journals, earning a special mention from the Pushcart Prize. A winner of the Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer Awards, he has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and other literary workshops. Godine in Boston publishing his first book of nonfiction, The Passenger: How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies, in June, 2021.
Check Chaney out at our Bookstore!
Photo Credit: Michael Baca
Julie Lam
New York City, NY, formerly Brookline, MA
Graduated June 2019
JULIE LAM is a New York based painter, photographer, designer and writer. Lam attended Hong Kong Polytechnic, in Hong Kong, and Massachusetts College of Art, in Boston, to develop a foundation in art and design. Lam also earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, in Cambridge, MA. The Surrogate, one of her short plays, won the Audience Award of The Writer’s Voice Ten Minute Play Festival, in 2017. Lam’s urgent effort to promote mask wearing during the COVID pandemic has been curated by Medium (x , x, x), and published in the New York Voice (x , x, x). Julie’s passion to affect change on the individual level stems from her desire to stand with the marginalized and advocate social reform. Prior to pursuing writing, Lam worked as a creative director at several Boston and Manhattan advertising agencies where she created memorable campaigns for Fortune 500 companies including American Express, Motorola and Time Warner. Her campaign launching TD Ameritrade has been taught in Harvard’s marketing curriculum, and was notably the highlight of a video spoof at President Clinton’s final White House Press Correspondents Dinner. Julie Lam’s work has received industry recognition and many awards, including The One Show, the Emmy, D&AD, and The London International Advertising Award.
Julia Leef
Quincy, MA
Graduated June 2018
JULIA LEEF wrote her first book at the age of six about a frog and a prince who problem-solve their way through many exciting adventures such as “The Prince and the Frog Dug a Big Hole and Now They Can’t Get Out.” She was so proud of her first completed book that she convinced her teacher to let her read it to the Kindergarten class, presumably because it’s hard to say no to a six year-old. She has loved writing stories ever since, dabbling in all styles of fiction but mostly drawn to fantasy and magical realism. She works at Macmillan Learning in Boston and loves that dirty water. Her work appears in Belmont Story Review and Wyldblood Press.
Photo Credit: Amy Blenk
Lyz Lenz
Iowa
Graduated June 2011
LYZ LENZ’s writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, The Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Times, Pacific Standard, and others. Her book God Land was published in 2019, through Indiana University Press. Her second book Belabored, is due out from Bold Type Books on August 11, 2020. Lyz’s essay “All the Angry Women” was also included in the anthology Not that Bad edited by Roxane Gay. Lyz received her MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She lives in Iowa with her two kids and two cats and is a columnist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
Hunter Liguore
Graduated 2012
HUNTER LIGUORE is writing for the next generation of readers who care about the world.
Susi Lovell
Montréal, Québec
Graduated 2009
Originally from England, SUSI LOVELL worked her way around the world as stable-hand, ski-bum, secretary, tomato picker, orange picker, conference organizer and market researcher before settling in Montreal as a physical theater artist-educator. She turned to fiction after a spell writing on dance for the Montreal Gazette. Her stories have appeared in The New Quarterly, Stand Magazine, carte blanche, Grain, Fiddlehead, Kudzu Review, and other literary journals and anthologies. She is currently taking forever to finish her first novel, an environmental mystery.
Gene Luetkemeyer
Jacksonville, OR
Graduated May 2015
As EA LUETKEMEYER, Gene writes fiction that is uncompromising and unapologetic. He embraces the trite but true adage that bad roads lead to good stories. Gene has published short fiction in numerous literary magazines over the years. He is the author of the memoir, The Book of Chuck, and the novels, Inside the Mind of Martin Mueller and Penitentiary Tales: a Love Story, both completed post-Lesley and available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. He is knee-deep in a new novel, The Outlaw Ethan James and a collection of short stories, Tales From Elsewhen.
Scott Mashlan
Milwaukee, WI
Graduated June 2015
SCOTT MASHLAN teaches at Milwaukee Area Technical College. He has been a juried participant at Lit Camp and AIR at Can Serrat in Barcelona. His work has been shortlisted by Glimmer Train and the Disquiet Literary Prize. He has been published in F(r)iction and online in Bull.
