Meet this year’s faculty
Hannah Bae (Nonfiction Class)
Hannah Bae is a freelance journalist and nonfiction writer who is at work on a memoir about family estrangement and mental illness. She is the 2020 nonfiction winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award. Her work has been published in books including “(Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation on Mental Health” (Algonquin Young Readers, 2018) and “The Monocle Travel Guide, Seoul” (food and drinks chapter co-editor/writer, 2018). She is focused on stories about Korean American culture and identity, and in 2019, several of her essays received nominations for The Pushcart Prize. She was a 2019 Open City fellow in narrative nonfiction at Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Through 2018 and 2019, Hannah served as president of Asian American Journalists Association’s New York chapter, for which she was named AAJA National’s Chapter President of the Year in 2019. Hannah has worked full-time for organizations such as CNN Business, Newsday and the U.S. State Department. She started her journalism career in Seoul on a Princeton-in-Asia fellowship that led to full-time editor positions at some of South Korea’s largest news organizations and freelance work with CNN, Monocle, Eater, The Associated Press and other clients.
Tiana Clark (Poetry Class)
Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collection, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), winner of the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Equilibrium (Bull City Press, 2016), selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Clark is a winner for the 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award (Claremont Graduate University), a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, a recipient of a 2019 Pushcart Prize, a winner of the 2017 Furious Flower’s Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize. She was the 2017-2018 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. Clark is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (M.F.A) and Tennessee State University (B.A.) where she studied Africana and Women’s studies. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Washington Post, VQR, Tin House Online, Kenyon Review, BuzzFeed News, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Oxford American, Best New Poets 2015, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
Shawna Ayoub (Writing through Trauma Class)
Shawna Ayoub is an essayist, fiction writer, poet, and instructor with an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University. Some of her work has been published in The Manifest-Station, Role Reboot, [wherever], The Huffington Post, The Oxford Review and Exit 7. Her writing explores the intersections of race, place and survivorship. She writes with honesty about her own experience in order to transform pain.
ZZ Packer (Fiction Workshop)
ZZ Packer is a graduate of Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the recipient of a Dobie Paisano Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, and a Whiting Writers Award. She has published fiction in The Best American Short Stories, Harper’s, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and the New Yorker, which included her in its 20 Under 40 Fiction Issue. Her nonfiction has appeared in the American Prospect, the Guardian, the New York Times Magazine, the Oxford American, and the Washington Post Magazine.
Jaquira Díaz (Memoir Workshop)
Jaquira Díaz was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Miami. She is the author of Ordinary Girls: A Memoir, a Summer/Fall 2019 Indies Introduce Selection, a Fall 2019 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, a November 2019 Indie Next Pick, and a Library Reads October pick. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Fader, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and The Best American Essays 2016, among other publications. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, an NEA Fellowship to the Hambidge Center for the Arts, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Kenyon Review, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Writers’ Workshop, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. A former Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s MFA Program in Creative Writing, and Consulting Editor at the Kenyon Review, she splits her time between Montréal and Miami Beach, with her partner, the writer Lars Horn. Her second book, I Am Deliberate: A Novel, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books.
Maggie Smith (Poetry Workshop)
Maggie Smith is the author of three books of poetry: Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017); The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (2015); and Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press, 2005). Her latest book, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change (One Signal/Simon & Schuster 2020), a collection of essays and quotes, is a national bestseller. Smith’s poems and essays are widely published and anthologized, appearing in Best American Poetry, the New York Times, The New Yorker, Tin House, POETRY, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. In 2016 her poem “Good Bones” went viral internationally and has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. Public Radio International called it “the official poem of 2016.”
Ross Gay (Poetry—Special Event)
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His new poem, Be Holding, was released from the University of Pittsburgh Press in September of 2020. His collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released by Algonquin Books in 2019. Ross is also the co-author, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, of the chapbook “Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens,” in addition to being co-author, with Rosechard Wehrenberg, of the chapbook, “River.” He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin’, in addition to being an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press. Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He also works on The Tenderness Project with Shayla Lawson and Essence London. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University.
