Alex Espinoza
Writers Workshop participant '04, '05; Writers Workshop teaching staffHis short story, “Detainment,” was included in 2022’s Best American Mystery and Suspense.
Omnium Gatherum: Alumni & Teaching Staff News
Welcome to the Community of Writers Omnium Gatherum & Alumni News. We invite you to find out what our community has been up to recently. You may view by date or by program (see left sidebar). Sign up for monthly updates here.
We also invite alumni and staff to submit your news here. Please note that news must be less than 12 months old, brief and to the point, and may be edited for brevity and/or clarity.
Forrest Gander
Poetry Workshop Teaching StaffHis collection of poetry, Knot, a project in collaboration with photographer Jack Shear, will be published by Copper Canyon Press in November, 2022.
Gretchen McCullough
Writers Workshop participant '06, '08, '19Her novel Confessions of a Knight Errant was recently published by Cune Press. The novel is a comedic, picaresque novel in the tradition of Don Quixote with a flamboyant cast of characters. Dr. Gary Watson is the picaro, a radical environmentalist and wannabe novelist who has been accused of masterminding a computer hack that wiped out the files of a major publishing company. His Sancho Panza is Kharalombos, a fat, gluttonous Greek dancing teacher, who is wanted by the secret police for cavorting with the daughter of the Big Man of Egypt. Self-preservation necessitates a hurried journey to the refuge of a girls’ camp in rural Texas. Then a corpse turns up.
Attended with the help of Del Duca Scholarship
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshop Participant, '14, '22His commentary “Wash or Wipe? – That is the Question!” has been published in the inaugural issue of Arasi literary magazine.
Attended with the help of Maat Scholarship, '22
Anara Guard
Writers Workshops Participant, '16Her debut novel Like a Complete Unknown is a finalist for the Chicago Writers Association’s 2022 Book of the Year in indie fiction.
Corey Campbell
Writers Workshops Participant, '18Her short story “Everybody’s Good” appeared in The Gettysburg Review, volume 24, number 1.
Attended with the help of Isobel English Scholarship
Mason Boyles
Writers Workshop participant, '20, '21His debut novel Bark On is will be available through Driftwood Press in February, 2023.
Attended with the help of Robert Stone Memorial Scholarship
Devi S. Laskar
Poetry Workshop participant '04, '08, '14, '21; Writers Workshops participant '04, '08; Writers Workshop teaching staff '20, '23Her second novel Circa was published by Mariner Books in May, 2022, and her third novel, Midnight at the War, will be published by Mariner Books in 2024. Circa was chosen by Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Book Club this summer.
Jamie Cat Callan
Writers Workshops participant '91She has been awarded a fellowship by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). Jamie Cat Callan will be among 22 Fellows focusing on their own creative projects at this working retreat for writers, poets, visual artists, and composers. VCCA fellows have received worldwide attention including MacArthur fellowships, Pulitzer Prizes, Guggenheim fellowships, National Endowment of the Arts awards, Grammy Awards, and Academy Award nominations. Jamie Cat Callan has received several previous fellowships from VCCA as a fiction writer, but this is her first VCCA fellowship as a visual artist.
Charles Harper Webb
Writers Workshops participant '91His novel Ursula Lake was published in Spring 2022 by Red Hen Press.
Margaret Elysia Garcia
Poetry Participant, '21Her fiction debut Graft was released by Tolsun Books on October 11, 2022; her poetry memoir Burn Scars was published July 1, 2022 by Lit Kit Collective. Graft is a collection of short stories set in southeastern Los Angeles/north Orange County and is an across the century response to Nathanael West’s Day of the Locusts–done Chicana noir style. Burn Scars describes the days leading up to and then the burning of Margaret’s adopted hometown of Greenville in the Dixie Fire of 2021 and the aftermath.
Meg Waite Clayton
Writers Workshops Teaching Staff '22; Participant ‘00Her 8th novel, the international bestseller The Postmistress of Paris—a New York Times Editors Choice and GMA Buzz book—is out in paperback. It’s the Costco Book Club pick for October and on the IndieNext New in Paperback list for November. Her book, The Last Train to London, is now out in French, the 18th of the 20 languages it will be published in.