Lacy Arnett Mayberry
Midland, TX
Graduated June 2012
LACY ARNETT MAYBERRY lives with her family in Texas, where she teaches writing at a community college. She won the 2021 Boulevard Emerging Fiction Writer’s Contest and AWP’s Kurt Brown Prize in 2014. Her stories have appeared in Washington Square Review, The Pinch Journal, Literary Mama, Tammy Journal, and Permafrost Magazine, among other publications. She is working on a novel.
Scott McCabe
Los Angeles, CA
Graduated June 2005
SCOTT MCCABE is an acclaimed writer, director and producer. He began his career in television on the cult-hit comedy NO TOMORROW, which he co-created for CBS Studios and aired on the CW. Additionally, he created an animated virtual reality series that ran on Facebook’s Oculus platform and another widely-watched series for SnapChat, the romantic comedy #Vanlife. He has worked with TruTV, Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video, creating series and sketches with former SNL performers, and has developed features with Pacific Electric with Ed Helms. He is currently writing a feature for IMAGINE, and a forthcoming mystery novel. He lives in Los Angeles and Seattle.
Wendy Pierman Mitzel
West Hartford, CT
Graduated January 2017
WENDY PIERMAN MITZEL is a fiction writer based in New England with Michigan roots and Midwestern ways. She works as a freelance journalist and aspires to live on a lake, drink coffee on the deck and write stories on a screened-in-porch. She keeps busy with her blended family of 6 young adults, two dogs and a boyfriend with whom she loves to travel, tour museums and eat yummy food. Her work has been published in The Bookends Review and Humans of the World.
Follow her on Instagram @WendyRPierman
Celeste Mohammed
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Graduated June 2016
CELESTE MOHAMMED is a native of Trinidad and Tobago. Her debut novel-in-stories, Pleasantview, is forthcoming from Ig Publishing in May 2021. Celeste’s goal is to dispel all myths about island-life and island-people, and to highlight points of intersection between Caribbean and North American interests. Her work has appeared in The New England Review, Litmag, Kweli Journal, Epiphany, Scarlet Leaf Review, The Rumpus (X , X), among other places. She is the recipient of a 2018 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She was also awarded the 2019 Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction, and the 2017 John D Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction.
Rachel B. Moore
San Francisco, CA
Graduated June 2012
RACHEL B. MOORE earned her MFA in Fiction from Lesley University in 2012. She has performed onstage reading creative non-fiction about public transit and her love of city life, most recently in the Litcrawl during San Francisco’s autumn Litquake festival. Rachel’s literary obsessions include disappearances of all kinds, missing people, and urban nature. When not writing, she makes small-batch, seasonal jams and preserves, throws pottery, and always looks for the people in the missing persons fliers posted about town. Her recent work can be found in The Stonecoast Review, Peatsmoke Journal, and MIDLVLMAG.
Sebastian Murdoch
Jackson, MS
Graduated June 2019
SEBASTIAN MURDOCH is a fiction writer living in Jackson, MS with their two cats, Kafka and Yoshimi. They are a graduate of the Lesley University MFA program with a concentration in Fiction. Their writing focus lies in Southern Gothic fiction, and they have been published in the Johannesburg Review of Books. They are currently interning for the Write or Die Tribe website, and their nonfiction posts on writing and creativity can be found there as well as on their website.
Kristin Offiler
Rhode Island
Graduated January 2011
KRISTIN OFFILER teaches creative writing with the Sarah Selecky Writing School and is currently working on her second novel. Her fiction has previously appeared in the Waccamaw Journal of Contemporary Literature. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and son.
Lee Okan
Cambridge, MA
Graduated January 2015
LEE OKAN is a Boston-based writer. Her work has appeared in Nixes Mate Review and Papercut Magazine. She teaches writing, literature, and English as a second language in the Boston area. Her novel, The Lives of Atoms, was published by Nixes Mate Books in 2018. She is currently working on a novel that examines themes of quantum physics and suicide.
Buki Papillon
Boston, MA
Graduated June 2007
BUKI PAPILLON is the author of An Ordinary Wonder, described in Cosmopolitan as “tender and moving”. [Dialogue Books / Little, Brown UK. March 2021. Pegasus Books, US. September 2021]. Her work has appeared in Post Road Magazine and The Del Sol Review. She has received fellowships to The Key West Literary Seminars and Vermont Studio Center, was awarded an Archie D. And Bertha. H. Walker Foundation Scholarship by the Fine Arts Work Center, and is an alumna of the VONA Voices Workshops.
