northwestern university creative writing faculty

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THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

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Litowitz Creative Writing Graduate Program

Degree requirements.

Learn more about the program by visiting the Department of English

See related Interdisciplinary Clusters and Certificates

Degree Types: MFA+MA

This fully-funded MFA+MA in Creative Writing and English program offers intimate classes, the opportunity to pursue both creative and critical writing, and close mentorship by renowned faculty in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Our three-year curriculum gives students time to deepen both their creative writing and their study of literature. Students will receive support for three academic years (including two summers) to complete both degrees – an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English.

Drawing on innovative scholarship, deep immersion in process, and cross-pollination between critical and creative texts, students will complete book-length thesis projects of their own design, either within or across genres, and a substantial essay on literary texts. The program's small size and attentive faculty will develop students' sense of literary context, while encouraging them to pursue the distinctiveness of their projects.

In addition to their studies, students will be guided in the teaching of creative writing and, through summer editorial work at TriQuarterly.org , the editing of a literary journal.

Students will pursue their work on our beautiful Evanston campus, amid artists, filmmakers, scholars and public intellectuals, with easy access to the vibrant literary arts scene of Chicago.

Additional resources:

• Department website
• Program handbook(s)

Program Statistics

Visit Master's Program Statistics for statistics such as program admissions, enrollment, student demographics and more.

Program Contact

Contact Nathan Mead Graduate Program Assistant 847-491-3341

The following requirements are in addition to, or further elaborate upon, those requirements outlined in  The Graduate School Policy Guide .

Course Requirements

May be taken outside the English department with permission of Creative Writing DGS.

Other Degree Requirements

• First Year Review
• Satisfactory completion of an article-length literary critical essay by the late spring of year two. This 20-25 page capstone essay will typically be an expanded version of an essay written for an English Department graduate seminar, revised in response to comments from, and as appropriate in consultation with, the seminar instructor.
• Satisfactory completion of an MFA Thesis: the first draft of a book-length work of original fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or mixed-genre work.

Last Updated: September 6, 2024

Academic Catalog

2024-2025 Edition

Creative Writing Major

Students may apply to major in creative writing. Admission to the creative writing major is competitive, based on a manuscript of creative work from ENGLISH 206-0 Reading & Writing Poetry , ENGLISH 207-0 Reading and Writing Fiction , or ENGLISH 208-0 Reading & Writing Creative Non-Fiction . The major offers an apprenticeship in the writing of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. A strong literature component and a course in the history and culture of lit­erary production anchor the writing within a context of general literacy.

The department accepts applications to the creative writing major early each spring. First year students may not apply.

Students must also complete the Undergraduate Registration Requirement and the degree requirements of their home school.

NOTE: This Catalog describes Weinberg College BA requirements that pertain to students who matriculated at Northwestern after spring quarter 2023. Refer to the Archives if you are following BA requirements described in the 2018-2019 through 2022-2023 editions.

Honors in Creative Writing

Creative writing majors who are completing the yearlong theory and practice sequence in poetry, fiction, or creative non­fiction and who have kept up with their other writing major requirements may apply to the honors program. Applications are submitted early in spring quarter of junior year. Over fall and winter of the senior year, admitted students enroll in ENGLISH 399-0 Independent Study and work one on one with a faculty mentor to complete a significant writing, creative media, or literary translation work ( ENGLISH 399-0 does not count toward requirements for the major). Students whose projects and grades meet department criteria are recommended to the college for graduation with honors. For more information see the director of creative writing or a creative writing adviser, visit the department website, and see Honors in the Major .

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Northwestern University

Enhance the creative and performing arts, amplifying the power of imagination, the arts lift us to new heights and inspire us to dream bigger..

Combining the creative and analytical is essential to Northwestern’s ethos. This unique interdisciplinary approach ensures that art is accessible and thought-provoking across mediums.

BIENEN SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Boasting a faculty of award-winning performers, composers and scholars, Bienen prepares musicians of the highest caliber. A combination of outstanding musicianship, keen intelligence and curiosity about the world produces a range of creative voices.

SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

The School of Communication is where art, research and scholarship meet. With pioneering faculty leading the way, the school advances the arts and sciences of communication through bold exploration and collaboration.

WEINBERG COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, Northwestern’s largest school, is the University’s nerve center for interdisciplinary teaching and research. The College’s intellectually vibrant community is home to the Department of Art Theory & Practice and Creative Writing Program – including the Litowitz MFA+MA Program in Creative Writing and English. The internationally-acclaimed artists and writers in these units weave an intricate intellectual fabric of scholarship and expertise that enriches our arts curriculum.

Learn more about Weinberg College

THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART

The Block is an engine that drives questioning, experimentation and creativity across fields of study, with visual arts at the center. Free and open to the public, the museum houses a collection of over 6,000 works from artists around the world.

Meet Some of Our Experts

Our talented faculty make life more colorful and vibrant..

Whether through visual, musical or literary work, Northwestern’s creative minds stretch across disciplines, revealing new insights and perspectives into the world around us.

Natasha Tretheway

Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States. In 2007 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Native Guard.

KO is most widely known for their acting work that spans the last 25 years on Broadway and TV. They won a Tony Award for their role as Anita in the Broadway revival of West Side Story directed by Arthur Laurents.

Taimur Sullivan

Sullivan is a professor of Saxophone and a member of the acclaimed PRISM Quartet.His performances have taken him from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to engagements around the world.

Learn how Northwestern’s creative arts enrich the human experience.

Jazz and new Black music in Chicago

An innovative class on Black music in Chicago culminated in a student-produced concert and pre-show panel featuring renowned jazz musicians with deep connections to Chicago.

Learn about the course

The possibilities of art and technology

An interdisciplinary research group led by Thomas F. DeFrantz explores connections between performance and emergent technology in the service of theatrical storytelling and the telling of alternative histories.

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Arts and culture events

Northwestern is a hub of cultural and artistic activities, with hundreds of concerts, performances, exhibitions and other events presented each year featuring both students and world-renowned guest artists.

Learn about Arts Circle

See Northwestern’s new developments in support of this priority.

Native garden an exploration of the link between nature and religion

Northwestern students plan “Memory of Nature” installation on campus

We need to talk about Black women’s health. Loudly.

Artist Kyrin Hobson spotlights disparities around Black maternal health and health equity

Symphony orchestra and choirs unite on stage

Nearly 250 music students will collaborate for April 27 show at Northwestern led by Donald Schleicher and Andrew Megill

A final bow for Mallory Thompson

Northwestern’s director of bands reflects on a history-making career and talks about her final performances

From a humble beginning to a comedy institution

Celebrating the influence and legacy of Northwestern’s ‘Mee-Ow Show’

Saved by the Stage

Theater for young audiences entertains and opens minds–and it’s not just for kids.

The University has 11 key priorities that embody our commitments as an institution.

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Engage with us at [email protected] .

Libraries | Research Guides

• Getting Started
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Introduction

Writing resources, northwestern publications.

• Related Guides

This section of the English guide provides resources for undergraduate and graduate students taking classes or pursuing degrees in Creative Writing. For more about Creative Writing at Northwestern, please visit Department of English's webpages for the Creative Writing Major and the Litowitz Creative Writing Graduate Program .

Below are just a few of the many books in the library collection on Creative Writing. To find more, begin with this keyword search in the library catalog .

• The Writing Place Northwestern’s center for peer writing consultations.
• Writing Resources for Students A guide full of useful writing resources
• BlackBoard Northwestern University’s Black student magazine that serves as an open forum for student expression.
• Helicon Northwestern's premier literary and arts magazine, publishing the best in student art twice a year with submissions from poetry and prose to music and videos to visual art and multimedia works.
• NU Asian Magazine Northwestern’s Asian American-interest publication whose mission is to serve as a voice for all of the members of Northwestern’s Asian and Asian American community.
• TriQuarterly The literary magazine of Northwestern University, edited by students in the Litowitz MFA+MA Graduate Creative Writing Program and the MFA in Prose and Poetry in the School of Professional Studies. Alumni of these programs and other readers also serve as editorial staff.
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• Last Updated: Aug 31, 2023 2:02 PM
• URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/eng

Faculty of the Master of Arts in Writing | Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

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MA in Writing

MA in Writing Faculty

Christine sneed.