Marjorie Saiser
Poetry Workshop Participant, '00Her most recent book, The Track the Whales Make: New & Selected Poems, won the High Plains Book Award for Poetry.
Lise Haines
Writers Workshops participant '99Her newest, Book of Knives, was published in October, 2022, from Poisoned Pen Press.
Claire Boyles
Writers Workshop Participant '18She was named a 2022 Whiting Award Winner in Fiction, and her short story collection, Site Fidelity, won the 2022 High Plains Book Award for Short Stories.
Anthony J. Mohr
Writers Workshops Participant '08His essay “Four Years Before the Break-in” was published in the summer 2022 issue of The Main Street Rag.
Jung Hae Chae
Writers Workshop Participant, '19Her memoir-in-essays, Pojangmacha People, won the 2022 Graywolf Press Literary Nonfiction Prize (to be published in June 2025).
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Stella Santamaria
Poetry Participant, '21Her poem, “The Miami Cemetery” was selected for The Islandia Journal, issue 4. Santamaria created this experimental poem during her time in the Valley.
Attended with the help of The Ancinas Family Scholarship
Bruce Rettig
Writers Workshops Participant, '12,'15His memoir, Refraction, will be published on November 15, 2022. It has won several writing awards, and is published by Wayfarer Books, an Eco-Lit imprint of Homebound Publications. Homebound is a partner of One Tree Planted, and for every book they sell in their store, a tree is planted.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Judy Juanita
Writers Workshops Participant, '92Her short story, “Pastoral Funkitude”,” appears in Killens Review of Arts & Letters, Fall/Winter 2022 issue.
Marcia Bradley
Writers Workshops Participant, '19Her debut novel, The Home for Wayward Girls, will be published by HarperCollins in April, 2023. This work of fiction dives into the Troubled Teen Industry in our country and tells the story of one woman’s escape from a residential program on a ranch west of the Rockies. The novel details abuse, the anxieties she carries on her journey, and ultimately how through her survival she finds hope in the future.
Attended with the help of Lojo Foundation Scholarship
Diane Wolff
Writers Workshop participant '83; Screenwriters Workshop participant '84Her serialized story Fish Shoes: A Palace Drama has been nominated for the Buchanan Prize of the Association for Asian Studies.
Juliana Roth
Writers Workshops Participant '17, '22She was selected as a 2022-23 Fellow with the Center for Fiction. She is also screening her new short film at Cinema Village on 10/26 at 2PM.
Natalie Harris-Spencer
Writers Workshops Participant, '22She has been chosen as the winner of the 2022 Chestnut Review Stubborn Writers Contest. Her winning story, “Fish Mother,” which she workshopped at this summer’s workshop, will appear in the January 2023 issue.
Daniel Pope
Writers' Workshop participant '19, '21His short story, “Last Stop,” has been published in Issue 43 of the Bellevue Literary Review.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Anuradha Bhowmik
Poetry Workshop participant '18Her newest collection of poetry, Brown Girl Chromatography, was published in October, 2022, by Pitt Poetry Series.
Attended with the help of Maat Scholarship
Tawanda Mulalu
Poetry Workshop participant '20His new collection of poetry, Please make me pretty, I don’t want to die, was published in September, 2022, by Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets.
Ama Codjoe
Poetry Workshop participant '15Her newest collection of poetry, Bluest Nudes, was published in September, 2022, by Milkweed.
Attended with the help of Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholarship
Brittany Mishra
Poetry Participant, '22Her poem “In the Mortgage of Desire” was selected for an honorable mention in Spoon River Poetry Review‘s annual contest and will be published in their upcoming Winter 2022 issue.
Caroline Frost
Fiction Participant '17, '21; Published Alumni Reading Series '22Her debut novel Shadows of Pecan Hollow was longlisted by the Center for Fiction for best first novel and shortlisted by the Crook’s Corner Book Prize for best debut novel set in the American south. She will be speaking on panels at the upcoming Texas Book Festival and Tucson Festival of Books.
Terry Shames
Writers Workshop participant '98Her newest, Murder at the Jubilee Rally, a Samuel Craddock mystery, was published in October, 2022.
