Faculty

Introduction to the Stonecoast Faculty

The Stonecoast community thrives on the interaction between students and faculty during residencies, in individual mentorships, and at gatherings formal and informal around the country and beyond.

Stonecoast faculty are valued and renowned not only for their talent and success as writers but also because they are approachable and encouraging teachers who create a nurturing, adventurous, and inspiring atmosphere for literary creativity. Stonecoast faculty serve on panels with students, socialize with them, and mentor them outside of the workshop, maintaining high literary standards and challenging students with a model of the joyful discipline of the writing life.

Stonecoast faculty have earned so many major literary awards that only a small sample can be listed here. They include the Pulitzer Prize, a Lannan Foundation Grant, the Latino Heritage Award in Literature, the American Book Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Guggenheim Fellowships, the Astraea Award from the Lesbian Action Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and the Whiting Writer's Award. Faculty have also won the Hugo Award from the World Science Fiction Society, made national Best-Seller lists and been selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Our faculty's books have found both critical acclaim and a wide general readership.

If the Stone House is the soul of the Stonecoast program, our faculty and affiliated faculty are its mind and its heart. Please click on the highlighted names for more detailed information and teaching philosophies.

For recent commentary from our faculty on a variety of writing-related topics, please visit the Stonecoast Faculty Blog, which is updated on a weekly basis.   

Tony Barnstone (Poetry, Translation)   is The Albert Upton Professor of English at Whittier College and the author of 12 books.  He has a Masters in English and Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. His books of poetry include Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki, winner of the John Ciardi Prize in Poetry (BKMK Press. 2009),and The Golem of Los Angeles, which won the the Poets Prize and the Benjamin Saltman Award in Poetry (Red Hen Press, 2008),  He is also a distinguished translator of Chinese poetry and literary prose and an editor of literary textbooks.  Among his awards are the Grand Prize of the Strokestown International Poetry Festival and a Pushcart Prize in Poetry, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, Barnstone has lived in Greece, Spain, Kenya and China and is deeply interested in international poetry and poetics.  In addition, Barnstone has in recent years been deeply involved in multimedia work. He is also involved in a poetry/art collaborations with the artists Alexandra Eldridge and with artist Dorothy Tunnell he is writing a poetry graphic novel. Tony Barnstone

Rick Bass (Creative Nonfiction, Fiction) is the author of over twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including Winter, The Deer Pasture, Wild to the Heart, and The Book of Yaak. His first short story collection, The Watch, set in Texas, won the PEN/Nelson Algren Award, and his 2002 collection, The Hermit’s Story, was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.   He was a finalist for the Story Prize in 2007 for his short story collection The Lives of Rocks and for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in autobiography for Why I Came West (2008).  He lives in the Yaak Valley in Montana, where he serves on the board of the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies. Rick Bass

Jeanne Marie Beaumont (Poetry) won the National Poetry Series for her first book, Placebo Effects, selected by William Matthews and published by W.W. Norton in 1997. Her other collections of poems are Curious Conduct and Burning of the Three Fires, both from BOA Editions. With Claudia Carlson, she co-edited the anthology The Poets’ Grimm: Twentieth Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales (Story Line Press, 2003). She has been awarded the Dana Award for Poetry and the Greensboro Review Prize, and from 1992 to 2000, she coedited  the literary magazine American Letters & Commentary. Jeannie earned an MFA from Columbia University and has taught at Rutgers University and at The Frost Place, where she served as director of the Frost Place Seminar from 2007-2010. She also teaches at The Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York City.  Jeanne Marie Beaumont

Sarah Braunstein is the author of The Sweet Relief of Missing Children (W.W. Norton). The novel was a finalist for the 2011 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, and won the 2012 Maine Book Award for Fiction. In 2010 she was named one of “5 Under 35” fiction writers by the National Book Foundation, and she received a 2007 Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Ploughshares, Post Road, The Sun, Nylon Magazine, Maine Magazine, and on NPR’s All Things Considered. She co-wrote a play, String Theory: Three Greek Myths Woven Together, which was produced in New York City in 2009 and at Vassar College in 2010. Sarah teaches at Harvard University Extension School and is currently a visiting professor of creative writing at Colby College. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work.

Jaed Muncharoen Coffin (Creative Nonfiction, Fiction) is the author of the memoir A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants (Da Capo Press/ Perseus 08) which chronicles the time he spent as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village in Thailand. Reviewed in The Los Angeles Times and in a cover story in the Boston Globe, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants is now taught in the multicultural curriculum at several colleges and universities including Brown, St. Michael's, Middlebury, and University of Maine, Farmington. Jaed was recently honored as a resident fellow at The Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska, where he researched his forthcoming novel, Roughhouse Friday (based on his career as the middleweight champion of an Alaskan barroom boxing circuit). A recipient of a Maine Literary Award, a Ron Brown Fellowship, and a Meyer Grant, Jaed has recently accepted fellowships at The Breadloaf School of English and Franklin & Marshall’s 2009 Emerging Writers Festival. A native of Brunswick, Jaed holds a BA in Philosophy from Middlebury College and an MFA in Fiction from Stonecoast. He now lives in Portland, Maine. Jaed Muncharoen Coffin

Ted Deppe (Poetry, Coordinator of Stonecoast in Irelaned) was born in Duluth, Minnesota, and presently lives in County Galway, Ireland. He is the author of four books of poetry: Children of the Air (Alice James Books, 1990), The Wanderer King (Alice James, 1996), Cape Clear: New and Selected Poems (Salmon Books, Ireland, 2002), and Orpheus on the Red Line (Tupelo Press, 2009). His poetry has been published widely on both sides of the Atlantic, and his work has been recognized by a Pushcart Prize, two NEA grants, and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Commission and the Connecticut Council on the Arts. He has been writer in residence at the James Merrill House in Stonington, CT, the Poets’ House in Donegal, Ireland, and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Ted is the coordinator of the Stonecoast in Ireland program. Theodore Deppe

Carolina De Robertis (Fiction, Translation) is the author of the internationally bestselling novel The Invisible Mountain (Knopf, 2009), which won the Rhegium Julii Debut Prize, has been translated into fourteen languages, and was named a Best Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Booklist. It was also a finalist for a California Book Award, an International Latino Book Award, and the VCU Cabell Award. Her writings and literary translations have appeared in Granta, Zoetrope: Allstory, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among others. Her translation of Bonsai, by Alejandro Zambra, was named one of the Ten Best Translated Books of 2008 by the journal Three Percent. She has worked extensively in women’s organizations, on issues from rape to immigration. De Robertis was named the #1 New Latino Author to Watch in 2010 by Latino Stories.com. Currently, she’s at work on her third novel; her second novel, Perla, is forthcoming from Knopf in March of 2012. Carolina De Robertis

Boman Desai (Fiction) is the author of four novels: The Memory of Elephants (University of Chicago Press, 2000); Asylum, USA (HarperCollins/India, 2000); A Woman Madly in Love (Roli Books, 2004); and Servant, Master, Mistress (Roli Books, 2005). He has been published widely in the US, UK, and India in such periodicals as Another Chicago Magazine, Stand Magazine, Gay Chicago Magazine, Sonora Review, The Atlantic Literary Review, Fezana
Journal, The Times of India, and The Chicago Tribune. He has also published a nonfiction novel in two volumes, Trio and Trio 2 (AuthorHouse, 2004/2006), grounded in the lives of the Schumanns and Brahms. He has taught at Truman College and Roosevelt University, won awards for short fiction (Illinois Arts Council, Stand Magazine), and had a poem and novels shortlisted for the War Poetry, Dana, and Noemi awards. Boman Desai

David Anthony Durham (Fiction, Popular Fiction)is the author of six novels: The Sacred Band, The Other Lands, Acacia (John W Campbell Award Winner, Finalist for the Prix Imaginales), Pride of Carthage (Finalist for 2006 Legacy Award), Walk Through Darkness (NY Times Notable Book) and Gabriel’s Story (NY Times Notable Book, 2002 Legacy Award Winner). His novels have been published in the UK and in French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. Three of his novels have been optioned for development as feature films. His recent short fiction appears in Fort Freak, It’s All Love,  and Intimacy: Erotic Stories of Love, Lust, and Marriage by Black Men. He has reviewed for The Washington Post, The Raleigh News & Observer, and has served as a judge for the Pen/Faulkner Awards. David received his M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Maryland. David Anthony Durham