Faculty Director

Contact Information

• [email protected]
• christinesneed.com

Christine Sneed is the author of three novels, most recently Please Be Advised: A Novel in Memos and Paris, He Said , and three short story collections, Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry , The Virginity of Famous Men , and Direct Sunlight . She is the editor of the short fiction anthology Love in the Time of Time's Up , and has received the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award, twice, the Society of Midland Authors Award, Ploughshares ' Zacharis Award, an O. Henry Prize, among other honors. She has also been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and her novel Little Known Facts was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice selection. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Best American Short Stories , O. Henry Prize Stories , New England Review , The Southern Review , Boulevard , ZYZZYVA , Story , New York Times , Chicago Tribune , San Francisco Chronicle , O Magazine , Electric Literature , and various other publications. www.christinesneed.com is her author website.

Indiana University-Bloomington, MFA in Creative Writing Georgetown University, B.S., French Language and Literature

Relevant Work

Faculty Director and Fiction Faculty, Northwestern University, School of Professional Studies, 2016 - present (Faculty Director); 2012 - present (Fiction Faculty) Regis University, Fiction Faculty, Low-residency MFA in Creative Writing, 2017 - present University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Visiting Assistant Professor, 2015-2016 DePaul University, English Department, Visiting Assistant Professor (2009 - 2014)

Recognition

21st Century Award, Chicago Public Library Foundation Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction Book of the Year Award (two-time recipient), Chicago Writers Association Society of Midland Authors Award - Best Adult Fiction Los Angeles Times Book Prize - First-fiction category, Finalist O. Henry Prize in Short Fiction Best New Book by a Local Author - Chicago Magazine Chicago Review of Books - Fiction Prize, Finalist Fiction Workshop, The Publishing Industry, Poetry for Prose Writers

Recent Courses

MCW 575-DL : The Publishing Industry - Book Publishers and Literary Journals

Paula Carter

• [email protected]

Paula Carter Carter is the author of the flash memoir collection No Relation. Her award-winning essays have appeared in The New York Times , USA Today , Kenyon Review , The Southern Review , Prairie Schooner , Creative Nonfiction , Fourth Genre , The Offing and elsewhere. She was an Administrative Staff Fellow at the Bread Loaf Environmental Conference in 2022 and 2023 and her work has been supported by Ragdale and the Shannaghe Artists Residency. She serves on the organizing committee for the Washington Island Literary Festival and holds an M.F.A. from Indiana University, Bloomington.

MCW 490-0 : Special Topics: Writing About Migration — One's Own and That of Others

Gioia Diliberto

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• gioiadiliberto.com

Gioia Diliberto is the author of three novels, four biographies and a play. Her work, which centers on the lives of women, has been praised for combining rich storytelling with deep research to bring alive worlds as varied as Jazz Age Paris, nineteenth century Chicago, Belle Epoque Paris and disco era Manhattan. Gioia’s articles and reviews have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal , the Chicago Tribune , the Los Angeles Times , Smithsonian , and Vanity Fair . Her most recent novel, Coco at the Ritz , is inspired by the arrest and interrogation of Coco Chanel during World War II on charges of treason to France. In her eighth book, Firebrands , forthcoming in October, she returns to nonfiction with the story of four extraordinary women who warred over Prohibition.

Selected Publications

Coco at the Ritz, Paris Without End, I Am Madame X, The Collection, Debutante, A Useful Woman, DVF: A Life Unwrapped

MCW 413-0 : Fiction Writing Workshop

Charles Finch

[email protected]

Charles Finch  is the USA Today-bestselling author of the Charles Lenox mysteries, including the most recent,  The Vanishing Man  (February 2019). His first work of literary fiction,  The Last Enchantments , is also available from St. Martin's Press. Finch received the 2017 Nona Balakian Citation, for excellence in reviewing, from the National Book Critics Circle. His reviews and essays regularly appear in the  New York Times, Slate, The Guardian, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post , and elsewhere.

