NORTHWEST INSTITUTE OF LITERARY ARTS
WHIDBEY WRITERS WORKSHOP
CATALOG, 2009-2011

FACULTY

Kathleen Alcala, Fiction

MA, University of Washington, 1985
BA, Stanford University, 1976

Kathleen Alcalá is the author of three novels set in 19th Century Mexico, a collection of short stories, and a collection of essays, The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing. Her work has received the Western States Book Award, the Governor’s Writers Award, the Washington State Book Award and the Northwest Booksellers Association Award. She is fiction editor for The Raven Chronicles.

Bonny Becker, Children/Young Adult

MA, San Diego State University, 1980
BA, Scripps College, 1972

Bonny Becker is the author of 12 books for children and young adults, most recently A Visitor for Bear and Holbrook: A Lizard’s Tale. A Visitor for Bear was a New York Times Bestseller, a selection for Oprah’s Children’s Book Club and Amazon’s 2008 Picture Book of the Year. Two new books, The Magical Mrs. Plum and A Birthday for Bear, are scheduled for publication in 2009.

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, Children/Young Adult

MS, University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus, 1972
B.S, Catholic University of Puerto Rico, 1968

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand is the author of seven books for children and young adults. They include three biographies in poems and one in prose, an anthology of Puerto Rican folklore, a book of four illustrated folk-tales and a novel. Her CESAR: Yes, We Can! ¡Sí, Se Puede!and FRIDA: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life! won Pura Belpré Honors. DIEGO: Bigger Than Life, illustrated by David Diaz, appeared in 2009. Carmen is also the recipient of the 2008 Evelyn Sibley Lampman Award for her significant contribution to Oregon in the field of children’s literature.

Lawrence W. Cheek, Nonfiction

BA, Texas Tech University, 1970
Graduate study in architecture history, University of Arizona, 1976-78

Lawrence W. Cheek has published 15 nonfiction books on travel, nature, North American prehistory, architecture, and a memoir about building a sailboat. He is currently architecture critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and has written on architecture and environment for many other newspapers and magazines, including Preservation, Interior Design, Sunset, and Arizona Highways.

Bruce Holland Rogers, Fiction

MA, Colorado University, 1987;
BA, Colorado State University, 1982

Bruce Holland Rogers' short fiction collections include Flaming Arrows, Wind Over Heaven, and Thirteen Ways to Water. He is also the author of Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer. His stories have appeared in North American Review and Quarterly West and have won Nebula, Hugo, Micro, and Pushcart awards. Bruce won the 2006 World Fantasy Award for his collection The Keyhole Opera and has read his fiction aloud in German translation for audiences in Vienna, in Portuguese in Lisbon, and in Finnish in Jyväskylä. He has received CIES and Hungarian approval for a 2009-2010 teaching Fulbright in Budapest, though the final determination on this award has not yet been made.

Wayne Ude, Program Director and Fiction MFA

MFA, University of Massachusetts, 1974;
BA, University of Montana, 1969

Wayne Ude's books include Becoming Coyote, a novel; Buffalo and other stories; and Maybe I Will Do Something: Seven Tales of Coyote, for ages ten and up. His stories have appeared in North American Review and Ploughshares, among others.

David Wagoner, Poetry. August 13-14

MA, Indiana University, 1949
BA, Pennsylvania State University, 1947

David Wagoner is the author of eighteen books of poems, most recently A Map of the Night (U. of Illinois Press, 2008) and Good Morning and Good Night (U. of Illinois Press, 2005) which was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. He's also written 1ten novels, one of which, The Escape Artist, was made into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola. Wagoner won the Lilly Prize in 1991 and has won six prizes from Poetry, which has published 127 of his poems, more than any other individual. He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets for 23 years and edited Poetry Northwest until its closure in 2002.

Carolyne L. Wright, Poetry

Doctor of Arts, Syracuse University, 1979
MA, Syracuse, 1975
BA, Seattle University, 1971 1971

Carolyne Wright has published eight books and chapbooks of poetry, four collections of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali, and a collection of essays. Her most recent collection, A Change of Maps (Lost Horse Press, 2006), finalist for the Idaho Prize and the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, was nominated for the LA Times Book Award and won the 2007 Independent Book Publishers Bronze Award for Poetry. Her previous book, Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire (Eastern Washington UP / Lynx House Books), which won the Blue Lynx Prize and an American Book Award, appeared in a second edition in 2005.

Susan Zwinger, Nonfiction

Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 1975
MFA, Iowa Writers Workshop, 1971
BA, Cornell College, 1969

Susan Zwinger has written five books of natural history including The Hanford Reach (U. of Arizona Press, 2004), The Last Wild Edge (Johnson Books, 1999), Stalking the Ice Dragon (U. of Arizona Press, 1991), Still Wild, Always Wild (Sierra Books, 1994) and co-authored Women In Wilderness (Harcourt Brace, 1997). Her first book received the Governor’s Author’s Award in 1992. She has also published poems in such journals as Poetry, The North American Review and New Letters, and served as art journalist for The Santa Fe Reporter, American Ceramic, Art Space, and other journals.

Zwinger worked as a fine artist, museum curator, and art critic in Santa Fe, NM. She teaches natural history, art, and writing across the West and keeps elaborate illustrated field journals.

Additional visiting faculty will participate in Residencies. See the MFA Faculty page for details.

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