Joseph Cassara (Fiction Class)
Joseph Cassara is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel The House of Impossible Beauties (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2018), which won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, two International Latino Book Awards, the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Fiction Book, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. It was selected by Barnes & Noble for their Discover Great New Writers program and by WH Smith in the UK for their Fresh Talent program. The novel was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal and was listed as one of the best literary novels of the year by Entertainment Weekly,Library Journal, and the American Librarian Association’s Over The Rainbow Booklist. He holds a BA in English & Comparative Literature from Columbia University and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has received fellowships and grants from the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Studios of Key West, and California Humanities. His short fiction, essays, and criticism have been featured in or are forthcoming in The New York Times Style Magazine, The Boston Review, Asymptote, and a London-based anthology titled The Queer Bible. He is currently the George & Judy Marcus Chair of Creative Writing and assistant professor at San Francisco State University.
Brando Skyhorse (Publishing Class)
Brando Skyhorse is the award winning author of The Madonnas of Echo Park, Take This Man: A Memoir, and has co-edited an anthology, We Wear The Mask: 15 True Stories Of Passing in America. He is an Associate Professor at Indiana University in Bloomington where he teaches at IU’s Creative Writing MFA program.
IUWC has a long history of hosting highly accomplished faculty.
2021
Ross Gay
ZZ Packer
Maggie Smith
Jaquira Díaz
Brando Skyhorse
Tiana Clark
Hannah Bae
Joseph Cassara
Shawna Ayoub
2020
Cancelled due to COVID-19
2019
Héctor Tobar
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Meghan Daum
Lilliam Rivera
Jan-Henry Gray
Patrick Coleman
2018
Ada Limón
Kiese Laymon
Matthew Klam
Alison Gaylin
Jason Adam Katzenstein
Chanelle Benz
Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa
2017
Chris Abani
Morgan Parker
Mary Robinette Kowal
Alexander Weinstein
Amy Kurzweil
Rickey Laurentiis
2016
Wesley Chu
Gabrielle Calvocoressi
David Crabb
Dana Johnson
Amelia Martens
Walton Muyumba
Salvatore Scibona
2015
Lynda Barry
Lou Berney
Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Dan Chaon
Adrian Matejka
Alissa Nutting
John-Paul Zaccarini
2014
Jami Attenberg
Sally Ball
Jim Elledge
T.M. McNally
Christine Sneed
Stephen Motika
2013
Arthur Phillips
Cathy Bowman
Scott Hutchins
Nathaniel Perry
Alix Lambert
Lloyd Suh
2012
Lynda Barry
Dan Chaon
Jean Thompson
Erin Belieu
Jenny Browne
Lou Berney
James Canary
2011
Tony Ardizonne
Lynda Barry
Dan Chaon
Gary Ferguson
Jill Godmilow
Patrick Rosal
Julia Story
2010
Josip Novakovich
Meg Wolitzer
Eileen Myles
Samrat Upadhyay
Ed Pavlic
Mia Leonin
Micah Ling
Dan Barden
2009
Julia Glass
Manuel Munoz
Aracelis Girmay
Alyce Miller
Tom Chiarello
Danit Brown
David Trinidad
2008
Donald Antrim
Karen Joy Fowler
Jean Valentine
Kevin Prufer
Tony Ardizzone
Alison Umminger
Ross Gay
Anne-Marie Oomen
2007
Khaled Mattawa
Matthew Klam
Catherine Bowman
Nicholas Dawidoff
Crystal Wilkinson
Adam Langer
Heather McHugh,
Lee Martin
2006
Amy Bloom
Richard McCann
David Kirby
Barbara Hamby
Dana Johnson
Mark Wunderlich
Tyehimba Jess
2005
Tony Ardizzone
Mark Axelrod
Carol Bly
Cynie Cory
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Ruth Ellen Kocher
Yusef Komunyakaa
David Lazar
David Leavitt
Brian Leung
Martha Rhodes
Maura Stanton
2004
Thomas Glave
Patricia Henley
Li-Young Lee
Alyce Miller
Jean Thompson
Terrance Hayes
Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Michael Martone
Maureen Seaton
Karen Volkman
2003
Aimee Bender
Marilyn Chin
Elizabeth Dewberry
Amy Locklin
Clint McCown
David Wright
Robert Olen Butler
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Brenda Hillman
A. Loudermilk
Achy Obejas
Kevin Young
2002
Mark Doty
Molly Giles
Andrew Hudgins
Paul Lisicky
Manuel Luis Martinez
Michael Martone
Erin McGraw
Reginald McKnight
Roger Mitchell
Lucia Perillo
Karen Volkman
2001
Barrie Jean Borich
John Dufresne
Jim Grimsley,
Alyce Miller
Ernesto Quiñonez
Jean Valentine
Cindy Chinelly
Beth Ann Fennelly
Shirlene Holmes
Susan Mitchell
Alan Shapiro
2000
Jonis Agee
Tony Ardizzone
Jim Elledge
Kate Daniels
C.J. Hribal
Timothy Liu
Beckian Fritz Goldberg
John Keene
Susan Neville
Kevin Stein
Michael Martone
Romayne Rubinas
1999
Catherine Bowman
Rodney Jones
Allison Joseph
Jesse Lee Kercheval
Brad Leithauser
Manuel Luis Martinez
Mary Jo Salter
Barbara Shoup
Jon Tribble
Charles Harper Webb
1998
Carol Anshaw
Pinckney Benedict
Catherine Bowman
Ralph Burns
Gerald Costanzo
Amy Gerstler
John McCluskey
Jay Meek
William O’Rourke
Lucia Perillo
Sharon Solwitz
1997
Marianne Boruch
Catherine Bowman
Richard Katrovas
Yusef Komunyakaa
Alyce Miller
Susan Neville
Barbara Shoup
Joan Silber
Arthur Vogelsang
David Wojahn
Al Young
1996
Ralph Burns
Jim Elledge
Reginald Gibbons
Brigit Pegeen Kelly
John McCluskey
Susan Neville
Frances Sherwood
Gerald Stern
Brian Swann
Roberta Swann
Jean Thompson
David Wojahn
1995
Ralph Burns
Bernard Cooper
Martin Espada
Thomas Gavin
John McCluskey
William Matthews
Frances Sherwood
Maura Stanton
Jean Thompson
C.D. Wright
Al Young
Paul Zimmer
1992
Ralph Angel
Tony Ardizzone
Robert Boswell
Lynn Emanuel
Mark Halliday
Heather McHugh
Reginald McKnight
William Matthews
Donald Revell
Gladys Swan
Jean Thompson
David Wojahn
1991
Deborah Digges
Alan Dugan
Richard Jackson
David Bradley
Susan Dodd
Ellen Lesser
Ira Sadoff
1990
Marvin Belle
Ralph Burns
Reginald Gibbons
Dewitt Henry
Lynda Hull
Reginald McKnight
Judy Troy
Joan Silber
Brian Swann
Roberta Swann
David Wojahn
Richard Yates
1989
Brian Swann