Gina Frangello

• [email protected]
• ginafrangello.com

Gina Frangello ’s fifth book, the memoir Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason (Counterpoint), has been selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly , Library Journal , and BookPage , and has been included on numerous “Best of 2021” lists including at Lithub , BookPage , and The Chicago Review of Books . Her sixth book, on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, is forthcoming from IG Publishing’s “Bookmarked” series. Gina is also the author of four books of fiction, including A Life in Men and Every Kind of Wanting , which was included on several “Best of 2016” lists, including at Chicago Magazine ’s and The Chicago Review of Books . Now a lead editor at Row House Publishing, she also brings more than two decades of experience as an editor, having founded both the independent press Other Voices Books and the fiction section of the popular online literary community The Nervous Breakdown. She has also served as the Sunday editor for The Rumpus, the faculty editor for both TriQuarterly Online and The Coachella Review , and the Creative Nonfiction Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books . Her column, “Not the Norm,” runs on the Psychology Today blog, and she runs Circe Consulting , a full-service company for writers, with the writer Emily Rapp Black. Gina can be found at www.ginafrangello.org .

MCW 461-0 : Nonfiction Writing Workshop

Rebecca Morgan Frank

• [email protected]
• @poetmorgan

Rebecca Morgan Frank is the author of four collections of poems, including Oh You Robot Saints! (Carnegie Mellon UP, 2021), one of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2021, and Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry, 2012), a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems and stories have appeared in such places as The New Yorker , American Poetry Review , The Kenyon Review , Ploughshares , Catapult , Joyland , and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, and her collaborations with composers have been exhibited and performed widely. She is the recipient of such honors as a Meier Achievement Award and the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. She received her PhD from the University of Cincinnati and her MFA from Emerson College, and her recent teaching positions include Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University, Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University, and Visiting Poet in the graduate program at UC Irvine. She is co-founder and editor of the online magazine Memorious and a reviewer for the Poetry Foundation's Harriet Books. She serves on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.

PhD University of Cincinnati MFA Emerson College BA Vassar College

Distinguished Visiting Writer, OSU Cascades low-residency MFA Program Distinguished Visiting Writer, Bowling Green State University Jacob Ziskind Visiting Poet-in-Residence, Brandeis University Assistant Professor, University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers

Oh You Robot Saints! (Carnegie Mellon UP, 2021) Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country (Carnegie Mellon, 2017) The Spokes of Venus (Carnegie Mellon 2016) Little Murders Everywhere (Salmon Poetry, 2012)

Writer-in-Residence, Hemingway Foundation Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award Mississippi Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship Residency, Ragdale Foundation R esidency fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency fellowship, Catwalk Tennessee Williams Fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference Theodore and Jane Norman Fund Award for Faculty Research, Brandeis University

MCW 411-DL : Poetry Workshop

Kate Harding

• [email protected]
• www.kateharding.info  

Current Research Interests

Creative Writing

Creative Nonfiction

Personal Essay

Educational Background

PhD, Creative Nonfiction, Bath Spa University, 2019

MFA, Fiction, Vermont College of Fine Arts, 2005

BA, English Literature, University of Toronto, 1997

Laurie Lawlor

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• laurielawlor.com

Laurie Lawlor is the author of 43 works of award-winning fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults. Environmental advocacy inspired 2023 nonfiction Restoring Prairie, Woods, and Pond: How a Small Trail Can Make a Big Difference (Holiday House), highlighted with Kirkus starred review and recipient of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Honor Award for Children's Nonfiction. Other nonfiction includes What Music! The 50-Year Friendship between Beethoven and Nannette Streicher, Who Built His Pianos (2023) and Fearless World Traveler, Adventures of Marianne North, Botanical Artist (Holiday House, 2021), which received the Society of Midland Authors Honor Award for Nonfiction and was named Junior Guild Gold Standard Selection. Super Women: Six Scientists Who Changed the World (Holiday House), middle grade nonfiction, profiles remarkable pioneers in fields ranging from astronomy and mathematics to cartography and biochemistry. Published in 2017, Super Women received a Booklist starred review and was named 2018 Outstanding Science Trade Book by Children’s Book Council (CBC) and NSTA. Big Tree Down! (Holiday House), a lively picture book released in spring 2018, celebrates cooperation during a community emergency. Lawlor was awarded the 2012 John Burroughs Riverby Award for Excellence in Nature Writing for Rachel Carson and Her Book that Changed the World , featured on the ALA Amelia Bloomer Award List. She has taught creative writing at Northwestern University, and writing workshops throughout the Midwest.

