Barbarese - Rutgers Summer Writers' FacultyJ.T. Barbarese has published five books of poems, most recently Sweet Spot, and a translation of Euripides’ Children of Herakles. His poetry has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The New Yorker and The Times Literary Supplement, and his fiction in Boulevard, NAR, and, prior to becoming its editor in 2008, in StoryQuarterly. His essay “Politics 2013” has been selected as one of the winners of the 2013 Hazlitt Essay Prize.

CalhounAda Calhoun is a journalist whose book is St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street.  She has been a crime reporter for the New York Post, a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review, a theater critic for New York magazine, and a ghostwriter or co-author of seven books for major publishers, including four bestsellers. She has written essays for O, NewYorker.com, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and the New York Times. She lives in Brooklyn.

GrodsteinLauren Grodstein is the author of several novels, including Our Short History, The Explanation for Everything, and the New York Times bestselling A Friend of the Family. Her work has been translated into languages including Turkish, French, and Mandarin, and her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Post Road, Alimentum, and Columbia Magazine, among other publications.

HemleyRobin Hemley is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction and has received many awards for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes in both fiction and nonfiction, The Nelson Algren Award for fiction, and The Independent Press Book Award for nonfiction.  His work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Observer, The Wall Street Journal, Orion, The Believer, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and many other literary magazines in the U.S. and elsewhere.  He frequently gives writing workshops around the world and currently is Writer–in-Residence and Director of the Writing Program at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. 

LevinPhillis Levin’s fifth collection, Mr. Memory & Other Poems, was just published. She is the author of four other volumes, most recently May Day, and editor of The Penguin Book of the Sonnet.  Her honors include the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, a Fulbright Scholar Award to Slovenia, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches at Hofstra University and lives in New York.

Jenoff - Rutgers Summer Writers' Faculty

Pam Jenoff is the internationally bestselling novels include The Kommandant’s Girl, which was a finalist for both the Quill awards and the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal, and The Winter Guest. Her most recent novel is Last Summer at Chelsea Beach. Pam draws inspiration for her books from her service as a diplomat for the State Department in Europe working on Holocaust issues, and her experiences as the politically-appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and three children, and is on the faculty of Rutgers Law School.

marcusJames Marcus is the author of Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot-Com Juggernaut and seven translations from the Italian, including Giacomo Casanova’s The Duel.  His next book, Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Emerson in Fifteen Installments, will be published in 2017. His work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Antioch Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and Best American Essays 2009.  He lives in New York. As of this June, he will be the new Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Magazine.

Alexa StarkAlexa Stark was raised in New York City and earned her B.A. in Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, where she was an Editor of the Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism. Alexa joined Trident in 2012 to work with Ellen Levine, and she has gained invaluable experience working with Ellen’s illustrious and bestselling authors. She also handles first serial rights for Ellen’s authors, and has sold stories, essays, and book excerpts to The New Yorker, Harper’s, Paris Review, The Atlantic, Tin House, N+1, and The New York Times, among others. Alexa continues to work closely with Ellen Levine while building her client list. Her interests are wide-ranging, but she is particularly drawn to literary fiction, upmarket commercial fiction, young adult, memoir, narrative nonfiction, popular science, cultural criticism and women’s issues. Towards the End by Diana Athill, which also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other notable authors include Tom Bouman, Brooke Gladstone, Lydia Millet, John Seabrook, and Sarah Thornton.

mckinney-whetstoneDiane McKinney-Whetstone is the author of six novels, including the bestselling Tumbling, and the recently-released Lazaretto.  She was twice awarded the American Library Association Black Caucus Award for fiction, and is a past lecturer in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.  She lives with her husband in Philadelphia, and is at work on her seventh novel.

okparantaChinelo Okparanta is the author of the novel Under the Udala Trees and the story collection Happiness, Like Water. Born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, she received her BS from Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  Okparanta was one of Granta’s six New Voices for 2012. She was short-listed for the 2013 Caine Prize in African Writing and is a 2014 O. Henry Award winner as well as a 2014 Lambda Literary Award winner for Lesbian Fiction. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, among others.  

Rosal - Rutgers Summer Writers' FacultyPatrick Rosal is the author of four books of poetry, most recently, Brooklyn Antediluvian. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, Tin House, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Grantland, and many other journals and magazines. His poems have also been collected in Best American Poetry, the Norton anthology Language for a New Century, and Breakbeat Poets. He is a full-time faculty member of the MFA program at Rutgers University-Camden.

Sewell - Rutgers Summer Writers' FacultyLisa Sewell is the author of several books of poetry, including Impossible Object, which won the 2014 Tenth Gate Prize from The Word Works. She is also co-editor, with Claudia Rankine, of American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics (Wesleyan 2007) and Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics Across North America (Wesleyan 2012). New work is appearing in Drunken Boat, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Salamander and Louisville Review. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Villanova University.

sleighTom Sleigh’s many books include Station Zed, Army Cats, winner of the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (AAAL), and Space Walk, winner of the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Award. Far Side of the Earth won an Academy Award from the AAAL, The Dreamhouse was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award, and The Chain was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize. His work appears in The New Yorker, Poetry, as well as The Best of the Best American Poetry, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Pushcart Anthology. He has received the PSA’s Shelley Prize, and awards from the American Academy in Berlin, Civitella Ranieri, the Lila Wallace Fund, the Guggenheim, two NEAs, among others. He teaches at Hunter College and works as a journalist in the Middle East and Africa.

tordayDaniel Torday is the author of the novel The Last Flight of Poxl West. The book was reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, and in the daily Times, Michiko Kakutani said the novel “announces Torday’s emergence as a writer deserving of attention.” Torday’s novella, The Sensualist, won the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction. He is the Director of Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College.


Zeidner - Rutgers Summer Writers' FacultyLisa Zeidner is the author of five novels: Customs, Alexandra Freed, Limited Partnerships, Layover, and her most recently published novel, Love Bomb (Sarah Crichton Books/ Farrar Straus and Giroux). She has also published two books of poetry, Talking Cure and Pocket Sundial, which won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry. Layover is in production as a film; she has written screenplays for Universal Studios and Focus Features. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in GQ, Mademoiselle, The New York Times, Boulevard, Poetry, The Washington Post and other publications. Her creative nonfiction has been anthologized in Salon.com’s Life As We Know It and Tin House’s Cooking and Stealing. Zeidner is the recipient of the 1993 Warren I. Sussman Award for Excellence in Teaching, The Provost’s Teaching Award, and the Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching.