Meet School of Writing Faculty & Directors

Chair

Louisville, Kentucky

Administrative Director

San Jose, California

kmann@spalding.edu

Mann is co-founder and administrative director of the low-residency Masters of Fine Arts in Writing, where she puts her varied past career experiences to good use.  She has published two novels: The Woman of La Mancha and The Saved Man. She has an MA in Higher Education Administration and an MA with creative writing concentration from University of Louisville. Her bachelor's degree in English is from Indiana University. Karen’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in several anthologies. She was the managing editor for The Louisville Review and Fleur-de-Lis Press from 1986-2016. She is the recipient of two grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and has served as a grant reader for the Indiana Arts Council.  After having lived in the Indiana most of her life, Karen now lives near San Jose, Calif. Visit Mann's website.

Associate Program Director, Poetry Faculty

Louisville, KY

Edwards is author of three full-length poetry collections, Covet, The Highwayman’s Wife and The Farmer’s Daughter, and the chapbook Kings of the Rock and Roll Hot Shop. Her short fiction and book reviews have appeared in New Madrid, Connecticut Review, Cincinnati Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. Her poems have been featured on Verse Daily. As associate professor of English at Spalding, she directed and taught first-year writing as well as other creative writing and literature courses. Awards include the 2007 Al Smith Fellowship. She is a founding member of Louisville Literary Arts, serving as its president 2008-2013; she currently serves on its advisory board. She served on the Kentucky Women Writers Conference Board of Directors 2012-2017. Edwards holds the PhD in Rhetoric and Composition as well as the MA with Creative Writing Thesis, both from the University of Louisville.

Associate Director for Communications and Alumni Relations

Louisville, Kentucky

kyocom@spalding.edu

Yocom’s novel Three Ways to Disappear, forthcoming in 2019, won the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature. Other awards include the Al Smith Fellowship for artistic excellence from the Kentucky Arts Council as well as grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in Salon, The Louisville Review, decomP magazine, and elsewhere. She serves on the board of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference and holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University.

Coordinator of Admissions and Independent Study

Louisville, Kentucky

elichvar@spalding.edu
Lichvar is the managing editor of The Louisville Review and is a poetry alum of Spalding’s MFA in Writing program. She was recently awarded an artist enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in DIAGRAM, BOAAT, The Journal, The Minnesota Review, Whiskey Island, Typo and others.

Coordinator of Student Services and Marketing

Louisville, Kentucky

jhill06@spalding.edu

Hill is a fiction alum of Spalding’s MFA in Writing and also holds an MA in Philosophy from the University of Connecticut. His short stories have appeared in The Austin Review and Tulane Review.

MFA Faculty

Creative nonfiction

Kirkland, Washington

Aprile is the author and editor of nonfiction books, including two collaborations with fine-art photographer Julius Friedman. Her essay “Silence” appears in the anthology This I Believe, Kentucky. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies. Aprile was the recipient of the Al Smith artist fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council and grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She is a recipient of a Hedgebrook Women Writers Residency and Washington State Artist Trust Writers Fellowship. As a journalist, she was on a team that won a staff Pulitzer Prize for the Louisville Courier-Journal and was an award-winning columnist. She is currently working on a family memoir. She holds an MFA from Spalding University.

Writing for children & young adults

Moscow, Pennsylvania

Bartoletti has published seventeen picture books, novels and nonfiction for young readers. Her awards include the Washington Post/Children’s Book Guild award, the ALA Newbery Honor, ALA Robert F. Sibert Award for Nonfiction, the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Nonfiction, and ALA Best Book for Young Adults, among others. Her nonfiction books include Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America and the YALSA honor-winning They Called Themselves the K.K.K: the Birth of an American Terrorist Group. Her latest novel is Down the Rabbit Hole: The Diary of Pringle Rose, 1871. She earned a PhD in English from Binghamton University. Visit Bartoletti's website.

Writing for children & young adults

New York, New York

Bauman is the author of the short story collection Beautiful Girls and the young-adult novels Rosie and Skate, a New York Times editors’ choice and Booklist’s top ten first novels for youth, and Jersey Angel, selected by Publishers Weekly, Boston Globe, and The Horn Book as a best summer book. She has received fellowships from the Jerome Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She earned her MFA from the University of Arizona. Visit Bauman's website.

Fiction

Laguna Beach, California

Brickman is author of the novel What Birds Can Only Whisper and the story collection Two Deserts. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the North American Review, the Barcelona Review, Fireweed, International Journal of Women’s Studies, as well as other journals and the anthology States of Rage. Her honors include grants from the Canada Council, a writer-in-residence position at the Berton House in Yukon, Canada, and finalist status in the San Diego Book Awards. She earned her MFA from Vermont College. Brickman is also a clinical psychologist and spent seventeen years in private practice. Visit Brickman's website.

Screenwriting, playwriting

Plainview, New York

Fiction

Ames, Iowa

Cook's collection of linked stories Last Call won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in fiction. His novel, The Girl from Charnelle, won the Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction. His second collection, Love Songs for the Quarantined, won the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. His honors include the Grand Prize from the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Arts Series, an Arizona Commission on the Arts Fellowship, and residencies at MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He has an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a master’s in literature from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Visit Cook's website.

Fiction

Ithaca, New York

Daniels’s first novel, Cleaning Nabokov’s House, was translated into four languages. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, New Ohio Review and The Florida Review, among others. She was the Walton Award visiting writer at the University of Arkansas. She worked previously as a literary agent in New York. She has served as the fiction editor for Green Mountains Review. She is on faculty at The Squaw Valley Writers Conference. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College. Visit Daniels' website.

Poetry

Bloomington, Indiana

Dean is the author of two full-length collections: News of Home, which was co-winner of the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Margaret Motton Award, and Precipitates, a William Carlos Williams Award nominee. She has published three chapbooks. Her poems have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac, Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily, and have been published in The Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner, among others. Her essays are included in The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World and Until Everything Is Continuous Again: American Poets on the Recent Work of W. S. Merwin. She earned an MFA from the University of Montana.

Playwriting, screenwriting

Brooklyn, New York

Dean’s plays have been produced or developed at New York Theatre Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Kennedy Center and American Theatre Company, among others. His play In Bloom was a finalist for the Laurents/Hatcher Award and received the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Prize. His play for children, The Transition of Doodle Pequeño, received numerous awards including the American Alliance for Theatre & Education Distinguished Play Award. He is the recipient of the Essential Theatre New Play Prize and Austin’s 2013 B. Iden Payne Award for Best Original Script and Best Comedy for Qualities of Starlight. He has received multiple fellowships, including the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. He earned his MFA from the University of Texas-Austin. Visit Dean's website.

Fiction

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Fiction

Louisville, Kentucky

Gann is the author of Ghosting, a Best Book of 2012 by Publishers Weekly and Shelf Unbound, which has been translated into French. He is the author of the novels The Barbarian Parade and Our Napoleon in Rags. The latter was a finalist for the Kentucky Award in Literature and was named one of the top five novels published in 2005 by Frontiers Magazine. His stories have appeared in Ploughshares and Post Road. He is series editor of Bookmarked, a line of books in which authors wrestle with a book that has been fundamental to their writing, and contributed the first volume in the series, on John Knowles’ A Separate Peace. He holds an MFA from Vermont College. Visit Gann's website.

Writing for Children & Young Adults

Harrisonburg, Virginia

Fiction

Los Angeles, California

Harper is the author of two novels: This Side of Providence and  Brass Ankle Blues, a Borders’ Original Voices Award finalist and Target Breakout Book. Her work has been anthologized in Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness and Mending the World: Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers. Her one-act play, “Bluffing on a Queens Playground,” was part of the New Black Playwrights Festival in Atlanta, and a television pilot she co-wrote with filmmaker Sam Zalutsky, based on a novel by award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson, was a Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab finalist. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. A graduate of Brown University, she earned her Master of Arts degree from the University of Southern California. Visit Harper's website.