Annie Finch (Poetry, Director of Stonecoast) has published numerous books of poetry, including Calendars, The Encyclopedia of Scotland, Among the Goddesses, The Complete Poems of Louise Labe, Eve (recently reissued in Carnegie Mellon’s Classic Contemporaries Poetry Series), and Spells: New and Selected Poems, forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press. Her poetic collaborations with music, visual art, opera, and theater have been produced at Poets House, Carnegie Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Annie’s works of poetics include The Ghost of Meter, The Body of Poetry,  A Formal Feeling Comes, An Exaltation of Forms, and, most recently, Villanelles (Everyman’s Library) and the poetry-writing textbooks A Poet’s Craft and A Poet’s Ear.  She is the recipient of the 2009 Robert Fitzgerald Award and fellowships from Black Earth Institute and the Stanford Humanities Center.  Annie Finch

Aaron Hamburger (Fiction, Pop Fiction, Creative Nonfiction) was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his short story collection The View from Stalin's Head (Random House, 2004), also nominated for a Violet Quill Award. His next book, a novel titled Faith for Beginners (Random House, 2005), was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Poets and Writers, Tin House, Details, Boulevard,The Forward, and The Village Voice. He has received fellowships from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy, as well as residencies from The Corporation of Yaddo and the Djerassi Artists Program. Currently he teaches writing at Columbia University, NYU, and Stonecoast.Aaron Hamburger

Elizabeth Hand (Popular Fiction, Fiction) Elizabeth Hand's genre-spanning work includes psychological suspense, fantasy and science fiction for both adults and younger readers,  as well as historical and mainstream fiction.  Her novels and short stories have garnered numerous awards, including the Shirley Jackson Award, three World Fantasy Awards, two Nebula Awards, and the James M. Tiptree Award, and have been selected as Notable Books by both the New York Times and the Washington Post.  She is also a longtime critic and essayist for the Washington Post, Salon, the VIllage Voice, and DownEast Magazine, among others.  She has been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship and in 2012 will be Master Artist in Residence at Florida's  Atlantic Center for the Arts.  Her thriller Available Dark, sequel to the award-winning Generation Loss, will be out early next year, as will Radiant Days, a YA novel about the poet Arthur Rimbaud.  She lives on the Maine coast.  Elizabeth Hand

Nancy Holder (Popular Fiction)  is the New York Times bestselling co-author of the young adult dark fantasy series, Wicked, which has been picked up by DreamWorks. She writes young adult horror for Razorbill, and paranormal romance, adult horror, science fiction and fantasy, women's action, short mystery fiction, literary fiction and comic books. She has written novels, short stories, novellas, and episode guidebooks for "universes" that include Hellboy, Smallville, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Saving Grace, Kolchak: the Night Stalker, Zorro, The Spider, The Domino Lady, Nancy Drew, and Sherlock Holmes. She has edited two anthologies, one of which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. She has received four Bram Stoker Awards, and her work has appeared on bestseller lists that include USA Today, LOCUS, Borders, Mysterious Galaxy, Dark Delicacies, and others. In addition, she writes essays and articles for popular culture publishers such as BenBella Books (Finding Serenity and others) and I.B. Taurus (Cult TV.)  She is also a columnist for the Science Fiction Writers of America Bulletin. Nancy Holder

Barbara Hurd (Creative Nonfiction) is the author of Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shifts and What Remains (2008), Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark, a Library Journal Best Natural History Book of the Year (2003), The Singer's Temple (2003), Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001 (2001), and Objects in this Mirror (1994). Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Best American Essays 1999, Best American Essays 2001, The Yale Review, The Georgia Review, Orion, Audubon, and others.  The recipient of an NEA Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction, winner of the Sierra Club’s National Nature Writing Award, three Pushcart Prizes, and four Maryland State Arts Council Awards, she teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Barbara Hurd

