WHIDBEY WRITERS WORKSHOP
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
CATALOGUE, 2007-2009

FACULTY

Bonny Becker, Children/Young Adult

MA, San Francisco State University

Bonny Becker is the author of ten children's books including picture books and novels. Her books have been featured in the New York Times Book Review, read on National Public Radio and selected for the Junior Literary Guild and Children's Book of the Month Club. She's an instructor for the Institute of Children's Literature and a freelance editor and writing consultant with an expertise in story structure.

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, Children/Young Adult

MS, University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus

Carmen T. Bernier-Grand is the author of six books for children and young adults. Her books include a biography in poems and one in prose, an anthology of Puerto Rican folk-tales and a second book of four illustrated folk-tales, and a novel. Her CESAR: Yes, We Can! ¡Sí, Se Puede! won Pura Belpré Honors for her poems and David Diaz's illustrations. Her book FRIDA: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life! appeared in the summer of 2007. DIEGO: Bigger Than Life, illustrated by David Diaz, will be out in 2008.

Lawrence W. Cheek, Nonfiction

Lawrence W. Cheek (Larry) 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. He teaches in the University of Arizona Writers Program and the Whidbey Island Writers Association MFA Creative Writing program.

Christopher Howell, Poetry

MFA, University of Massachusetts, 1973; MA, Portland State University, 1971; BS, Oregon State University, 1968

Christopher Howell's eight collections of poetry include The Crime of Luck; Though Silence: The Ling Wei Poems; and Light's Ladder, latest in the University of Washington Press' Northwest Poets series. His poetry has won two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Washington State Governor's Award, and the Vachel Lindsay and Helen Bullis prizes, along with three Pushcart Prizes.

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, and Pushcart awards. Bruce won the 2006 World Fantasy Award for his collection The Keyhole Opera.

Wayne Ude, Program Director and Fiction

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,

David Wagoner, Poetry. August 13-14

David Wagoner is the author of seventeen books of poems, most recently Good Morning and Good Night (U. of Illinois Press, 2005) which has been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. He's also written ten 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 171 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

Ph.D, English and Creative Writing, Syracuse University, 1979; MA, English and Creative Writing, Syracuse, 1975; BA, Humanities, Seattle University, 1971

Carolyne Wright has published eight books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali, and a collection of essays. Her new collection is 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. 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. Wright's investigative memoir in progress of her experiences in Chile on a Fulbright Study Grant during the presidency of Salvador Allende, The Road to Isla Negra, received the PEN/Jerard Fund and the Crossing Boundaries Awards. She spent four years on fellowships in Kolkata, India, and Dhaka, Bangladesh, translating the work of Bengali women poets and writers. Wright is Translation Editor for Artful Dodge, and on the Board of Directors of the AWP for 2004-2008.

Susan Zwinger, Nonfiction

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

Susan Zwinger's books of non-fiction include 2004's The Hanford Reach; The Last Wild Edge; Stalking the Ice Dragon; and Still Wild, Always Wild. Her essays and non-fiction regularly appear in magazines and journals around the country. She co-authored Women In Wilderness with her mother, Ann Haymond Zwinger.

Additional faculty will be added prior to the first residency, and visiting faculty will participate in Residencies.

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

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