Writing for children & young adults

Frederick, Maryland

Hemingway is co-author of two Civil War novels. Road to Tater Hill, a middle grade novel, won a Parents’ Choice Gold Award and was listed on Bank Street College’s Best Books List. She served as a regional advisor of SCBWI. She is a member of the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, DC, and is a contributor to the One Potato…Ten! blog, a project of several children’s authors and illustrators. She received her MFA in Writing from Spalding University. Visit Hemingway's website.

Writing for children & young adults

Washington, D.C.

Creative nonfiction, fiction

Fairhope, Alabama

Hoffman, a novelist and journalist, has worked as a professional writer for more than twenty-five years. His latest book is the novel Come Landfall. He is the author of Alabama Afternoons: Profiles and Conversations, the essay collection Back Home: Journeys through Mobile, and the novels Chicken Dreaming Corn and Almost Family, which won the Lillian Smith Award for fiction. His essays have appeared in Newsday andSouthern Living and have been anthologized in Best American Essays 2003. He was a long-time staff writer for the Mobile Press-Register and has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times. He received his MFA in Writing from Spalding University. Visit Hoffman's website.

Fiction

Berea, Kentucky

Creative nonfiction, fiction

Tucson, Arizona

Johnson is the author of three novels, most recently The Man Who Loved Birds, and three books of literary nonfiction, most recently Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays. Geography of the Heart: A Memoir received American Library Association and Lambda Literary Award, while Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks received Lambda Literary and Kentucky Literary Awards. He has been featured Terry Gross’s Fresh Air and is a regular contributor to Harper’s Magazine, with four cover essays, most recently January 2018 (available, along with other writings and media, via Johnson's website). Johnson is on the faculties of the University of Arizona and Spalding University.

Screenwriting

Calabasas, California

Fiction, creative nonfiction

Boston, Massachusetts

Fiction

Rhode Island

Jody Lisberger’s stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Fugue, Confrontation, Timberline Review, Six Hens, and others, and won prizes at Quarterly West and American Literary Review. Her 2008 story collection Remember Love was nominated for a National Book Award. She is currently finishing a novel called You Don’t Know the Half Of It and a story collection called House Pets and Other People. She lives in Rhode Island, where she is an Associate Professor in Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island. She has a Ph.D. in English and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.

Poetry

Longbeach, California

Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and a MFA from Butler University, where he was the Managing Editor of Booth a Journal. He is currently a Middleton and Dornsife Fellow at the University of Southern California where he is pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing. He has served as the Poetry Editor for Gold Line Press as well as one of the Managing Editors of Ricochet Editions. His poems are featured on Poetry Foundation's website and have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, The Los Angeles Review, Superstition Review, Rhino, North American Review, The Chattahoochee Review, New Orleans Review, Crab Creek Review, and elsewhere. His first full length collection of poems, Testify, was released by Red Hen Press in 2017. Visit Manuel's website.

Creative nonfiction, fiction

Bradford, Pennsylvania

McCabe is the author of five books: a novel, Following Disasters, and four works of creative nonfiction, including From Little Houses to Little Women: Revisiting a Literary Childhood, After the Flashlight Man: A Memoir of Awakening, and the memoirs Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption and Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge: A Journey to My Daughter’s Birthplace in China. She has received a Pushcart Prize and been listed six times in the notable sections of Houghton Mifflin’s Best American series. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazine and journals. She also received a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arkansas and a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska. Visit McCabe's website.

Fiction

Peaks Island, Maine

Morse has published three novels: Chopin’s Garden, An Unexpected Forest, which won the 2008 Independent Book Publisher’s Award for best regional fiction and the 2008 Maine Literary Award, and White Dog Fell from the Sky, which was a Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week. A nonfiction book, Over the Mountains: Two Tibetan Girls Journey Toward Hope, was written in collaboration with two young women from Tibet and describes their escape into Nepal. She has received grants from the Maine Humanities Council. She received a Master of Arts in teaching from Yale University and a Master of Fine Arts in writing from Vermont College. Visit Morse's website.