Andre Hudgins
Joan Silber
Charles Johnson
Joseph Parisi
Dewitt Henry
Cornelia Nixon
Dean Young
Roberta Swan
Joan Aleshire
Sherod Santos
Ellen Lesser
Briana Swan
1988
David St. John
Joy Williams
David Huddle
Stephen Dunn
Stuart Dybek
Susan Mitchell
1987
Brian Swann
Rochelle Distelheim
Arthur Vogelsang
David Jauss
Howard Norman
Roger Mitchell
Charles Baxter
Sena Naslund
Brenda Hillman
Vern Rutsala
Patricia Hampl
1986
Maura Stanton
Steven Axelrod
John Calvin Batchelor
Richard Cecil
Jean Thompson
Ellen Bryant Voigt
Sandra McPherson
Stanley Plumly
Pam Service
Brian Swann
Rochelle Distelheim
Andre Dubus
1985
Carol Bly
Lisel Mueller
Dave Smith
Rochelle Distelheim
Alvin Greenberg
Denise Levertov
Susan Neville
Scott Sanders
Sam Smiley
Maura Stanton
Brain Swann
Robley Wilson
1984
E.M. Broner
Hayden Carruth
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
James Hazard
John McCulsky
Mary Oliver
Grace Paley
Scott Sanders
Sam Smiley
Mona Van Duyn
Robert Wilson
1983
Tim Cahill
Stanley Elkin
Douglas Hofstadter
Carolyn Kizer
Ursula LeGuin
Roger Mitchell
Thomas Rabbitt
Mary Robison
Scott Sanders
Sam Smiley
Dave Smith
1982
Willis Barnstone
Raymond Carver
George Garrett
James Hazard
Shirley Kaufman
Emily Cheney Neville
Scott Sanders
Cynthia Propper Seton
Clancy Sigal
William Stafford
Maura Stanton
Alberta Turner
1981
E.M. Broner
R.V. Cassill
James Hazard
Galway Kinnell
Carolyn Kizer
Paul Metcalf
Lisel Mueller
Scott Sanders
Clancy Sigal
Robley Wilson
1980
Alan Dugan
George Garrett
James Hazard
Paul Metcalf
Marge Piercy
Francine du Plessix Gray
Scott Sanders
Clancy Sigal
Mary Ellen Solt
Brian Swann
Diane Wakoski
Kathleen Wiegner
Maia Wojciechowska
1979
Rhoda A. Weyr
Richard Kostelanetz
1978
Ursula LeGuin
Mary Fornes
Ishmael Reed
Ed Stern
1977
Herbert Gold
Jim Hougan
Philip Levine
Grace Paley
Muriel Rukeyser
Megan Terry
Roger Zelazny
1976
John Arden
Richard Kostelanetz
Dan Georakas
Leonard Michaels
John Woods
Sol Yurick
Roger Zelazny
1975
Madeleine L’Engle
Paul Darcy Boles
Mary Daniels
Philip Hamburger
Jack Matthews
Roger Mitchell
Tad Mosee
Harry Mark Petrakis
1974
Norma Ainsworth
Doris Betts
Stephen Birmingham
BJ Chute
Richard Dunlop
Arthur Gregor
Tad Mosel
Arturo Vivante
1973
Elizabeth Spencer
A.E.Hotchner
Stanley Elkin
Doris Betts
Arthur Gregor
Emily Cheney Neville
Eileen Jensen
John Brady
1972
Fred Mustard Stewart
Gerold Frank
Doris Betts
Jack Matthews
Sandra Hochman
Lloyd Alexander
Paul Darcy Boles
Charles and Bonnie Remsberg
1971
Anton Myrer
Elizabeth Spencer
Gay Talese
Gwendolyn Brooks
Madeleine L’Engle
Will Stanton
William Barry Furlong
Gretchen Cryer
1970
Noel B. Gerson
Harry Mark Petrakis
Martin L. Gross
Selden Rodman
Maia Wojciechowska
Robert Canzoneri
Richard Dunlop
Peter Masterson
1969
Anton Myrer
Stephen Birmingham
Philip Hamburger
John Ashbery
Maia Wojciechowska
Sam Smiley
Hal Higdon
John Weston
1968
Douglass Wallop
Jesse Hill Ford
William K. Zinsser
Lionel Wiggam
Jean Poindexter Colby
Arturo F. Gonzalez Jr.
