John Fulton’s most recent story collection, The Animal Girl, was published Fall 2007 by Louisiana State University Press. He is the author of Retribution, which won the 2001 Southern Review Short Fiction Award for the best first collection of short stories. His novel, More Than Enough, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award. His work has appeared in Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. His short story “Hunters” won a 2006 Pushcart Prize.

» Read samples of John Fulton's work: "Stealing" (Gist Street Reading Series), and an interview with the writer (Emerging Writers Forum).

Suji Kwock Kim's first book, Notes From the Divided Country, won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,  THE NATION/Discovery Award,  the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, and was a finalist for the PEN USA Award and the International Griffin Prize.  Poems from her forthcoming second book have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Paris Review, Slate, The Nation, The New Republic, and on National Public Radio.  She was the recipient of a 2006 Whiting Writers Award and also served as a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. Choral settings of her work, composed by Mayako Kubo for the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, will premiere in December 2007, and vocal settings of her work, composed by Jerome Blais, were performed in Halifax, Nova Scotia in March 2007.  Private Property, a multimedia play she co-wrote, was produced at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and featured on BBC-TV. 

Read samples of Suji Kwock Kim's work: "Monologue for an Onion" (Academy of American Poets),  "Occupation" (The Washington Post), and "Skins" (Slate).

Askold Melnyczuk's ninth book is The House of Widows, a novel published Spring 2008. His second novel, Ambassador of the Dead, was a Los Angeles Times Best Book for 2002. His first, What Is Told, was a New York Times Notable Book. He has also published a novella about Rimbaud titled Blind Angel. He edited three volumes of the Graywolf Take Three Poetry Series, as well as books on poet and activist Daniel Berrigan and Boston artist Gerry Bergstein. He was also co-editor of From Three Worlds, the first American anthology of contemporary Ukrainian literature, from which he has translated extensively. He has received a three-year fellowship in fiction from the Lila Wallace Foundation and the McGinnis Prize from the Southwest Review, as well as numerous grants from the NEA for editing Agni, which he founded in 1972. He has published in The New York Times, The Nation, The Boston Globe, Ploughshares, Poetry, APR and elsewhere

Read samples of Askold Melnyzcuk's work: "Forsythia" (Ploughshares) and "The Dimensions of Silence" (Ploughshares).

Joyce Peseroff, Program Director

Joyce Peseroff's four books of poems are The Hardness Scale, A Dog in the Lifeboat, Mortal Education, and Eastern Mountain Time. She has been managing editor and associate poetry editor of Ploughshares, and edited The Ploughshares Poetry Reader, Robert Bly: When Sleepers Awake, and Simply Lasting: Writers on Jane Kenyon. Her poems and reviews have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Margie, New York Times Book Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review, The Women’s Review of Books, and the online journal Slate.

» Read samples of Joyce Peseroff's work: "The Hardness Scale" (Ploughshares), “Zeno's Paradox, or My Mother's Forsythia” (AGNI), and "Lilacs on My Birthday" (Poetry Daily).

Lloyd Schwartz

Lloyd Schwartz won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. His three books of poems are These People, Goodnight, Gracie, and Cairo Traffic. His poems, essays and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Paris Review, and Best American Poetry. Editor of Elizabeth Bishop and Her Art, he is an internationally recognized authority on Bishop’s poetry. An edition of her work he prepared for the Library of America was published in March 2008. He is classical music editor of the Boston Phoenix and a weekly contributor to NPR’s Fresh Air.

» Read samples of Lloyd Schwartz's work: "Six Words" (Ploughshares), "Leaves" (from Goodnight, Gracie), and "A True Poem" (from Cairo Traffic).

Elizabeth Searle, Visiting Writer 2007-2008

Elizabeth Searle is the author of three books of fiction: Celebrities in
Disgrace, a novella that is being adapted for film; A Four-Sided Bed, a
novel nominated for an American Library Association book award; and a
story collection, My Body to You, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction
Prize. Elizabeth's opera based on the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding
skating scandal has recently brought her national media attention.
'Tonya and Nancy: The Opera' previewed at the American Reperatory
Theater's 'new space for new works' in 2006; a new expanded production
is forthcoming. Elizabeth has published stories in magazines such as
Redbook, Ploughshares, Agni and Kenyon Review and in anthologies such as Lovers and Don't You Forget About Me (Simon & Schuster, 2007).  She is on the Executive Board of PEN/New England.

» Read samples of Elizabeth Searle's work: "Why We're Here" (Ploughshares), and an interview with the writer (Post Road Magazine).