Writing for children & young adults

Northampton, Massachusetts

Newman is the author of 70 books including the short story collection A Letter to Harvey Milk, the middle grade novel Hachiko Waits, the poetry collection I Carry My Mother and the picture book Heather Has Two Mommies, the first children’s book to portray lesbian families in a positive way. Her awards include poetry fellowships from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Highlights for Children Fiction Writing Award and the James Baldwin Award for Cultural Achievement. Her novel-in-verse October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard explores the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder and received the American Library Association Stonewall Award. She is a former Poet Laureate of Northampton, Mass. Visit Newman's website.

Playwriting

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Creative nonfiction, fiction

Raleigh, North Carolina

Orr is a writer of fiction, memoir and literary criticism. Her book A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa received a starred review from Library Journal and is a SIBA Bestseller. Her memoir, Gods of Noonday, was a top twenty Book Sense selection. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Blackbird, Shenandoah and Image Journal. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She earned a PhD in literature and theology at Emory University. Visit Orr's website.

Translation

Lexington, Kentucky

Poetry

Frankfort, Kentucky

Poetry

Louisville, Kentucky

Kiki Petrosino is the author of three books of poetry: Witch Wife (2017), Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013) and Fort Red Border (2009), all from Sarabande Books. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, The New York Times, FENCE, Gulf Coast, Jubilat, Tin House and on-line at Ploughshares. She is founder and co-editor of Transom, an independent on-line poetry journal. She is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisville, where she directs the Creative Writing Program. Her awards include a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and research fellowships from the University of Louisville's Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. She holds the MFA in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and the MA in Humanities from the University of Chicago. Visit Petrosino's website.

Fiction

Austin, Texas

John Pipkin’s newest novel is The Blind Astronomer’s Daughter. His critically acclaimed debut, Woodsburner, was awarded the First Novel Prize by the New York Center for Fiction, the Fiction Award from the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner First Novel Prize and was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Christian Science Monitor. He was awarded fellowships at the Harry Ransom Center and from The Dobie Paisano Fellowship program. He received his PhD in British Literature from Rice University. Visit Pipkin's website.

Playwriting

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Playwriting, screenwriting

Washington, DC

Poetry

Montgomery, Alabama

Thompson has published five collections of poetry: The Myth of Water: Poems from the Life of Helen Keller, The Seasons Bear Us, White for Harvest: New and Selected Poems, Witness, which won a Benjamin Franklin Award from the Publishers Marketing Association, and How to Enter the River. Her work has appeared in Antaeus, Crazyhorse, Ironwood, North American Review, New England Review, Southern Review and others. She has received fellowships from the Louisiana State Arts Council and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. She is director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum and holds the MFA from the University of Alabama. Visit Thompson's website.

Fiction

New York, New York

Vaswani is the author of the short story collection, Where the Long Grass Bends and the memoir You Have Given Me a Country. She is co-author of the middle-grade novel Same Sun Here (with Silas House). She is the recipient of the American Book Award, an O. Henry Prize and the ForeWord Book of the Year gold medal, as well as a Grammy and an Audie Award for her audio book narration. She has an MFA from Vermont College and a PhD in cultural studies. An education activist in India and the United States, Vaswani founded the Storylines Project with the New York Public Library. Visit Vaswani's website.

Creative nonfiction

Los Angeles, California

Walker is the author of the bestselling memoirs Black, White and Jewish and Baby Love, the novel Adé: A Love Story, and the editor of the anthologies To Be Real, What Makes a Man, One Big Happy Family, and Black Cool. Her writing has appeared online at CNN, The Root, Babble, and The Huffington Post, and in Marie Claire, Real Simple, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. A fellow at the LA Institute for the Humanities at USC, she is a recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo and the Alex Award from the American Library Association. Rebecca holds a BA from Yale and an MFA from Spalding. Visit Walker's website.