Cait Johnson (Creative Nonfiction) is the author of six books of popular non-fiction, including Earth, Water, Fire, and Air: Essential Ways of Connecting to Spirit; Celebrating the Great Mother: A Handbook of Earth-Honoring Activities for Parents and Children; Witch in the Kitchen: Magical Cooking for All Seasons, chosen as a OneSpirit book club selection; and Tarot Games.  A performer, ghost-writer, freelance editor, and developmental editor as well as a writer, she was formerly the Managing Editor of six online Healthy Living newsletters through environmental supersite Care2.com. Cait has taught theatre, creative writing, dreamwork, nature-based spirituality, and creative expression at many colleges, schools, and institutions including The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Ohio State University, the Discovery Center, and theOmega Institute.  Cait Johnson

James Patrick Kelly (Popular Fiction) has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, audioplays, and planetarium shows.  His books include Burn (2005), Strange But Not A Stranger (2002), Think Like A Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997), Wildlife (1994), Heroines (1990), Look Into The Sun (1989), Freedom Beach (in collaboration with John Kessel, 1986) and Planet of Whispers (1984). Although he is primarily known for his science fiction, his work also includes mainstream, fantasy, and horror. His audioplays have been produced by Scifi.com's Seeing Ear Theater and he writes a regular Internet column for Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.  His planetarium show, "Destiny or Discovery," premiered at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in 1992.  His books have been reprinted in France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Finland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Japan, Brazil, Thailand, Croatia, Israel, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.  His short stories have appeared in numerous "Best of the Year" collections over the past twenty-six years, and he has won the World Science Fiction Society's Hugo award twice and has been a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula. James Patrick Kelly

Michael Kimball (Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. His novel Undone received the Fresh Talent Award in the U.K. and remained on the London Times' top ten bestseller list for two months in 1996. Stage plays include Ghosts of Ocean House, nominated for the 2007 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, and the award-winning short play Say No More, which has seen multiple performances by more than 25 companies across the country. Michael has sold original screenplays and adaptations to movie companies and written episodes for the TV series Monsters. Michael Kimball

Debra Marquart (Creative Nonfiction, Poetry) is a professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University. In addition, her books include two poetry collections, From Sweetness (Pearl Editions, 2002) and Everything’s a Verb (New Rivers Press, 1995), and a short story collection, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories (New Rivers Press, 2001) which draws on her experiences as a road musician. Marquart is a member of The Bone People, a jazz-poetry, rhythm & blues project, with whom she has released two CDs: Orange Parade and A Regular Dervish. Marquart’s memoir, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere (Counterpoint Books, 2006) was awarded the 2007 PEN USA Creative Nonfiction Award. Deb's work has also received a Pushcart Prize, the Shelby Foote Nonfiction Prize from the Faulkner Society, the Headwaters Prize, the Minnesota Voices Award from New Rivers Press, the Elle Lettres Award from Elle Magazine, the Mid-American Review Nonfiction Award, the John Guyon Nonfiction Award from Crab Orchard Review, and a National Endowment for the Arts Prose Fellowship. Deb is at work on two books: a novel, set in Greece, titled Among the Ruins; and a roots/travel memoir about her grandparents’ flight from Russia, titled Somewhere Else This Time Tomorrow  Debra Marquart

Charles Martin's (Poetry, Translation) most recent book of poems, Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems, was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Award of the Academy of American Poets in 2003. His verse translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid received the Harold Morton Landon Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2004. In 2005, he received an Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His other books of poems include Steal The Bacon and What The Darkness Proposes, and a translation, The Poems of Catullus, all published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Other works include Catullus, a critical introduction to the Latin poet, published in Yale University Press’s Hermes Series. He is the recipient of a Bess Hokin Award from Poetry, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He served as Poet in Residence at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York from 2005 to 2009. Charles Martin

David Mura (Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry) is a creative nonfiction writer, poet, fiction writer, critic, playwright and performance artist.  Mura has written two memoirs: Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei (Grove-Atlantic), which won a 1991 Josephine Miles Book Award from the Oakland PEN and was listed in the New York Times Notable Books of Year, and Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity (Anchor).   His three books of poetry are Angels for the Burning (Boa), The Colors of Desire (Anchor, Carl Sandburg Literary Award), and, After We Lost Our Way (Carnegie Mellon), which won the 1989 National Poetry Series Contest.  His book of critical essays is Song for Uncle Tom, Tonto & Mr. Moto: Poetry & Identity (U. of Michigan Press).  His novel, Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire, a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the John Gardner Fiction Prize and Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award, was published in Sept. 2008 from Coffee House Press.  Mura's essays on race and multiculturalism have appeared in Mother Jones and The New York Times.  His plays include Secret Colors (with novelist Alexs Pate), The Winged Seed, adapted from Li-Young Lee's memoir, and After Hours (with actor Kelvin Han Yee and pianist Jon Jang). David Mura

