Brianna Johnson
Sep30

Brianna Johnson

Brianna Johnson is the author of Fire Sale, an experimental prose manifesto detailing the economic decline of love, the body, and America in 18 movements, forthcoming from somewhere. As a result of her participation in the 2013 AROHO retreat, Brianna founded the Agua Viva Fellowship for a gifted and bold woman writer in recovery from alcohol and/or chemical dependency. She has earned her BFA and MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard...

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Mary Johnson
Sep30

Mary Johnson

Mary Johnson is author of the memoir An Unquenchable Thirst, named one of 2011′s best books by Kirkus Review. Her courage to tell her story was the catalyst for the founding of A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO). Mary is AROHO’s Creative Director of Retreats and is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony. Her work has been widely published in places such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, O the Oprah Magazine,  Bloomberg View,...

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Bhanu Kapil
Sep30

Bhanu Kapil

  Bhanu Kapil is a multi-genre and multi-talented writer writing at the intersection of poetry, prose, and non-fiction. As a teacher, Bhanu focuses on generative, experimental writing practice, with a focus on returning to works or parts of works that were discarded, inert, or tossed aside. Bhanu has written The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (Kelsey Street Press, 2001), Incubation: A Space for Monsters (Leon Works,...

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Elizabeth Kenneday-Corathers
Sep30

Elizabeth Kenneday-Corathers

Elizabeth Kenneday, an Emeritá Professor of Art at the California State University in Long Beach, has been the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Fellowship at the University of Iceland, is an artist and author. Her activities in environmental education through art have led to numerous lectures at international conferences in Europe and North America, and her writings on the subject have appeared in several publications and anthologies....

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Caroline Kessler
Sep30

Caroline Kessler

Caroline Kessler is a freelance writer and editor living in south Berkeley. Originally from outside Baltimore, she holds a BA with honors in creative writing and a minor in religious studies from Carnegie Mellon University. Her poetry and prose has been published in The Susquehanna Review, Sundog Lit, Anderbo, Superstition Review, Up the Staircase, Treehouse, and PresenTense, among others. An alumna of the Bucknell Seminar for Younger...

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Maxine Hong Kingston
Sep30

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston is an internationally acclaimed Chinese American author spearheading conversations about peace, feminism, and race relations. Born in Stockton, California, Maxine earned her bachelor’s degree from U.C. Berkeley, where she currently teaches as Professor Emerita. She has written three novels and several works of nonfiction about the experiences of Chinese immigrants living in the US. Her first book, The Woman...

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Tanya Ko
Sep30

Tanya Ko

Tanya Ko, poet and translator who was born and raised in South Korea, and received her MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles. Author of Generation One Point Five, her work has appeared in Beloit, Two Hawks Quarterly, Rattle, Writers at Work, and elsewhere. She writes in English and Korean and currently translates the work of Arthur Sze into Korean. Living and writing from two cultures, hers is a unique, authentic, and courageous...

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Cassandra Lane
Sep30

Cassandra Lane

Cassandra Lane has worked as a newspaper reporter, high school teacher and college advisor. She currently serves as the senior writer for a nonprofit that funds quality preschool for 11,000 children a year in Los Angeles County. Cassandra’s essays, stories and articles have been published in The Bellingham Review, TheScreamOnline, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Times-Picayune, Everything but the Burden, The Source and more. She...

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Caroline LeBlanc
Sep30

Caroline LeBlanc

Caroline LeBlanc, former Army Nurse and civilian nurse psychotherapist, has had her poetry and essays published in the US and abroad. In 2010, Oiseau Press published Smokey Ink and a Touch of Honeysuckle, her chapbook about life as an Army wife, and the descendent of 17th Century Acadian/French Canadian settlers in North America. She regularly contributes to Poetry Matters, a group book review and poet interview blog. As Writer in...

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Christina Lee
Sep30

Christina Lee

Christina Lee is a poet, musician and teacher who hails from Sierra Madre, a tiny foothill town just east of Los Angeles, CA. She teaches 7th grade English at a nearby public school. Christina holds an MFA in Poetry from Seattle Pacific University, and her poems have recently been featured in Ruminate Magazine and Relief Journal. When not writing or grading, she spends her time hiking, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and staging...