MAT, National-Louis University 1992 BSJ, Northwestern University, Medill 1975

Teacher, lecturer, writing workshop leader Northwestern University, Columbia College of Chicago, National-Louis University Writer of published fiction and nonfiction since 1986 Environmental advocate and organizer, Wisconsin, Mukwonago River Initiative

See website, www.laurielawlor.com for complete listing

Carl Sandburg Award, Golden Kite Honor Book Award John Burroughs Riverby Award for Excellence in Nature Writing

MCW 417-DL : Popular Fiction Workshop

billy lombardo

• [email protected]  

Rebecca Makkai

• [email protected]  
• [email protected]
• RebeccaMakkai.com

MA in English Literature, Middlebury College

MCW 413-0 : Fiction Workshop

Juan Martinez

• [email protected]
• fulmerford.com
• @fulmerford

Juan Martinez is the author of the collection Best Worst American (2017) and the novel Extended Stay (2023). His work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Ecotone , NIGHTMARE , The Morning Transport , Glimmer Train , Huizache , McSweeney's , TriQuarterly , Conjunctions , Small Odysseys , National Public Radio's Selected Shorts , Norton's Sudden Fiction Latino and Flash Fiction America , and elsewhere. He is an associate professor at Northwestern University and lives near Chicago.

PhD, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Associate Professor, 2020-current, Northwestern University Assistant Professor, 2013-2020, Northwestern University Assistant Professor, 2012-2013, Lebanon Valley College Visiting Assistant Professor, 2011-2012, Whitman College

Best Worst American (Small Beer Press)

Faisal Mohyuddin

• [email protected]
• www.faisalmohyuddin.com

Faisal Mohyuddin ’s debut full-length poetry collection,   The Displaced Children of Displaced Children   (Eyewear 2018), won the 2017 Sexton Prize for Poetry, was selected as a 2018 Summer Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society, and was named a “highly commended” book of 2018 by the Forward Arts Foundation. Also the author of the chapbook   The Riddle of Longing   (Backbone 2017), he is the recipient of the Edward Stanley Award from  Prairie Schooner   and a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award. He serves as an   educator   adviser to Narrative 4, a global not-for-profit dedicated to fostering empathy through the exchange of stories, and teaches English at Highland Park High School in Illinois.  

Natalie Moore

• [email protected]

Natalie Moore   is WBEZ's South Side Reporter where she covers segregation and inequality.

Her enterprise reporting has tackled race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence. Natalie’s work has been broadcast on the BBC, Marketplace and NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. Natalie is the author of   The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation , winner of the 2016 Chicago Review of Books award for nonfiction and a Buzzfeed best nonfiction book of 2016. She is also co-author of   The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang   and   Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation . 

Natalie writes a monthly column for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her work has been published in Essence , Ebony , the Chicago Reporter , Bitch , In These Times , the Chicago Tribune , the New York Times , the Washington Post and the Guardian . She is the 2017 recipient of Chicago Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award. In 2010, she received the Studs Terkel Community Media Award for reporting on Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. In 2009, she was a fellow at Columbia College’s Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, which allowed her to take a reporting trip to Libya. Natalie has won several journalism awards, including a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. Other honors are from the Radio Television Digital News Association (Edward R. Murrow), Public Radio News Directors Incorporated, National Association of Black Journalists, Illinois Associated Press and Chicago Headline Club. The Chicago Reader named her best journalist in 2017.

Prior to joining WBEZ staff in 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. She has also been an education reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem.

Natalie has an M.S.J. in Newspaper Management from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a B.A. in Journalism from Howard University. She has taught at Columbia College and Medill. Natalie and her husband Rodney live in Hyde Park with their four daughters.

Simone Muench

• simonemuench.com

Simone Muench is the recipient of an NEA Poetry Fellowship and the Meier Foundation for the Arts Award as well as residency fellowships to Yaddo, Artsmith, VCCA, and VSC. She is the author of seven full-length books including Wolf Centos and Orange Crush from Sarabande. She also co-edited They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (Black Lawrence, 2018), and her recent collection, The Under Hum , co-written with Jackie K. White, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence in 2024. She serves as a poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly , faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review , and poetry editor for JackLeg Press, as well as being the creator of the Hungry Brain Sunday Reading Series. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and directs the writing program at Lewis University where she teaches creative writing and film studies.

• [email protected]
• naeemmurr.com

Naeem Murr is the author of three novels, The Boy , which won a Lambda Literary Award and was a New York Times Notable Book, The Genius of the Sea , and most recently The Perfect Man , which won The Commonwealth Writersʼ Prize for the Best Book of Europe and South Asia and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His work has been translated into numerous languages. His other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a PEN Beyond Margins Award. He has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Missouri and Western Michigan University, among others, and received a distinguished teaching award from Northwestern University School of Professional Studies in 2019.

Lori Rader-Day

• [email protected]
• LoriRaderDay.com
• @LoriRaderDay

MFA, Roosevelt University MA, Ball State University BS, Ball State University

National President, Sisters in Crime, Inc. Director of Communications, Northwestern University School of Communication

Death at Greenway The Lucky One Under a Dark Sky The Day I Died Little Pretty Things The Black Hour

2019 Edgar Award nominee 2021 Mary Higgins Clark Award nominee 2021 Agatha Award nominee 2021 Anthony Award nominee 2017 Indiana Author Award recipient

Ed Roberson

• [email protected]
• Ed Roberson, Poetry Foundation

Ed Roberson is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In , winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; Just In: Word of Navigational Change: New and Selected Work ; Atmosphere Conditions , a National Poetry Series winner; and his most recent, City Eclogue . Roberson received the 2008 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He has also received a Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writer's Award.

Donna Seaman

• [email protected]

Donna Seaman is the Editor for Adult Books at Booklist; a member of the Content Leadership Team and National Advisory Council for the American Writers Museum, and a recipient of the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. Seaman has written for the Chicago Tribune , the Los Angeles Times , and other publications, and contributed biocritical essays to the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature and American Writers. Seaman has been a writer-in-residence for Columbia College Chicago and has taught at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. She created the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness ; her author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books , and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists .

Shauna Seliy

• [email protected]

Shauna Seliy is the author of the novel When We Get There , published in the UK under the title The Trials and Tribulations of Lucas Lessar . Her work has appeared in The New York Times , The Kenyon Review , Jubilat , Other Voices , and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Her MFA is from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Megan Stielstra

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• www.meganstielstra.com  

Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm , Once I Was Cool , and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life . Her work appears in Best American Essays , New York Times , Poets & Writers , The Believer , Longreads, Tin House , and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, Museum of Contemporary Art, Goodman Theatre, and regularly with the Paper Machete live news magazine at the Green Mill. She serves as the Senior Editor of Regional Titles at Northwestern University Press, where she acquires literary work that centers the Midwest in all its complexities.

MFA in Creative Writing, Columbia College

Creative Nonfiction faculty at Northwestern University; MFA in Prose & Poetry and the The Litowitz Creative Writing Graduate Program. Creative Nonfiction faculty at Catapult. Creative Nonfiction faculty at StoryStudio. Mentor Editor at The Op Ed Project. Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching Excellence at Columbia College Director of Story Development at 2nd Story.

"The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, essay collection, 2017 Nonfiction Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Review of Books, Harper Perennial Once I Was Cool, essay collection, rereleased from Northwestern University Press, August 2021 Everyone Remain Calm, story collection, rereleased from Northwestern University Press, August 2021 ""An Axe for the Frozen Sea,"" The Believer, 2019 Story of the Year Award from the Chicago Review of Books ""Channel B,"" The Rumpus, included in the Best American Essays 2013 and recorded for National Public Radio ""Here is My Heart,"" Longreads ""We Make Homes,"" Gay Magazine ""On Awareness,"" Tin House ""What Would You Grab in a Fire?,"" New York Times"