Alexs Pate (Fiction, Poetry) is the author of five novels including the New York Times Bestseller Amistad, commissioned by Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks/SKG and based on the screenplay by David Franzoni. Other novels include Losing Absalom, Finding Makeba, The Multicultiboho Sideshow and West of Rehoboth, which was selected as “Honor Fiction Book” for 2002 by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Alexs’s first book of nonfiction, In The Heart of the Beat: The Poetry of Rap was published by Scarecrow Press January 2010. His memoir, The Past is Perfect: Memoir of a Father/Son Reunion will be published next year by Coffee House Press. An excerpt of the memoir appears in the Fall 2007 edition of Black Renaissance Noire. Alexs’s poetry collection, Innocent, was published in 1998. Alexs is an Assistant Professor in African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches courses in writing and black literature, including a course on “The Poetry of Rap.” He is currently at work on two novels, The Slide and a story about a black pirate captain, Adventures of the Black Arrow: Search for Libertalia. Alexs Pate

Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Fiction) is the author of Wench: A Novel, published by Amistad/HarperCollins in 2010. USA Today called the book “deeply moving” and “beautifully written.” People called it “a devastatingly beautiful account of a cruel past.” O, The Oprah Magazine chose it as a Top Ten Pick of the Month, and NPR named it a top 5 book club pick of 2010. Dolen's fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, StoryQuarterly, StorySouth, and elsewhere. In 2011, she was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction. She was also awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. A graduate of Harvard and a former University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, Dolen lives in Washington, DC with her family.

Elizabeth Searle (Fiction, Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) is author of three books of fiction, a new novel (2011) and several works for theater. Her books are: Celebrities in Disgrace, a novella which was produced as a short film from Bravo Sierra in 2010; A Four-Sided Bed, a novel nominated for an American Library Association book award and re-released in new paperback/eBook versions in 2011; and a story collection, My Body to You, winner of the Iowa Short  Fiction Prize (also forthcoming in a new paperback/eBook version). Her new novel Girl Held in Home is out in 2011 from New Rivers Press. Her short film, with script co-written by Elizabeth, has screened in festivals across the country.  Tonya & Nancy: The Opera, Elizabeth's chamber opera, premiered in the American Repertory Theater's Zero Arrow to national coverage including ESPN Hollywood, MSNBC and NPR; the opera was chosen as one of the top three operas of the year by Opera Vista and was most recently performed in 2010 in Minneapolis/St. Paul, with previews 'on ice.' Elizabeth Searle

Timothy Seibles (Poetry) is the author of five books of poetry: Body Moves, Hurdy-Gurdy, Kerosene, Ten Miles an Hour, and Hammerlock.  His work has been featured in Red Brick Review, New Letters, Dark Eros, Ploughshares, New England Review, The Artful Dodge and the anthology In Search of Color Everywhere, and he is the recipient of a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Born in Philadelphia, he earned a BA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and an M.F.A. from Vermont College. He taught high school English for ten years and worked as Writing Coordinator of the Fine Arts Work Center. He has taught at Cave Canem and is Associate Professor of English at Old Dominion University. Timothy Seibles

Suzanne Strempek Shea (Creative Nonfiction, Fiction) is the author of five novels: Selling the Lite of Heaven, Hoopi Shoopi Donna, Lily of the Valley, Around Again, and Becoming Finola, published by Washington Square Press.  She has also written three memoirs: Songs From a Lead-lined Room: Notes - High and Low - From My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation, and Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama and Other Page-Turning Adventures From a Year in a Bookstore, published by Beacon Press; and Sundays in America, for which she spent a year attending services at Protestant churches nationwide.  Winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of works’ contribution to the region, Suzanne began writing while working as reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Newspapers and the Providence Journal (Rhode Island). Her freelance work has appeared in Yankee magazine, The Bark Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Organic Style, and ESPN the Magazine. Suzanne Strempek Shea