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Cynthia Leitich Smith
Sep30

Cynthia Leitich Smith

Cynthia Leitich Smith is the New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-selling author of the Feral series, which includes Feral Nights, Feral Curse and Feral Pride, as well as the Tantalize series, which includes Tantalize, Eternal, Blessed and Diabolical. Cynthia is also the author of several highly acclaimed children’s books, including Jingle Dancer, Rain Is Not My Indian Name, and Indian Shoes. Cynthia was named a Writer of...

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Stefanie Lipsey
Sep30

Stefanie Lipsey

Stefanie Lipsey is a poet, yoga instructor, and public school librarian. Her work has been published in many journals including: Southword, Long Island Quarterly, Big City Lit, Halfway Down the Stairs, and in the anthology, Token Entry: New York City Subway Poems. She teaches staff writing workshops at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY and has been a featured reader and workshop facilitator at libraries in the NYC area for over...

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Nikki Loftin
Sep30

Nikki Loftin

Nikki Loftin is the author of three novels for young readers: THE SINISTER SWEETNESS OF SPLENDID ACADEMY, NIGHTINGALE’S NEST, and WISH GIRL. She’s won awards and starred reviews for her books. This year, she plans to use some of the magical time at AROHO to draft another novel that will probably, like her other books, be called “too tragic,” “too dark/edgy,” or too something-elsey. This thought gives Nikki great joy, as she delights...

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Lisa Lutwyche
Sep30

Lisa Lutwyche

Lisa Lutwyche received her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College in 2013.  Poet, artist, playwright, and actor, her writing and artwork have been published in the US and in the UK.  Her background includes a BFA (art), a BA (art history), and over 25 years in architecture.  Lisa is now an adjunct English professor in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  She has taught writing and art workshops since 1992, including at AROHO (2011 and...

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Maura MacNeil
Sep30

Maura MacNeil

Maura MacNeil, MFA, is the founder of off the margins, a website that features writing and reflection on the life of an artist from women who “fearlessly tell the truth and risk vulnerability to give voice to their experience.” She earned her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College and her poetry, prose, and critical writing has been published and anthologized in numerous publications over the past three decades. Current projects include a...

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Ellen McLaughlin
Sep30

Ellen McLaughlin

Ellen McLaughlin is an award-winning writer and playwright whose plays have received numerous national and international productions, including Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity’s House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians and Oedipus, and most recently, the critically acclaimed Septimus and Clarissa. Ellen is also an actor and has worked on and off Broadway as well...

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Carrie Nassif
Sep30

Carrie Nassif

Carrie Nassif is a clinical psychologist who is prone to binge writing episodes and obsessive-compulsive photographic behaviors. She has an affinity for the minimalist landscapes of the rural Midwest where she lives with her wife and son; where there’s room in her head to patch words into poetry quilts and yarn enough to mend her memoir comforters. Several of her poems have been published in journals and anthologies, and she keeps a...

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Shauna Osborn
Sep30

Shauna Osborn

Shauna Osborn is a Comanche/German mestiza who works as an artist, wordsmith, and community organizer. In 2013, she received a National Poetry Award from the New York Public Library. She is forever indebted to their social media coordinator for placing one of her winning poetry entries on their blog feed between a photo of David Tennant reading and an announcement for a William Gibson event, which simultaneously fueled her sense of...

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Angelique Palmer
Sep30

Angelique Palmer

Angelique Palmer is a writer, teacher and performer from Miami by way of New Orleans; she now calls Northern Virginia home. A Creative Writing graduate from Florida State University, she found slam poetry through Will “Da Real One” Bell and was born and raised on the Literary Café and Poetry Lounge stage, becoming a “Café Baby.” As an Elementary School Creative Writing Instructor at the American Poetry Museum in Washington, DC, she...

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Alicia Payne
Sep30

Alicia Payne

Alicia Payne is a professional actor and published writer whose credits encompass theatre, film, television and radio. She’s also a contributor to the Encyclopedia of African American Music. Her professional memberships include ACTRA, CAEA, Dramatists Guild of America and Playwrights Guild of Canada. As a professional simulator, she provides feedback to learners in corporate settings through PlaysthatWork. As an artist educator, she...

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