2021-2022 Senior Media Fellow/2020-2021 Civic Media Fellow, MacArthur Foundation via the Annenberg Innovation lab at the University of Southern California 2021-2022 Senior Media Fellow/2020-2021 Civic Media Fellow, MacArthur Foundation via the Annenberg Innovation lab at the University of Southern California2020 Shearing Fellow in Creative Nonfiction, Black Mountain Institute Lit 50 list of “movers & shakers in Chicago Literature,” Newcity Magazine, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, 2011 Faculty Honor Roll as selected by the undergraduate student body, Northwestern University, 2019-2020 2019 Story of the Year Award, Chicago Review of Books, December 2019 Ragdale Arts Foundation Fellow, 2019, 2015 & 2012 2017 Book of the Year Award in Nonfiction, Chicago Review of Books, December 2017 Selected, Best American Essays 2013, ed. Cheryl Strayed, October 2013

MCW 461-0 : Creative Nonfiction Workshop

Rachel Jamison Webster

• [email protected]
• racheljamisonwebster.com
• @racheljamisonwebster

MFA, Warren Wilson Program for Writers

Associate Professor of Instruction, Northwestern University

Reunion, a book of Creative Nonfiction forthcoming from Henry Holt, 2023 September: Poems. Northwestern University Press, 2013. The Endless Unbegun. Twelve Winters Press, 2015. Mary is a River, Kelsay Books, 2017. The Sea Came Up & Drowned, Raw Books, 2020. Selected Essays: https://yalereview.yale.edu/history-another-word-trauma https://tinhouse.com/to-vanquish-the-patriarchy/ https://parhelionliterary.com/rachel-jamison-webster/ Selected Poetry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rachel-webster https://poets.org/poet/rachel-jamison-webster"

Reinventing the Memoir Cross-Genre Experiments Poetry Independent Studies Literature of Coming Out

Michael Zapata

• [email protected]
• @michael_zapata01

Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau , winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction and the City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Award. He is on the core faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.

Core Faculty at StoryStudio Chicago

Co-Founder and Co-Publisher (est. 2004), Fiction Editor (2004 –2009), President of the Board (2009–2017), Member of the Board (current) MAKE Literary Magazine & MAKE Literary Productions NFP

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau (Hanover Square Press/HarperCollins) "Unstable Reality: Latin America’s Genre-Bending Traditions,” Tor.com “10 Books That Were Almost Lost to History,” Electric Literature

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau : Winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others.

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau : Reviews in The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Review, BookPage (Starred), Booklist (Starred), Library Journal (Starred), Salon, Jewish Book Council, Literary Hub, Newcity, Tor, Somos en Escrito, among others.

Newcity’s Lit 50, 2020

Latino Stories 2020 Top Ten "New" Latinx Authors

2021 Instructor of the Year Award: StoryStudio

Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Support Grant, 2020

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Jan Carew, Leader in Black Studies, Dies at 92

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Jan Carew, professor emeritus of African American studies at Northwestern University, died Dec. 6 in Louisville, Ky. He was 92.

Professor of African American studies from 1973 to 1987, Carew was described as the “quintessential Renaissance man -- an author, historian, internationalist, public intellectual, social justice activist and pioneer in experimenting with sustainable lifestyles for people of color.”

Darlene Clark Hine, Board of Trustees Professor of African American studies and professor of history at Northwestern, said Carew was an important leader of black studies.

“He helped to extend our understanding of the African diaspora through his illuminating scholarship, teaching and service,” Hine said. “I will always treasure his wisdom, draw inspiration from his lifelong commitment to social justice, and relish his quiet dignity."

Born in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1920, Carew set his first two novels “Black Midas” and “The Wild Coast,” both published in 1958, in Guyana. A prolific writer, he set most of his books in the Caribbean, chronicling the struggle of colonized West Indians to define their own identity whether at home or in exile. His nonfiction books also focused on similar themes, including a study of Indian and African presence in the Americas and a history of Grenada. 