She was born in Nigeria, lived in the UK where she studied law at the University of Hull, and is now settled in Boston in the US, where she has learned to find inspiration in the long winters. She has in the past been a travel adviser, events host and chef. In her downtime she loves making jewelry and cooking up a storm. Her twitter is @bukipapillon.
Lauren Paredes
Portland, OR
Graduated June 2015
LAUREN PAREDES is a storyteller across mediums with a soft spot for the unusual. She’s currently very smitten with erasure poetry. Her works have been published in Gold Man Review, Trnsfr, and First Matter Press. Lauren lives in Portland, Oregon where she is a founding member of First Matter Press and the Eastside Poetry Workshop.
Dan Portincaso
Oak Park, IL
Graduated January 2008
DAN PORTINCASO is a writer of short stories, flash fiction, poetry, with novels in the works. His writing has appeared in publications such as: F(r)iction, the Hoot Review (x, x), and Pank. He served as the 2012 managing editor of the Chicago Quarterly Review and has also been a finalist in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. After graduating from Columbia College Chicago’s undergraduate fiction writing program he worked for many years as the Facilities Manager and Head Docent at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum on the University of Illinois Chicago campus where he strove to bring the history of social justice on the Near West Side of Chicago to people from around Illinois and the world through tours, exhibitions, research, and community development. After earning his MFA in Fiction writing at Lesley University, he turned his attention to being an educator and is now an Associate Professor of English at Waubonsee Community College in the suburbs of Chicago where he teaches courses in Composition and Fiction writing, and is the faculty advisor for the college’s Creative Writing Club and literary magazine, Horizons.
Sonia Phillips Resika
Kerhonkson, NY
Graduated June 2020
SONIA RESIKA began writing creative non fiction over twenty years ago while an undergraduate at Columbia University. After a move to the Hudson Valley, she spent the next many years raising a family, among other things, eventually finding her way back to a fiction workshop where she discovered a love for short story writing. In 2018 she began the MFA program in fiction at Lesley University, graduating in the pandemic spring of 2020. Her first published work appears in the Winter 21/22 issue of Ploughshares. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories.
Benjamin Roesch
Burlington, VT
Graduated January 2016
BENJAMIN ROESCH is a writer, musician, teacher, podcaster, award-winning essayist, and author of the debut YA novel, Blowin’ My Mind Like a Summer Breeze. For twelve glorious, exhausting years, he was a high school English teacher, and is now a full-time writer based in Burlington, VT, where he lives with his family.
Rebecca Rolland
Boston, MA
Graduated June 2017
REBECCA ROLLAND is a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, where she is a Module Director for the Effective Writing for Health Care program. She is also an oral and written language specialist in the Neurology Department of Boston Children’s Hospital and has worked clinically with all ages as a nationally certified speech-language pathologist. She is the mother of two school-age kids and has written on parenting, literacy, and education for outlets including USA Today; Salon; WBUR’s Cognoscenti; Brain, Child, Magazine; Kveller; Harvard Education Letter; EdSurge; and Education Week.
Nada Samih-Rotondo
Providence, RI
Graduated June 2012
NADA SAMIH-ROTONDO is a writer, teacher, and mother who is inspired by the relationship between personhood and place. She is interested in the slippery concept of home, local histories, and creature folklore. Born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, she immigrated to the United States at the age of six to Rhode Island. She lives in the enchanted post industrial land of Providence with her husband and three kids. Her work has been published in The Masters Review, Squat Birth Journal, Topography Literary Magazine, Frequency Anthology, and Gulf Stream Magazine.
Find Nada on Instagram @nadasamihwrites.
Elizabeth Shick (Liz)
Dhaka, Bangladesh & West Tisbury, MA
Graduated January 2019
ELIZABETH SHICK grew up dreaming of other worlds, both real and imagined. Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, she has lived and worked in Angola, Bangladesh, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Tanzania, The Gambia, and Italy. Along the way, she met and married her Italian-Australian husband and raised two wonderful and worldly daughters and three well-traveled cats. Liz and her husband now live in Dhaka, Bangladesh, returning to their home in West Tisbury, Massachusetts at least once a year. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Lesley University and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University.
