MFA Candidates

Swati Avasthi received her B.A. from the University of Chicago in theater and literature. Her work has or will appear in several publications, including The Portland Review, Water~Stone Review, and Special Gifts (Wyatt-Mackenzie, 2007). She has received a Loft’s Mentor Series Award and her fiction has been nominated for The Best New American Voices. She lives with her riotously funny family – two large dogs, two small kids, and one (but worth two) husband(s)– in Minneapolis, MN. In March 2010, Knopf will release her debut novel, Split.

Amanda Beck and Calista Flockhart were born in Freeport, Illinois. The former received her BA in English at The University of Iowa.

Jonah Charney-Sirott has been employed in a multitude of distinct jobs throughout San Francisco including Library Assistant, Library Aide, and Assistant Librarian. He is extremely enthusiastic to be pursuing an MFA in Fiction.

Sara Culver is originally from Texas, received a degree in English from Harvard, and is very excited to be living near IH-35 again. She spent the last two years working for the Let's Go travel guide series.

Lucas de Lima If he had to rob a bank, Lucas de Lima would pick four poets as his partners in crime: Rimbaud, Tristan Tzara, Alice Notley, and Roberto Bolaño (to whom he owes this criminal idea). Lucas grew up in Brazil and Canada as well as the American south. After graduating from McGill University in Montreal, he continued mixing accents in Madrid, Barcelona, and unfashionable
neighborhoods in New York.

Meryl DePasquale has spent the bulk of her life in Connecticut, and none of it in Fairfield County. She was an editorial assistant for Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal, and Ravi Shankar with a foreward by Carolyn Forché, Norton 2008. Meryl is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University. Her work has appeared in Connecticut Review.

Benjamin Arda Doty is a Turkish-American writer pursuing an MFA in fiction. He went to the University of Georgia.

Ying Huang received her BA in English Literature from the University of Chicago. She is a little bashful about writing her bio since she knows that her parents check the creative writing website regularly. Hi Mom and Dad!

Patrick Hueller just graduated from Hamline University with a degree in English-Creative Writing. He's against instant replay in sports.

Molly Sutton Kiefer appreciates specificity. So much so that when she travels, she collects that region's natural and cultural guides to bring back for material. She enjoys photographing things beautiful and terrible, and she lines her nest with thick books. In this way, she hopes to winter over well. She also loves that gray blue one can find in the ocean or in the sky, on the other side of the setting sun. She lives in Red Wing with her husband and menagerie, which includes two cats and two dogs and the occasional refugee wildlife.

Priscilla Kinter is five and a half nonoseconds long and shows significant foraminal stenosis between L2 and L3. She once owned a pet squirrel, but dislikes writing bios, and has requested that others complete this task on her behalf. “Significant spatial displacement and occasional vocalizations give subject the appearance of life.” “Fruit forward flavors of strawberry and raspberry greet the palate, followed by a soft, lingering finish.” “Once owned the New York Mets.” “Drives men wild.” Please direct all corrections to Priscilla Kinter’s bio to: Priscilla Kinter’s Bio, vande629@umn.edu.

Brian Laidlaw is a poet and songwriter from Northern California. After graduating from Stanford in 2005 with a degree in English/Creative Writing, he worked seasonal jobs in the Sierra Nevada, spent stretches in a commune in Palo Alto, and toured across the United States as a solo folksinger. Through his written work and multimedia projects, Brian hopes to make formal poetry sound as hip as it actually is.

David LeGault graduated from Grand Valley State University, where he served as the nonfiction editor for the undergraduate literary magazine, fishladder. Growing up in Northern Michigan, David likes to write about two major themes: 1) the ways harsh environment and isolation affect society, and 2) professional wrestling. He's hoping to further explore both of these in the Twin Cities.

David Malley has held various editorial staff positions at the Discovery Channel, Rolling Stone, and Maxim. Before moving to Minneapolis, he spent three years in Berlin, Germany where he worked as a freelance writer; performed with Belgian theater director Michael Laub's Remote Control Productions; and played an American soldier on German television. His essay "Confessions of an Amateur Pickup Artist" was recently anthologized in the book Howl: The Best Contemporary Dog Wit.

Colleen McCarthy is readily diverted (see: dictionaries, rock albums, and crinkled, meandering maps). Writing draws her life's distractions into electric focus. In 2006, Colleen graduated from American University in Washington, DC with a BA in political science and prior to that, devoted a noteworthy stretch of days to growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. After living the past superb year in DC as the youth development fellow at the National League of Cities, she's hopeful about making a new home and new friends for her creative work in the Twin Cities.

Edward McPherson grew up in Texas, and before moving to Minneapolis, he and his wife, Heather, lived in Brooklyn, NY. He has written for magazines and newspapers, and is the author of Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat and The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats.

Josh Morsell received a BA in Art-Semiotics from Brown University. Josh is the founding editor of fireflyjournal.com and an editorial advisor to mediapicks.org. He has been published in the 2006 Northwoods Anthology and New Settler Interview, and has been awarded residencies at Blue Mountain Center and Mesa Refuge. Before joining Minnesota’s MFA program, he worked as a civil-rights paralegal in San Francisco. Josh is currently writing his first book, Bombing Judi Bari: Earth First!, Big Timber and FBI Counterintelligence.

Kevin O'Rourke received his BA from Kenyon College in 2002, majoring in Studio Art. Before moving to Minneapolis, he spent the previous 4.5 years in New York working in publishing. He is a fan of all things Philly.

Josh Ostergaard grew up near Kansas City and moved to Minneapolis from Chicago.

Wilson Peden grew up in a number of places before he returned to his family's hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. He earned his BA in English at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He enjoys playing the banjo and other string instruments, watching freight trains, wading in rivers, and looking for little towns that have disappeared from the map. These are also his favorite subjects to write about.

Shantha Susman grew up in New York City, got her BA in English at Cornell Unversity, and has done political work in North Carolina, Minnesota, and California. Her writing has been published in a handful of journals, and not published in several more. She enjoys Chinese food, dancing, and being googled. She currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Dislocate.

Holly Vanderhaar was born in Austin, MN—“Spamtown, U.S.A.”—but escaped to the Sonoran Desert of Arizona when she was still a wee thing. She earned a B.A. in Film Studies, then attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts briefly, until her student loans started to grow too big and her Upper West Side studio too small. She is sad to say she was lured back to the desert by the siren song of square footage, but will Always Love New York. She earned her Master of Liberal Studies degree in May 2007 and is now an MFA candidate in the genre of literary nonfiction. Her research interests include bioethics, reproductive freedom, and religion and spirituality. She writes memoir, family history, and personal essays. She is a single mother to identical twin girls and is on the lookout for the perfect reliable babysitter.

Jasmin Ziegler is a climber, does well in mild climates, but tolerates light frosts. Mostly, night-blooming. Ms. Ziegler studied ballet with the Joffrey and Milwaukee Ballet Company before beginning her academic career at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She lives in downtown Minneapolis with her city-hippy-dance-partner-for-life.