Although Carew spent some of the early years of his childhood in Harlem, he left the Caribbean in 1944 to return to the United States to continue his education, where he attended Howard University and Case Western Reserve University. He then went to Europe where he attended Charles University in Prague and the Sorbonne in Paris. After living in Paris, he lived briefly in Holland and toured as an actor with the Laurence Olivier Company before moving to London. There he worked at the University of London as a lecturer on race relations and then as a broadcaster, writer and editor with the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Carew’s later books would reflect his extensive travels and experiences, such as “The Last Barbarian” (1960) set in Harlem; “Moscow Is Not My Mecca” (1964), set in the former Soviet Union; and “Save the Last Dance for Me” (1976), set in England. After meeting Malcolm X in 1965 when Carew was editor of Magnet News, he would later write about those experiences and conversations in the 1994 book “Ghosts in Our Blood.”

Carew joined the faculty of Princeton University as a lecturer in Third World Literature and creative writing in 1969. He joined Northwestern in 1973 as a professor of African American and Third World studies, chairing the department from 1973 to 1976. He had been professor emeritus since 1987.

Colleagues say teaching never disrupted his prodigious writing pace. He had been honored with numerous awards including the Walter Rodney Award from the Association of Caribbean Studies, 1985; the London HANSIB Publication Award, 1990; the Paul Robeson Award for “living a life of art and politics,” 1998; the Clark-Atlanta University Nkyinkyim Award, 2002; and the Caribbean-Canadian Lifetime Creative Award from the Caribbean Canadian Literary exposition, 2003.

“His intellectual brilliance, collaborative spirit and commitment to diasporic and interdisciplinary scholarship that transcends boundaries have inspired a number of us in the field,” said Celeste Watkins-Hayes, chair of African American studies at Northwestern. “The vitality of the African American studies department at Northwestern is due in no small part to Jan Carew’s leadership as the first chairperson."  

Carew is survived by his wife, Joy Gleason Carew, daughters Lisa St. Aubin de Teran and Shantoba Eliza Carew, son David Christopher Carew, a sister Sheila Thorpe and a host of grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 12, at Alice Millar Chapel, 1870 Sheridan Road on Northwestern's Evanston campus. A reception will follow in the John Evans Alumni Center, 1800 Sheridan Road.

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• Spring Writers Festival 2024

16th Annual Writers Fest

Festival authors, stephanie elizondo griest, stephanie elizondo griest is the author of four books of creative nonfiction: the travel memoirs around the bloc: my life in moscow, beijing, and havana ; mexican enough: my life between the borderlines ; all the agents and saints: dispatches from the u.s. borderlands ; and the guidebook 1 00 places every woman should go . she also edited best women’s travel writing in 2010. winner of a margolis award for social justice reporting, she has lectured around the globe, in capacities ranging from a moth storyteller to a literary ambassador for the u.s. state department., airea d. matthews, airea d. matthews is the author of the collections bread and circus (scribner, 2023) and simulacra , winner of the 2016 yale series of younger poets prize. matthews's work has appeared in callaloo, best american poets 2015, harvard review, american poet , and elsewhere. she was awarded a 2016 rona jaffe writer’s foundation award, the 2016 louis untermeyer scholarship from bread loaf writers’ conference, a 2015 kresge literary arts award as well as fellowships from cave canem, callaloo, and the james merrill house. she is an associate professor at bryn mawr college and serves as philadelphia’s sixth poet laureate., kirstin valdez quade, kirstin valdez quade is the author of the five wounds , winner of the center for fiction’s first novel prize and the rosenthal family foundation award from the american academy of arts and letters. it was a finalist for the pen/hemingway award, the carnegie medal for excellence, the aspen words literary prize, the lambda literary award, the mark twain american voice in literature award, and the maya angelou book award. the five wounds was named a best book of 2021 by npr, pbs news hour, publishers weekly, kirkus reviews, library journal , booklist , and book riot . kirstin’s story collection, night at the fiestas , won the john leonard prize from the national book critics circle, the sue kaufman prize for first fiction from the american academy of arts and letters, a “5 under 35” award from the national book foundation, and was a finalist for the new york public library young lions award. kirstin is the recipient of a lannan fellowship, the john guare writer’s fund rome prize from the american academy in rome, a rona jaffe foundation writer’s award, a grant from the elizabeth george foundation, and a stegner fellowship at stanford. her work has appeared in the new yorker, the best american short stories, the o. henry prize stories, the new york times, and elsewhere. she is an associate professor at stanford university., public events.