Her debut novel, The Golden Land, which was inspired by the six years she lived in Yangon, Myanmar, is the winner of the 2021 AWP Prize for the Novel.
Check Liz out at our Bookstore!
Photo credit: Maria Thibodeau
Mariya Taher
Cambridge, MA (though originally from California!)
Graduated June 2016
While at Lesley University, MARIYA TAHER received the 2014 Graduate School of Arts & Social Sciences Dean’s Merit Scholarship and the 2016 Lesley University Graduate Student Leadership Award. More recent writing accomplishments include being named a Golden Cod Award fiction finalist for her novel-in-progress, The Chai We Drink, at the Marblehead Festival of Arts, as well as being named a Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Foundation Scholar. Mariya is also a social worker and has been recognized globally for her innovative work involving utilizing storytelling to break generational gender-based violence. In 2019, the Muslim American Leadership Alliance awarded her their storytelling award for her human rights work. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared on NPR, Ms. Magazine, HuffPost, The Fair Observer, Brown Girl Magazine, Solstice Literary Magazine (x , x), Awaaz Voices, The Express Tribune, The San Francisco Examiner, The Flexible Persona, Cecile’s Writers’ Magazine, The New Social Worker, Blue Minaret, Bay Woof, and more. To make sure she is well rounded, Mariya also considers herself an avid chocolate taster, runner, novice potter, and just overall klutz.
Find Mariya on Twitter (@mariyataher83) and LinkedIn!
Nathan Tavares
Boston, MA
Graduated June 2011
NATHAN TAVARES writes fiction, sometimes about benevolent frauds, time travel, and the terrible and/or wonderful things people do for/to each other. His writing has appeared in PANK (x , x), Necessary Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere. He is also a freelance journalist with a special interest in queer issues and boosting the work of historically excluded voices.
Check Nathan out at our Bookstore!
Photo Credit: Eric Richard Magnussen
Garrett Theige
Andover, MA
Graduated June 2022
GARRETT is a former journalist who now teaches English and coaches track and cross country at Phillips Academy Andover, a boarding high school in Massachusetts. He lives with his wife, Melissa, and two miniature dachshunds, Fisher and Duckworth. His fiction has previously appeared in Tampa Review, from which he received the Danahy Fiction Prize. His writing interests include absurdism, rednecks from the upper Midwest, and the cultural gap between the rural Midwest and the East Coast, two places that have grown near to his heart in very different ways.
Photo Credit: Tony Eprile
Erin Cecilia Thomas
Buffalo, NY and Nashville, TN
Graduated January 2023
ERIN CECILIA THOMAS is a fiction writer and musician from western upstate New York. She has a BA from Berklee College of Music and her work frequently involves music, music culture, and nature. She is drawn to writing that is weird, dark, and funny, and her favorites include George Saunders, Joy Williams, David Foster Wallace, and Elif Batuman. Erin was the recipient of the 2021 Beacon Street Prize in Fiction from Emerson College. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Redivider, Passengers Journal, Into The Void, Oyez Review, Illuminations of the Fantastic, and Archipelago: a fiction anthology from Allegory Ridge, among others.
Lisa Weiss
Baltimore, MD
Graduated June 2015
LISA WEISS, Professor of Music Emeritus, Goucher College is a professional classical pianist born and raised in Quincy and Milton, MA. In addition to her MFA, Lisa has earned her Harvard B.A., Yale School of Music M.M. in Piano Performance, and Peabody Conservatory D.M.A. in Piano Performance. Her spouse Howie Lee Weiss is Professor of Art at Maryland Institute College of Art and her son Billie Weiss is Manager of Photography for the Boston Red Sox. Her writing interests include flash fiction, short story, memoir, music topics, relationship between music and writing. Her published work appears in Flash Fiction Magazine, Story Shack, Postcard Shorts, and the former Kentucky Review.
Hurley Winkler
Jacksonville, FL
Graduated January 2017
HURLEY WINKLER was born and raised in Northeast Florida, where she still lives and will always live (and where she will most certainly be buried in the swampy ground someday). Since graduating from Lesley, she’s had the marvelous opportunity to attend juried workshops and residencies at Lit Camp, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Mors Tua Vita Mea. Her work has been published in Hobart, The Millions and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram: @hurleywink.