Sam Smiley
Ilka Chase
1967
Jerome Weidman
Elizabeth Enright
Gerold Frank
Gwendolyn Brooks
Richard Atcheson
Beatrice Schenk De Regniers
Malcolm Foster
1966
Arthur Hailey
William Peden
Bruce and Naomi Bliven
Gwendolyn Brooks
Madeleine L’Engle
Robert Meredith
Lillian Pompian
1965
David Westheimer
Harry Mark Petrakis
Jhan & June Robbins
Lionel Wiggam
Madeleine L’Engle
Robert Meredith
Lillian Pompian
1964
Anya Seton
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Ernest Havemann
Lionel Wiggan
The Spewacks
Keith Robertson
Harry Mark Petrakis
Lillian Pompian
1963
John Brooks
James Reid Parker
Maurice Zolotow
Lionel Wiggam
Tad Mosel
Keith Robertson
Bernard Sabath
Lillian Pompian
1962
Gladys Schmitt
Robert Murphy
Berton Roueche
Tad Mosel
Lionel Wiggam
Charlotte Zolotow
Bernard Sabath
Mary Corey
Willie Snow Ethridge
William Raney
1961
Nathaniel Benchley
Elizabeth Janeway
William Jay Smith
Charlotte Zolotow
Richard Gehman
Howard Rodman
Bernard Sabath
1960
Frances Gray Patton
David Wagoner
Mark Harris
Jean Lee Latham
Richard Gehman
Howard Rodman
1959
Nancy Wilson Ross
Stanley Young
Maurice Zolotow
Jean Lee Latham,
Ernest Kinoy
Winfield Townley
1958
Elizabeth Enright
John Selby
Maurice Zolotow
Peggy Bacon
Michelle Cousin
Reed Whittemore
1957
Jean Poindexter Colby
Walker Gibson
Don Congdon
Henry La Cossitt
Michelle Cousin
Jessamyn West
1956
Helen Eustis
Henry La Cossitt
Erik Barnouw
Howard Nemerov
Ruth Krauss
1955
Louise Bogan
Caroline Gordon
William Hodapp
Bruce Bliven, Jr.
Beatrice Creighton
1954
Elizabeth Yates
J.F. Powers
Robert Coughlan,
Richard Wilbur
Paul Pickrel
1953
John Selby
Elizabeth Enright
John Malcolm Brinnin
Frances Gray Patton
Oliver Jensen
1952
Nelson Algren
John Ciardi
Victoria Lincoln
Isabel McLennon McMeekin
Richard H. Rovere
1951
Peter Taylor,
Glenway Wescott
Richard Eberhart
John Bartlow Martin
Marjorie Flack
1950
Merle Miller
Louise Bogan
John Crowe Ransom
Lillian Smith
Caroline Gordon
Allen Tate
Gertrude Blumenthal
Walter S. Campbell
1949
Andrew Lyttle
Harry Shaw
Stephen Spender
Jeannette Covert Nolan
Glenway Wescott
Karl Detzer
Arch Oboler
1948
John Frederick Nims
John R Tunis
Jessamyn West
Lillian Hellman
John Horne Burns
Kenneth Fearing
Rolfe Humphries
William E Wilson
Irving Stone
1947
Carl Carmer
David L Cohn
Howard Fast
Brendan Gill
Horace Gregory
Ralph Humphries
Randall Jarrell
Meridel Le Sueur
John R Tunis
Ann Weil
Marya Zaturenska
1946
Robert Hillyer
Don Herold
MacKinlay Kantor
Mari Sandoz
Mary Jane Ward
Marion Boyd Havighurst
Walter Havighurst
John R Tunis
1945
Horace Gregory
Boyden Sparks
James T Farrell,
Richard A Cordell
Jeanette Covert Nolan
AC Spectorsky
Ruth Suckow
1942
Carl Carmer
John T Frederick
Katherine Anne Porter
David Daiches—Elliot Prize
Jeanette Covert Nolan
John Crowe Ransom
1941
Sally Benson
Carl Carmer
Nannine Joseph
Herbert J. Muller
Jeannette Covert Nolan
Kerker Quinn
John Crowe Ransom
Irwin Shaw
S. Stephenson Smith
Marguerite Young
1940
John Gould Fletcher
Jesse Stuart
Will David Howe
Jessica Mannon
Karl W. Detzer
Maxwell Aley
Jeanette Covert Nolan
Margaret Weymouth Jackson
Miriam Mason Swain